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Downloadable pdf version
Executive Summary
It’s fascinating how quickly an entrepreneur can forget what it’s like to be on the “inside.” Eager to drum up new business, they forget that IT folks in general are a highly-skeptical, overworked group who’ve learned how to tune out the steady hum of consultants and vendors vying for their business.
Inside is an actual, unedited marketing e-mail created by the president of a newly-formed IT services company. The e-mail is highly representative: i.e. it's a plain vanilla marketing message that falls flat in its attempt to land an introductory meeting with a busy IT executive.
This paper dissects each component of the letter, pointing out common blunders and offering suggestions for improvement. In all there's seven practical tips that when used, will help you more effectively connect with your reader and get your message heard.
An E-Mail Solicitation – The Beginning
When Joe Entrepreneur founded his IT services business, he brought with him strong technical skills, high ambition, but little-to-no marketing expertise.
To uncover opportunities for new business, he networked with friends and business associates, building an entirely new list of contacts: friends’ friends who may have a need for his services.
What seemed like an easy next step proved harder than he ever imagined: writing that first letter of introduction. Joe and his tech-focused partner labored over the content below. As you read it, ask yourself: ‘How much time would I invest in this e-mail if it landed in my mailbox?’
From: Joe Entrepreneur [mailto:joe.entrepreneur@acmetechnology.com]
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 10:22 AM
To: sally.prospect@companyname.com
Subject: Introduction
Sally,
I am sending this message to introduce myself, Joe Entrepreneur and our company ACME Technology Solutions.
We deliver high value IT infrastructure solutions to our clients that increase flexibility, lower costs and reduce risk.
Integration and Virtualization within IT Infrastructure continues to drive down the cost of delivering IT Infrastructure services to help supports business strategies and goals that are critical to business success. If these areas are part of your focus and goals, ACME Technology Solutions is positioned to help. Our integration experience at BigName Company 1 and SmallTown Corporation; and most recently our integration and virtualization experience at BigName Company 2 have enabled us to prove our capability to drive significant savings while successfully integrating IT Infrastructures of disparate operating entities.
Reasons our clients tell us they like to do business with ACME Technology Solutions:
- We are an independent, non-biased (we do not sell hardware or software) IT infrastructure consulting and services company.
- We put our client’s needs first and are passionate about helping them achieve success.
- We deliver technologies, tools, and methods that meet our client’s needs and cut IT infrastructure costs within their company.
If you are interested in working with a company that understands the IT infrastructure challenges of integrating and consolidating IT Infrastructure and can drive down the costs in the infrastructure space, we would love to set up an initial introductory meeting (60 minutes). I will contact you in a next week to set up a time for further discussion, or feel free to contact me directly at joe.entrepreneur@acmetechnology.com or (555)555-5555 with a couple of dates that may work for you.
Joe Entrepreneur
President
joe.entrepreneur@acmetechnology.com
ACME Technology Solutions
(555)555-5555
What’s the overall problem with this e-mail?
It does nothing to make Joe’s company stand out from the crowd.
To compete with the likes of IBM and Accenture, Joe needs to connect with his reader, establish credibility, and measure response to his solicitation. Here’s seven simple tips to accomplish these three goals.
Mining for New Business Tip #1: Be Specific About your Relationship to the Recipient
After first recommending that Joe become well-versed with the FTC’s CAN-SPAM Act (a whopping 109 pages long!), the first recommendation to Joe is “Don’t look like spam!”
An obvious statement, but how do you do it? By being very specific about the connection you have with your reader.
In this particular case, Joe and Sally share a mutual acquaintance, and it was this person who recommended that they meet.
By leaving out this very important detail, Joe’s message looks and smells like spam, giving Sally every reason to send his e-mail to the trash.
Mining for New Business Tip #2: Don’t Make your E-Mail Sound like a Corporate Marketing Message
Yes, e-mail has evolved to become an extremely effective vehicle for marketing, but when you get down to it, e-mails are still a form of personalized communication: one sender, one receiver.
A “mining for new business” e-mail will be more effective if it sounds like it’s coming from a real person, rather than from a corporate marcom group inside a faceless corporation.
My advice? Don’t jump right into your sales pitch, and avoid the proverbial “we” language. Instead establish a rapport with the reader through a conversational tone and direct (“I” and “you”) communication style.
Mining for New Business Tip #3: Raise your Level of Credibility by Letting Them Know it’s about Them, not You
More importantly, all that “we, we, we” language makes Joe sound self-absorbed and boorish.
When Joe’s e-mail hits Sally’s inbox, she’ll be juggling a slew of requirements from competing business units, urgent IT problems, and a laundry list of ongoing maintenance activities. Sally has no time for Joe (nor does she care) because frankly, she’s got her own problems to worry about.
So how do you attract the attention of an overworked IT executive?
Approach your e-mail like you would any first date. Talk about the reader, their business, and their acute pains; not you.
Joe has one big advantage: he lived and breathed the corporate IT world for 20+ years. By relating to Sally’s pains, Joe will effectively demonstrate that he’s not just another schmuck trying to sell Sally a product he knows nothing about.
This alternate approach can reap two huge benefits: 1) it earns you credibility points with your reader, and 2) it starts a conversation which (hopefully) will continue during a subsequent face-to-face meeting.
Mining for New Business Tip #4: Move Past the Techie Language to Demonstrate Tangible Business Benefits
Gone are the days when people jump on the latest technology “just because.”
Technology is now just the means to the end. You’ll go far if you can move beyond the so (e.g. we offer virtualization technology services) to discuss the so what (i.e. the real, underlying benefits Sally can realize by leveraging this technology).
Then, back up your claims with tangible proof. The original letter claims that technology was used to “drive significant savings,” but there’s nothing tangible to back it up, making it sound like meaningless dribble.
Numbers, specific examples, and before-after comparisons will help drive your point home.
Mining for New Business Tip #5: Ease into your Offer, but Don’t Try to Go Straight for the Sale
After you’ve connected with the reader and established some level of credibility, go ahead and subtly pitch your services… but tread lightly.
Most IT products and services are complex sales, which unfortunately translates to a long sales cycle. At this point your only goal with an introductory e-mail is to pique their interest so they’ll want to “learn more.”
Mining for New Business Tip #6: Don’t Forget to Include a P.S.
Believe it or not, studies have shown that the P.S. portion of an e-mail is the most read and recalled.
I understand this can be an especially hard concept to grasp, and I’ve even had some techies react to this advice with cries of “cheesy.”
But this is a case where you need to abandon what you “think you know,” relying instead on the marketing experts who have proven out this theory time and again.
The advice is simple: Add a P.S. to your e-mail, reiterating the primary message you want the reader to retain.
Mining for New Business Tip #7: Don’t Forget to Build in a Way to Measure Response to your Solicitation
Once your e-mail hits the ether, how do you know when you’ve struck a nerve with the reader?
List hosting providers (e.g. SparkList, Constant Contact) offer valuable e-mail marketing statistics such as open rate and click thrus, but for the new business owner who’s generating a handful of e-mails at most, a landing page is a practical alternative.
Set up a landing page where the reader can go to learn more about something that was highlighted in your letter (e.g. Joe can give Sally a link where she can learn more about how virtualization helped the two companies mentioned in his e-mail).
Be sure to install a web analytics program (Google Analytics, WebTrends, etc.), or embed your own code in the landing page, so you can count the number of times the landing page was viewed.
Then, direct the reader to your landing page in the P.S. portion of your e-mail. Why there? Because the P.S. portion of any e-mail is the most frequently read and recalled.
Putting it All Together
Putting all these suggestions to work, here’s a mock-up of Joe’s revised introductory letter:
From: Joe Entrepreneur [mailto:joe.entrepreneur@acmetechnology.com]
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 10:22 AM
To: sally.prospect@companyname.com
Subject: Bob MutualAcquaintance suggested we meet
Hi Sally,
A mutual colleague of ours, <Bob MutualAcquintance>, suggested I get in touch with you. My name is Joe Entrepreneur, founder/president of ACME Technology Solutions in <City, State>. I know your time is limited, so I’ll be brief.
Like you, process efficiencies, capacity planning, and system integration were always top priorities when I headed up IT departments at SmallTown Corporation, BigName Company 1, and BigName Company 2.
In each case, integration and virtualization technologies helped me reduce network complexity and improve capacity management. At BigName Company 1 my team leveraged <xyz technology> to achieve <very real, quantifiable benefit #1>, and at SmallTown Corporation, <abc technology> helped my team <state 2nd quantifiable benefit>.
After seeing firsthand how well these technologies worked at two very different companies, I was convinced. Through ACME Technology Solutions, I now help others apply similar tools and techniques to solve their own, very unique IT problems.
I would like to set up a brief meeting to get better acquainted. Within the next week I will call you to arrange a time that’s convenient to meet. In the meantime, feel free to contact me directly at joe.entrepreneur@acmetechnology.com or
(555)555-5555.
Best regards,
Joe Entrepreneur
President
joe.entrepreneur@acmetechnology.com
ACME Technology Solutions
(555)555-5555
P.S.: If you’d like to learn more about BigName Company 1’s and SmallTown Corporation’s IT infrastructure, specifically how <abc and xyz technologies> worked in each case, you’ll find information online at: http://www.acmetechnology.com/landing-page.html.
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