Buyers have had enough. In today’s fast-paced business environment, they don’t have time to sift through bad subject lines, generic follow-ups, sales jargon, or typos. This means that for today’s sales reps and marketers, the struggle to engage buyers is very real.
The truth is, your buyer is more informed than ever. SiriusDecisions states that the modern buyer has already gone through 67% of the buyer’s journey by the time they have their first meaningful interaction with a seller. This means that they’re out there doing independent research and educating themselves before you even reach them.
Since the modern buyer is educated and independent, sales and marketing teams must ensure that their outreach conveys the exact message that their buyer needs to hear at the exact moment that they need to hear it. Now more than ever, landing the right sales pitch that compels buyers to engage with your company is key. But how do you master the perfect balance between controlling the messaging that your sales reps are sending out and giving them the freedom to customize and personalize their outreach?
The best thing that marketers can do is to put themselves in their sales reps’ shoes. To better empower myself as a marketer, I went through Highspot’s 6-week account development and sales training program to learn our team’s best practices for buyer engagement.
I thought I knew a thing or two about writing a pitch template for sale reps.
I was wrong.
I figured I’d help out my fellow marketers and share four tips for building sales pitches that your sales team will actually use:
- Personalization is key. Personalized content for the win! Your sellers know that buyers aren’t going to engage with generic follow-up. Templates should be customizable so that sales reps have the ability to appropriately tailor their messaging with the specific details they know about their buyer. Make sure that your templates have dynamic and easily customizable areas for sales reps to personalize.
- It’s not about you. Always make it about your buyer. In fact, just eliminate the word “I” from your vocabulary when writing a sales pitch template. When sales reps are engaging with buyers, they should be focusing on the buyer’s pain points and needs. Abide by #WIIFM — the buyer wants to know: What’s in it for me? Why is this important for me right now? Make sure that your template answers all of these questions for the buyer.
- Get to the point. Keep it short and sweet. One of the main reasons sales reps will refuse to use a marketing template is because we tend to make them too long. As much as we want to cram all of the details about an eBook or an event into one email, just strip it down to the basics. Keep in mind that many people are reading emails from their mobile devices; pitches must be digestible for those on-the-go.
- Mind your personas. Make sure that your sales reps have messaging for the right buyer personas. If there are several buyers involved in the deal, your sales reps need to be equipped with messaging for each unique persona so that they can better tailor their messages. Include different templates for personas, or at least have messaging that reps can use for each persona.
So what does engaging outreach look like? I might not be the most seasoned sales rep, but I don’t think that the below example is half bad:
Striking the balance of personalized outreach that marketing can get behind is no easy task. I learned first-hand that there’s no “one-size-fits-all” pitch since today’s buyers crave personalized engagements. You have to ensure that your engagements map to the way your buyer does business. Be sure to check out Highspot’s eBook on Winning Over the Modern Buyer for a comprehensive guide to engaging with your buyer.
