Part 1: Solving the Prospecting Pains of Sales Development with Gifting

Can I get a raise of hands for the number of times you’ve done your research, cold called, sent a personalized email, and reached out through social sites to not receive any kind of acknowledgment from that unicorn prospect of yours?

Why I Started Gifting

According to the Brevet Group, it takes an average of 8 cold call attempts to reach your prospect. And Hubspot shared that only 24% of the emails you send are opened. These stats struck close to home for me. As a sales rep, our job is to get to set meetings with the right accounts and the right persona but how can we do that if we can never reach them?

I know first hand how it feels to get turned down after all of that effort, but I found a simple way to break through the noise and I wanted to share all my sales prospecting tips & tricks with my fellow sales reps that are tired of getting shut down and ignored so buckle up and get ready to go!

How I Used To Gifts

When I first started as an SDR I used to spend an hour a week making my own swag bags and writing handwritten notes to give to the prospects that would leave me in the dark. I would walk from office to office handing out the gifts to the front desk and then head back to my office and wait for a response. Within just a few hours I would receive an email to set up some time to meet with that prospect and I felt as if I struck gold! I finally found a way to get my potential clients to respond to me and it was through the simple gesture of giving and use of direct mail.

How I’ve Added Gifting Into My Process

This is where direct mail played a huge role for me. Now I’m not saying to stop cold calling or sending out personalized emails, but simply added gifting into my workflow.

Direct mail is a great way to get personal, it shows your prospect that you are doing your research, and putting in extra effort to get the opportunity to talk with them. Direct mail and gifting played a valuable role in getting our message in front of our buyers, especially without having access to direct dials from data vendors, and it still does!

Takeaways

Successful direct mail in out outbound process is most beneficial when combined with calling, emailing, and social touches. To get the results from your direct mail you must:

Do your research. Make sure you are reaching out to the right person at the right time. Be relevant and be personal.

I’ll leave you with this… If you knew that 79% of prospects respond to direct mail immediately wouldn’t you send them something? This is why I leverage tools, like Sendoso, in my sales process… Check out Pt. 2 here!

Want to learn how to segment your ABM audience and determine what to send top-, middle-, and bottom-tier prospects? Grab a copy of our strategic guide below!