Beermat Club:
Ask Mike
Targeting the top table with a magic e-mail
Q. I run a business selling a risk management product to large companies. In the past we have had a lot of interest in our product among potential customers but have problems getting to the decision makers on corporate boardrooms. What is the best way to get hold of these people other than through bodies such as the Confederation of British Industry or Institute of Directors?
A. These people are indeed very difficult to contact directly without a personal introduction, which may be impractical.
The best way to approach them is via e-mail, rather than the telephone, which can be considered intrusive.
In our book Sales on a Beermat we describe a "magic" e-mail that is very effective for this kind of problem.
This e-mail assumes you have at least one reference customer, a customer mentor, who is well known in your industry and who is happy to act as a referee. If you don't have such a person, find one quickly.
You need the e-mail addresses of your target decision-makers. You can research these or hire a telemarketing company.
The e-mail you send should be individually tailored for each prospect, so is very unlikely to be branded as spam. It should also be no more than four lines long. The longer the e-mail, the more likely it is to be deleted.
The first line should contain specific information about the recipient's company, such as referring to the problem you can solve. This could be something gleaned from your customer mentor or be some information you have found on the company's website or in their press releases.
The next two lines of the e-mail are your elevator pitch, your "premise" and your "proof".
Your premise is one sentence on what you do. In your case it could be: "We have an industry-leading risk management product for large companies".
Your proof refers to your customer mentor: "We have just completed a large project for John Smith at Amalgamated Widgets, with the following benefits . . . "
The fourth and final line of your magic e-mail is the point of the communication. You want an appointment, so ask for one. "We are going to be in Manchester on Tuesday morning - can you spare us 15 minutes?"
If you have a good target list and a credible elevator pitch, a premise backed by proof in the form of a customer referral, then the return rate of appointments secured by these inexpensive e-mails can be as high as 16 per cent."
Mike Southon, co-author of The Beermat Entrepreneur and Sales on a Beermat
First published in the Financial Times: 15th July 2006