In today’s market where business development is vital, it’s crucial to develop the right messaging to help attract new clients. With most potential clients being bombarded with generic salesy messages that feel like they have been copied and pasted from a template, you need to stand out from the crowd (and it’s not an easy task!). How? Well, start by creating a personalised messaging strategy that will help nurture lasting relationships.
And whilst there isn’t a one-size-fits-all, magical solution, we have some pointers that will help you get a higher response rate in no time.
Personalise your copy
This is one of the most basic tips we can give you, yet in the era of bulk-messaging and automated emails, it’s easy to send a generic copy to everyone in your database. Whilst it might be simple just to schedule one email and forget about it, that’s an easy path to getting ignored – or worse, reported as SPAM. With 40% of email users reporting they have over 50 unopened messages in their inbox at all times, it’s crucial that you don’t end up in that group – and the first step is to personalise your copy.
You need to know your audience. Who are you trying to reach? What are their pain points and challenges? The more that you know about your target audience the easier it will be to construct a message that is going to resonate with them. A great way to go about it is by creating separate personas, each having some unique characteristics, and directing your emails to the relevant ones for each of your messages.
Get to the point and inject some personality!
Nobody likes to read a mile-long paragraph of text. Especially in today’s world, where the shorter the content, the better, seeing a massive email from a stranger's address will put the prospect off. Your messaging needs to be concise, compelling, and easy to understand. It is important that you get to the point quickly and make sure the message is easy to skim. Use bullet points, bold text, and other formatting tricks to make your message more visually appealing and easier to read. Going with some of the most popular structures, such as the inverted pyramid, is a quick way of ensuring your prospect will at least skim through!
Make sure you are injecting some of your personality into your messaging, too. It’s okay to use a bit of humour or be a little bit quirky. By doing this you are more likely to resonate with potential clients and stand out from the crowd, showing you’re not just there to push your services!
Address your values
Values are what makes us human – so showcasing how yours fit into the ones of a prospect is the first step to connecting with them on a deeper level. You need to understand what makes your agency unique – what do you stand for, and how does it make you stand out from the competitors? Knowing what other agencies and recruiters are doing is key to realising how you can be different. Showcase your strengths and the ideals behind your work – so don’t just talk about why you’re an expert in your field, but also why you do what you do and how your values align with theirs.
Don’t be scared of pain points
Showing that you know and understand your prospect’s pain points – and better yet, have a solution for them – is key to painting yourself as the expert and building trust. When it comes to your BD messaging it is easy to fall into the trap of listing all the benefits of working with you. The thing is, your potential clients don’t really care about that stuff. They likely get emails every single day from different recruitment agencies singing praises about how they’re the leader in the field – so you need to look at it from a different angle. What they care about is how you can help them solve their problems and achieve their goals. Step one – learn what those could be, because chances are, they won’t tell you themselves!
Instead of focusing on what you do, focus on the benefits of working with you. How can you make their life easier, what kind of results have you achieved for other clients in their market, and how you have saved other businesses' time and money. Showing that you not only know their pain points but have already worked with similar problems in the past and helped, is your golden ticket!
By framing your message around their pain points and how you can potentially solve these, you have a far greater chance of capturing their attention.
Structure the right CTA
Your message should always end with a call to action of sorts – so it’s clear to the prospect what your expected outcome of the conversation is. It is rare that you will get a response to the first message, so make sure that you follow it up and build on the first email - or let them know that you are going to be in touch to discuss this in more detail.
Creating a CTA that actually inspires some sort of action – or at least willingness to chat further in the future – is a great starting point for your new relationship.
To learn more about creating a winning sales pitch, read our eBook below!
