Virtual Selling

28Four Cardinal Rules of Email Prospecting

Email prospecting that is leveraged poorly irritates prospects and damages your company brand. Done wrong, it wastes your time and makes you look like a chump. Leveraged intelligently, especially in sequences with other prospecting channels, email gets results.

Over the next two chapters we are going to take a deep dive into email prospecting techniques and messages. First, though, it is important that we distinguish between bulk email marketing and one-to-one email prospecting.

Bulk Email Marketing

Bulk email is one-to-many communication sent en masse, to many people at a time. It is a generic shotgun approach typically focused on direct offers and lead generation via the vehicle of newsletters, announcements, and educational messages.

Bulk email is primarily the domain of marketing professionals. The majority of salespeople should NOT be sending bulk email. Because of the compliance rules with bulk email and the damage caused by poorly thought-out mass email, I don't even allow my own sales professionals to send bulk email.

The art and science of bulk marketing email is an entire book unto itself. Because of this, I'm not going to do a deep dive. However, for some sales roles it is a foundational marketing tool and you ignore it at your peril.

If you are an entrepreneur, business owner, or in an independent sales role like a real estate agent, insurance agent, or financial advisor, and your livelihood depends on generating inbound ...