Email Outreach After COVID-19: What SDR Need To Know And Do?

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has affected almost every business sector across the globe. According to the recent report by Statista, there is a 0.4% drop in the global economy, which costs around 3.5 trillion US dollars.

However, the world is healing now and companies are getting back to their normal workflow. But still, one of the main concerns for the sales team is to restart their workflow and maintaining a healthy relationship with their prospects.

The sales workflow can’t be the same as earlier. Especially the email outreach after COVID-19 is going to be more challenging than ever. The outbound sales team will encounter new challenges and need to find better ways to close deals.

New challenges for SDRs in email outreach after COVID-19

The businesses are resuming after a long break. Although the sales team was always trying to get consistent revenue amid the pandemic, still the performance was not considerable. Its the time now to restart again with a new plan and lot of zeal. 

The SDRs are the key performers of the sales team, and they should be ready to face a lot of new challenges listed below.

1. Financial Budget

It’s quite obvious for businesses to have a lesser budget for the upcoming quarter or for years to comes. This is due to the huge loss caused by COVID-19 pandemic. 

Businesses will remain more conscious,  become more cost-effective. The focus will be given towards quick revenue generation which will affect the efforts of the sales team. They need to focus more on closures as the company needs revenue for future plans. The companies will also look for cost-effective solutions like using low-cost software and cutting on automation that can be easily done manually by the sales team.

2. Longer sales cycle

The buying decisions of the customers are not the same as earlier. As everyone is suffering economic loss, the customers are also concerned about their buying decision. They are more into deciding better solutions which are cost-effective and solving their current problem. 

The sales cycle will be comparatively longer than usual as the prospects need more time in making their purchase decision and in getting assured with the same. So, the sales team needs to add extra attention to their prospects and nurture them for getting closures.

3. Dealing with customer’s anxiety

After the pandemic, you need to help your prospect with extra attention. Your prospects are unsure about their buying decisions and might ask you many questions. You need to put yourselves in your prospect’s shoes and help them out.

During this time, you should focus on helping your prospect rather than pushing them towards buying your product.

How to tackle the difficulties of email outreach

It’s true that the SDRs will face a lot of difficulties with their email outreach and might face failures too. But there’s always a way to get out. As they say, Every cloud has a silver lining.

The SDRs can also alter their way differently and do a successful business out of it.

Now we will be sharing some of the sales development representative tips to make a successful email outreach campaigns after COVID-19.

1. Do deeper research on your prospect’s status

Conduct proper research for all your prospects before sending your emails. If you have some prospects for a long time, conduct in-depth research on them too. Things are changing, and there are chances your old prospects are no longer your ICP. The situations have changed so are the customer problems. Get your ways to find the current problem of your prospects and try to solve them with your best solutions.

Also, check for the background details of your prospects and the status of their industry. This will help you to reconsider them. Due to many layoffs and restructuring in various sectors, performing ideal researches for the right decision-maker will help you in staying away from any mistakes with your outreach. This will help you speed up your sales process and get closer to your goals quicker. 

2. Add empathy to your emails

Empathy is like giving someone a psychological hug. 

In this critical time, being truly empathetic can get your half things done. In true means, it assures your prospects in getting out of their problems. Using empathy in your emails provides confidence to the prospects with their decisions and know more about your solutions.

It is recommended for the SDRs to understand the prospect’s pain and provide effective solutions to them. After COVID-19, It is expected that your prospects might face a lot of new problems both financially as well as with executions. 

To understand them better and provide adequate solutions, the SDR needs to stand at their place and provide assuring solutions. This will ultimately build trust and increase the value of your offerings.

Most importantly when you are practising empathy in your sales, never push-sell your product, you might lose the deal in the first place. 

3. Make your emails more personalised than ever

Personalized emails always provide better outcomes. The appropriate personalization makes the emails relevant for your prospect and excites them to take action.

Make sure you write about their current problems in your emails that will make them feel relatable. While working with a particular target segment, you can check out various articles and reports to understand the generic problems your prospects might be facing. Keeping an eye on your competitor’s customer reviews and feedbacks can also help. If you are looking for individual prospect’s problem, social media activities or previous communication (if you have any) can give you some insights moving forward.

Manually personalizing every email from a long prospect list is a tedious task. You can use email outreach automation tools like Saleshandy that helps you in personalizing all your emails. With the mail-merge feature of Saleshandy, you can send 1000s of personalized emails at once and land them directly in your recipient’s primary inbox. 

4. Make a practice of pressure-free follow-ups

SDRs send follow-up emails frequently to keep the prospects engaged. Its obviously a good practice, but in the current scenario, you need to slow down. Make sure your follow-up emails carry sufficient benefits to your prospects. Keep a track of your recipient’s behaviour towards your emails and send follow-ups accordingly. You also need to provide some extra time gap than the regular follow-ups allowing your prospect to make a decision. 

It might happen if your emails are not getting opened, then your prospect might not be active with their emails. Similarly, if they are reading and not replying, then they might be confused or not interested at the moment.

SalesHandy’s auto-follow-up feature can come to your rescue in this situation. You can add up to 9 follow-up emails after your primary email. Also, schedule your emails at the desired time according to various behavioural conditions of your recipient. You can choose between Not Opened, Not Replied and Regardless conditions to each follow-up emails to make sure none of your email efforts goes wasted.

5. Build stronger relationships with your prospects

Building a relationship is the key to success in business. You email outreach campaigns amid COVID-19 must have helped you build good relationships with your prospects. Start nurturing them and move towards closure.

Your new prospects must have been confused with their buying decisions. After COVID-19, SDRs need to put some extra effort in providing value and making them assured that they actually care for the prospects. Apart from your solution, help them with other obstacles that cannot be solved with your product/services.

For example: If you are selling a cold email outreach tool, you can also help them with buying an email account from a good email service provider and provide them with simple onboarding techniques.

In this manner, your prospect starts trusting you and after some time they will also buy your product/services.

6. Start a solution-driven sales approach

The days are gone when you can present a product or service to your prospect and get it sold. Now in though time with a highly competitive marketplace such as eBay or Etsy, buyers are looking for the best solutions. You have to be at the top of your game with the product and the solutions you offer.

While making an outreach campaign, make sure you provide the benefits your users can gain from your offerings. Never push the product features with lots of technical jargons that confuses a prospect. Try to explain the roadmap of your prospect towards his end goal with your offerings. This will encourage and create interest in your prospect mind, and you can get your deals closed. 

Post-COVID-19, this approach is going to take a more vital role as your prospect will search for more reasons for buying a product/ services. They would require more assurance from your solutions before making buying decisions. So, providing solutions and help to their real-time problems can serve as a boon for you.

7. Provide special add-ons to your customers

Special add-ons are some freebies or extra help that you can provide to your prospect if they make a purchase. If you have a qualified prospect who needs your solution but is confused with making a decision, provide them with offers and due dates. This can accelerate their buying decision if it’s relevant for them. 

For example, if you are providing a special discount offer, you can extend the discount period for the convenience of the prospect. 

The post-COVID time is crucial for both parties. Providing too many extra benefits might not be possible for sure. But providing a little can also help you in winning the customer and building a long term relationship with your prospect. The add-ons can consist of research reports regarding the post-COVID-19 trends, new strategies or priority support that can be beneficial for getting your prospects closed faster.

Make most out of email outreach after COVID-19

The phase of COVID-19 has been with a lot of difficulties associated with it. Everyone is suffering from anxieties and worried about the future. Make sure your outreach emails help your prospects and send positive vibes with it.

It’s recommended to use an email outreach tool like SalesHandy to schedule your email campaigns, automate behavioural based follow-ups messages and land them directly in your recipient’s primary mailbox. With SalesHandy, you also get a template management system, advanced analytics and human-like email sending techniques that can sky-rocket your sales processes.