Summary
When it comes to sales campaigns, the fortune is in the follow-up. It is not enough to have great sales plans, strategies, and prospecting tools – you should follow up with prospects enough times to get a response from them.
Statistics show that about 60% of prospects say no to a sales pitch at least four times before they say yes. Even though 80% of sales require agents to make five follow-up calls with prospects, more than 44% of agents give up after the first follow-up.
That is why it is crucial to have a proper follow-up plan where you contact prospects and engage them through multiple channels and across several touchpoints. In other words, you should have a well-designed sales cadence.
So, what is a sales cadence? Why is it important? How do you create a winning sales cadence for your business? Let us find out.
What is customer cadence?
A customer cadence, or a sales cadence, is a series of outreach activities to generate leads and close sales deals. In other words, it is a sequential order of touchpoints and outreach methods for your sales agents and representatives to establish a connection with a prospect and close a deal.
What is a cadence process?
A cadence process is the act of salespeople following up with prospects to get a response and get them to make a purchasing decision. Usually, the process involves creating a schedule to connect with prospective customers using multiple channels for a predetermined timespan.
Timeframe and communication channels
In a sale cadence process, agents reach out to and follow up with prospects through different channels, including:
- Social media platforms
- Prerecorded voicemail messages
The cadence process involves various outreach activities that help agents develop effective relationships with prospects. These activities, also called touchpoints, are spread over a fixed number of days. It starts with the first contact and continues over several days or weeks until:
- The agent is successful in converting the prospect into a sales opportunity.
- The customer exits the cadence.
- The agent moves prospects to the nurturing bucket.
An example of a sales cadence process
Here is a sample 10-day sales cadence schedule for salespersons to contact B2B customers through phone and emails.
Day 1
- Introductory email 1
Day 2
- Email 2
- Call 1
Day 5
- Call 2
- Call with voicemail 1
Day 7
- Email 3
- Call with voicemail 2
Day 10
- Call 3
Why is sales cadence important?
A sales cadence is crucial to any effective sales and marketing strategy as it helps both agents and businesses in the following ways:
Offers your agents a structured outreach framework
Your CRM may contain the contact details of hundreds and thousands of prospects. Reaching out and following up with them can be a mess without a proper plan – agents may forget to follow up with prospects or send them the same email more than once. A sales cadence gives your outreach efforts more structure and consistency – it offers your sales agents a well-designed framework for connecting with customers.
Makes it easy to track prospects
More often than not, organizations find it hard to track where each prospect is in the sales pipeline. A sales cadence gives you a better grip on your sales/marketing process – by looking at it, your agents know whether they are in the initial stages or close to finalizing the deal.
Helps scale up your sales processes
Having a structured plan helps sales agents cover more prospects in a compressed timespan. It also allows them to do prospecting in a more organized and focused manner. Further, organizations can bring more agents into the process without creating friction in the sales funnel.
Diversifies your outreach efforts
A sales cadence leverages multiple communication channels and spaces touchpoints by a day or two, so you don't have to contact a customer repeatedly through the same channel. A multichannel approach further reinforces your message and increases your credibility.
It keeps your brand alive in the minds of prospects
Research shows that about 63% of people who request information about your product/service today will make a purchasing decision only after three months, while 20% wait for 12 months. Reaching out to prospects repeatedly and systematically across channels over a prolonged timespan helps you stay top of mind with clients.
How do you create a sales cadence?
Building a sales cadence is not a one-size-fits-all activity. Each organization should create it by factoring in the industry, product/service, target market, region, and buyer persona. Typically, it involves the following:
Identifying the buyer persona
You need to contact and pitch to prospects who convert, so start by building the ideal customer profile.
Choosing the channels
Use a combination of channels, such as phone calls, voicemails, text messaging, emails, and social media. However, you can give more weight to channels that might fetch more results.
Determining the number of touchpoints
According to studies, it takes 7 to 13 plus touchpoints to generate a fully qualified B2B sales lead. Statistics also indicate that successful organizations use an average of 16 touchpoints for each prospect.
Spacing the touchpoints
It is a good idea to space contact attempts by at least one or two days. The prospect should feel that you are neither clingy nor too distant.
Deciding the cadence duration
It depends on how many touchpoints you have and how prospects respond to your efforts. Typically, anywhere between 2 to 4 weeks is an ideal duration.
Segmenting the audience
In B2B sales, it is a good idea to categorize your audience based on the company size, region, industry, etc., and create cadences for each.
Creating the content
High-quality content increases your chances of getting leads and positive responses. Invest in creating quality content – email, voicemail scripts, and social media messages.
Automate your sales cadence with the right tools
Creating and running a sales campaign demands the time and energy of your agents. That's where a sales cadence automation tool comes to your aid. You will find several CRM applications, outbound call center software solutions, and business phone systems that help you automate many processes in the sales cadence.
A VoIP system provider like Ringover has several features that help automate dialing, track all crucial metrics, drop voicemails, unify all your communications, and boost agent productivity.
So, what are you waiting for now? Create a winning sales cadence, automate it, and start connecting with prospects with ease.
