Hook emails - White paper
A short article about making business development activities easier.
How many cold calls do you receive at home? How many of them motivate you to talk?
Cold calling for most salespeople is both demoralising and painful. Yet for all salespeople finding and connecting with new potential customers or contacts is vital for sustaining a healthy customer base. But how do we get over the dual challenge of customer’s apathy to unsolicited calls and our own general dislike for them?
The truth is we respond in the same way when we receive those calls in our own lives because they are often impersonal and hold little immediate relevance to us. One way of overcoming this is to identify a ‘hook’ that might make that call easier and get a more positive reaction from the recipient. The Discovery process can help us identify those hooks.
In a recent project we helped a customer identify hooks and send out hook emails to start new business conversations. One of these hook emails generated one contract worth over £150k after a four month sales process – half the time of normal. Would the salesperson have won that contract through a traditional cold call? It would seem unlikely based on previous success.
What are Hooks?
Hooks are potentially relevant pieces of information that will help connect the person we are approaching with us or our organisation’s services. A hook demonstrates that we have taken the time to understand the individual, their company or the world in which they operate. The way to find this information is documented in the Discovery step of the DEPTH process. Here are some examples:
How to write a good Hook email.
There are a few basic rules for constructing a powerful hook email that will either grab the person’s attention or at the very least not get immediately deleted.
Always have the person’s correct first name and personal email address (or send it with InMail in Linked-in).
It must come from you personally and not sent out as a mass email campaign.
The subject line must have a powerful relevant statement in it ‘Your CEO Mary Frank’s recent tweet.’ How many of you would open a similar email sent to you?
Keep it short and to the point. They will not read a long waffling email.
Do not give lots of company or product features. The focus is on them and their situation. You should briefly position your company and it’s value.
Highlight 2-3 clear points from your Discovery research
Make your next action very clear, e.g. “I will contact you on Friday by phone to discuss.”
You may want to highlight in bold one of your key points to grab the attention further.
Below is an example of a real hook email that generated an appointment:
