You’ve got a reply from your prospect? Congrats! It means you’ve achieved the main goal of cold mailing: spark interest and get the attention of your leads and so that they want to talk to you. However, a reply is all you have at this point, even if it is positive. You haven’t closed a deal yet; this is where the real selling process starts.
Every reply (even if neutral or skeptical) is important. Since your prospect read your message and spent some time to write back, you should act on all of the replies (excluding really negative and aggressive ones as you don’t want to make them angrier).
The strategy should be different for each individual, but we prepared some common guidelines:
Once you receive a message, reply ASAP while the prospect is still fresh and interested. If you wait a few hours or days, they might forget about your original message, lose the interest or get distracted by other things going on.
If the lead doesn't reply on your further messages, use multiple follow-ups and be persistent. Make them frequent at first, then less frequent over time. To save your time, use an email automation tool (for example vocus.io) to schedule follow-ups. After receiving an initial reply, you should follow up until you either convert your prospect or they say they are no longer interested. People often shift focus during their workday, so you might need to send several follow-up messages before scheduling a meeting, even after receiving an initially positive response. Remember that until your lead becomes a client you need to continue to build a relationship with them.
Address clearly and completely each of your prospects’ questions or concerns. Be honest with them, even if it means you’re not meeting some pain point of theirs. Some objections are not easy to answer, but omitting them will most likely result in losing your potential customer. The lead will assume that there is something you’re hiding from them and won’t want to move forward.