Sales Cadence – An Effective Way To Reach Your Leads In Multiple Ways

A Sales Cadence or Sales Sequence is a series of sales activities that are scheduled and follow a predefined motive or order. It includes activities such as phone calls, SMSs, emails, voicemails, social media messages, etc. These activities are sequentially scheduled with a set period of time between them. Sales representatives do sales cadence to follow up and contact leads.

Most of the time, sales cadences are generally in the form of campaigns. Sales representatives on average make eight or more attempts to reach their leads. The main purpose is to engage the leads and build a connection with them. Sales and marketing teams coordinate and contact a lead through a number of channels. If a lead is contacted many times then that cycle is sales cadence. 

Significance of Sales Cadence

Sales cadence is not a choice but it’s a necessity for businesses because of the following factors-

• It streamlines and optimizes the process of lead generation and qualification making the entire process free-flowing and well-defined In sales cadence every action is predefined and scripted. Like if you have called someone over the phone then emailing them is a better option rather than forgetting about that lead and calling them twice. This will just irritate the person and be embarrassing for you as well. Hence proper planning and strategy are required to get tackle the conversation with the leads.
• It makes it easier to track the leads and their position in the sales funnel- You can view the whole process of sales cadence in your CRM and see the progress you have made and also where each lead stands in the sales funnel. You will get an idea of where in the sales process you generally lose touch with your leads. This will help you to optimize your sales strategies in the future.
• The approach of the sales team improves in handling peak demands due to a defined script.
• Every member of your team is aligned to work together.
• The conversion rate of leads to customers is faster.
• Creates diversity in your outreach. 

Essentials for Sales Cadence

1. Understanding the target audience

You have to first do research on who your target audience is. You can do this by using the data stored in your CRM. Then you have to figure out your qualified leads and do enough research about them. You have to see the platform they are active on like social media, phone, email, etc. This will help you to figure out the best channel for communication with them.

2. Correct Time

Cadence is all about timing only. This factor distinguishes it from all other sales strategies. You have to predict their work schedules by looking at their social media profiles and analyzing at what time they will be free to respond to your messages or call.   However, this method has no guarantee hence you have to do this on a trial-and-error basis. Then see at which time of the day you get the most responses and for different locations it will be different. Also, you have to check a person’s time zone before calling them. 

3. Channel of communication

There are three most widely used channels: phone calls, email, and social media. You have to find which channel works best for which lead.

• Email

It is the most widely used channel. You have to frame the email with a catchy subject line. Then next comes personalization. Nowadays people don’t spend their time on simple promotional emails they want them to be personalized according to their own requirements and preferences. For personalizing your emails you can use sales outreach tools.

• Phone

This is again the most widely used channel of communication. For calling leads you first have to check their time zones. Because calling in their sleeping time would only frustrate them. Prepare your pitch in advance by analyzing the customer data. You have to speak only about relevant points. If your call goes unanswered then you can leave voicemails for them. Chances are there that they will call you back.

• SMS

You should also include this channel of communication in your cadence list. By you have to take permission from your recipients first before sending them SMSs. For this, you have to give them a form to opt-in i.e. subscribe to your messages. This channel can be very beneficial for you as this channel has the highest opening and response rates among all other communication channels.

• Social Media

Nowadays people are engaged on their social media a lot hence this is also an excellent way to contact them. LinkedIn is the most impactful for professional purposes among all other social media channels. Other social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter can also fetch you good results.

4. The Number of Contacts and the Spacing Between Them

According to the philosophy of cadence you have to contact a lead a minimum of 7 times to get their attention. Your cadence on average can have 8 to 12 touchpoints. You also have to give proper spacing between those touchpoints. As you might annoy a qualified lead by calling them three times a day. So at least keep a gap of two days between touchpoints. This is the only correct way to close a deal. 

5. The Duration of the Cadence

It is the duration of the first contact till the last one. Generally, it is between 2 to 4 weeks. It also depends on the leads’ engagement wight you and how much time they want to spend to analyze and respond back to you.

6. Segmentation of Leads

This is the most important aspect. You have to segment your leads and then personalize content for them. You can segment leads by looking at their data in your CRM system and their social media profiles. Also, you have to categorize them based on their region, demographics, company size, industry, personality, etc. After segmentation, you have to frame quality content on every segmented group of leads. It also depends on the factors like duration of the cadence and the number of touchpoints between the contacts.

7. Content Quality

The quality of your content is the deciding factor for whether you will get responses from your leads or not. Hence always focus on the quality of your content. The content should include only relevant points and should be personalized. The content should trigger curiosity in your leads to know further about that. No matter how qualified your leads are you cannot process your deal further with them if your content quality is not up to the mark.

8. Automation

Sales Cadence on a large scale cannot happen without automation. Hence for a good sales outreach use the best sales cadence software available in the market.

Best Sales Cadence Automation Software

1. SuiteCRM Email Drip Campaign (Premium)

SuiteCRM Email Drip helps you to schedule a series of drip emails at certain schedules triggered by the actions of customers and leads. This enables you to send the right message to the right customers and leads. It is compatible with all other modules of SuiteCRM.

Features

• You can add any record to the drip by clicking on the “Add to Drip” option.
• If there is any change in the status and records then automatically that change will appear in the drip also.
• Not only the admin but the users can also send drip campaigns to different people and they can choose those people.
• You can choose from multiple email templates.
• It has a dashboard where you can see the status of your emails and drip campaigns.
• There is another dashboard for showing the recipients’ activities. 
• On the left navigation panel, there is a centralized menu accessible to all. 

2. SuiteCRM SMS Drip Campaign (Premium)

An SMS drip campaign is a way to send drip i.e. personalized SMSs to customers and leads scheduled at different times or triggered by customers and leads behaviors. You can automatically send SMSs based on triggers, fields, and statuses. It is compatible with all other It is compatible with all other SuiteCRM modules. It is powered by Twilio SMS API which is leading in the market. 

Features

• Any record based on its status and field can be automatically added to the drip campaign list. This can be done by clicking on the “Add to Drip” button in the detail view.
• Once a record is added to the drip campaign you can choose at what time it is to be sent.
• You can choose your senders to whom you have to send what.
• It has dashboards where you can modify settings and create a drip.
• It has a multiple drip controller where you can choose the SMS template and the time at which you want to schedule your drips. You can create a series of automated text messages here.
• It has a dashboard for checking the status of your drip SMS campaigns also. You can see how your drip campaign is performing, which records are sent, which are left etc.
• It has a menu that is centrally accessible to all your team members.

3. Twilio Click to Call for SuiteCRM

Twilio Click to Call plugin is for communicating with many customers on a large scale. In order to use this plugin you need to have a Twilio phone number with balance in it.

Features

• Whenever a customer will contact you a pop-up window will appear also some information about the caller will be displayed on the pop-up window so that you can get an idea of who wants to contact you.
• The calls are recorded and they can be accessed anytime by you. 

Conclusion

In order to generate leads and convert them into customers you have to approach them many times. Only in one attempt, it’s not possible to convince people and make them believe in your brand. Hence you need to have multiple encounters with them to convince them. Sales Cadence makes a workflow and sequence of these encounters in a proper schedule through multiple channels. Through this, you can interact with your leads in a proper manner without letting them be irritated by you.