Recently I have seen a lot of advice presented around the effectiveness of the voicemail/email one-two punch. By that I mean: sending an email immediately after leaving a voicemail for a prospect.
There are widely varying (and extremely passionate) opinions from people I truly respect.
Josiane Feigon shares her thoughts around the effectiveness of the voicemail/email Dynamic Duo:
These two communication media must be delivered at the same time and synchronized for the following reasons:
- The response rate increases.
- They provide a written and verbal footprint of your message.
- They are both nonvisual mediums and rely on the big four, word choice, tone, organization, and pace, to get your message across.
Take advantage of these two working together to deliver your message effectively.
Paul Castain takes the opposite view in his post around the Cold Calling “Two Step”.
Other sales professionals tell me that this is a part of being “persistent” and execs dig persistence. Can we all take a knee on this one for a sec. Is it possible, that perhaps, we could be (am I sugar coating enough) confusing persistence with being a pain in the ass?
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Truth be told, I love the idea of changing it up and contacting me via email after a phone attempt. I even like the idea of you calling me, then mailing me something, reaching out on Linkedin etc. That’s smart. Why? Because everyone has their preferred venue of communication and we should never limit ourselves by only embracing one. Just give your messaging a chance to breathe.
The other day, I received a voicemail/email double tap and it got me thinking. Here are the details:
I recently submitted a “Want to learn more?” form on a technology vendor’s site after viewing a video of their Salesforce.com App.
I later received a call from an unrecognized number and chose not to pick up. 60 seconds later I received 2 emails:
- the 1st : informing me of a new voicemail
-and- - the 2nd : from the Sales Rep stating “per my voicemail, I wanted to…thus and so….”
I replied to the email and asked to schedule a call, which we did.
Seems to suggest that the approach worked, right? Maybe, maybe not.
First, keep in mind that I asked to be contacted. It makes sense that I followed through on my initial hand raising.
Second, I chose to reply via email because it was easiest for me to do so. Without the email, I would have returned the phone call to schedule the meeting anyway.
Third, this Rep now has a meeting booked with me and no idea what I want to talk about. We have never spoken live and he hasn’t asked me a single qualifying question. So yes I “converted”, but converted to what?
Were this a cold call or a follow-up to a whitepaper download/webinar registration, it most likely would have played out differently – a double deletion of both voice & emails.
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My concern here is that we are seeing correlation and assigning it causation. Are we measuring higher response rates or higher conversion rates? Is it even possible to measure corresponding annoyance rates for non-responders (e.g. didn’t respond v. didn’t respond & is now annoyed).
Net net for me, without clear data either way – I will sell unto others as I would have sold unto me. Persistent: yes. Consistent: yes. The voicemail/email double tap: no
Thanks for listening. What are your seeing? Are your prospects receptive to the voicemail/email dynamic duo?
(Photo credit: sebr)