A shout out to sales teams and how marketing emails need to step up their game to sound like a human.
In fear of enlarging the heads of sales teams everywhere, here’s an earnest shout out to sales teams and their human emails. And yes, I'm a marketer for nearly 15 years now. But let me ask you this -
Marketing and sales teams end up talking with the same lead, but how often does it sound like the same person?
Answer: very rarely.
Marketing seems to get held up by holding themselves to communication standards for email (because we’re emailing more than one person at a time) and product compliance. And yes, sales teams are also, to a point. But sales emails aren't held to compliance issues if they are sending directly to one person - it's a legal thing. I’m sure you’ve heard companies or even sales do whatever it takes to close an opportunity. And usually, doing whatever it takes, means sounding like an earnest person that wants to help.
So how does the difference in email communication encourage converting a lead? The voice and tone of marketing can be fun, but also become formal when trying to tick every compliance box. Marketing leads quickly realize the lack of time and effort to connect with them personally.
Here's a quick look at a normal marketing process when creating an email:
While this creates a uniformed communication process that starts to shape how a company is viewed, it also starts to sound like a robot.
And then there’s a sales email, which usually goes something like this:
Even though sales teams may not be held to the same email compliance, overall their emails sound like they came from a human.
It's time to get real. Ask yourself, is the approval process diluting the messaging because different roles want to ensure different talking points are communicated effectively?
Let’s say your B2B company has a product marketer (who is browbeaten by the product lead to ensure that boxes are checked based on product features and not based on marketing best practices) approving an email by the communication marketer (who is trying to get emails opened and create action by the reader - hopefully based on marketing best practices). There’s probably going to be a difference of opinion on importance by the nature of the roles.
Here’s where marketing can take a play out of the sales communication playbook!
The approver provides a base copy. I assure you that every amazing sales team uses a template to start.
Empower your communication marketer to humanize the base copy while maintaining voice and tone.
Provide sales the same talking points.
Always communicate any changes made downstream (i.e. sales team) back upstream (i.e. marketing teams) so email communications sound the same. This one pays in dividends!
Think about how your company would talk if they were a person and go from there.
Test, test, and do more tests to find out what voice and tone creates action from your audience.
Update ALL your channels and communications with similar tone and voice.
Easy, right?
Chew on this - the payoff is impacted internally and externally.
Yes, it’s painful and time-consuming to make such alignments. but internally, your teams are entrusted to have input and your company suddenly has multiple testing channels (testing is used lightly here before my data people get their knickers in a twist 😉). Externally, your leads feel like they’re communicating with real people instead of mass marketing, and more likely to take action.
And while your culture meter goes higher, so does your bottom line.
You’ll move from
to
Obviously there should be hyperlinks in my example, but you get the idea.
There will always be a time and a place for product and other leads to change copy, but not every email. Don’t be afraid to sound human instead of a corporate robot. Think about how your company would talk if they were a person and go from there.
And a shout out to my hard-working sales teams everywhere for reminding marketers that sometimes we just need to be real with it.
Shameless Plug: If you liked what you read, please leave a comment below or heart my post. You might also like my previous post called Are Chatbots Ethical?
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