The right way to text sales prospects

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In an ideal world, you’d only connect with prospects who were aware of your solution and primed to learn more. But cold outreach is a fact of life for sales professionals — and doing it well is a significant advantage for go-to-market teams.

Naturally, sales pros want to know whether cold texting is ever appropriate or effective. And the answer can be pretty divisive. 

In a recent ZoomInfo poll on LinkedIn, for example, one-third of respondents felt cold texting was an effective technique. But twice as many said no — the immediacy and relative intimacy of showing up on a prospect’s mobile phone has too many downsides.

The good news: while cold texting is often too broad to be worthwhile, SMS outreach can still have a place in today’s sales environment.

SALES

Don’t cold text your sales prospects – do this instead

Texting certainly allows you to be more casual with your outreach, but you need to thread the needle of approachable but professional. Be personable, up-front, and respect your prospect’s time.

With all that in mind, here are some things to avoid when using text messages for sales outreach:

• Don’t write a novel: Keep messages short and to the point.
  

• No shorthand, emojis, GIFs: This isn’t the group chat with your college friends.
  

• Beware auto-dialers: The use of “automated telephone dialing systems” to send text messages for advertising or telemarketing can violate U.S. regulations, unless the business has the prior express written consent of the recipient. There are specific definitions of what constitutes an ATDS, which are worth learning and monitoring.
  

• “Do not call” lists: Businesses in the U.S. need to comply with the regulations around numbers on various “do not call” lists, including at the national and state levels. Companies also need to maintain internal DNC lists.

B2B sales outreach text examples

Now that we’ve established some guidelines for sales outreach texting, how should you structure your actual messages?

Most people live on their smartphones, so to get a response from a prospect, we need to understand what they see — it’s probably a one-line preview on the lock screen. Make the first sentence count, every time. And get to the point as quickly, but politely, as possible.

Confirming a meeting:
“Hi [Name], this is [Sender] from [XYZ Company]. We spoke last week about your interest in our services. Just reaching out to confirm your availability for a follow-up call tomorrow at 2 PM ET.”

Meeting follow-up:
“[Name], [Sender] from [Company]. We discussed locking a next meeting for Thursday. Can you do 2 PM, or does another time work?“

Trade show invite:
“Hey [Name], [Sender] from [Company]. I think you might be at Dreamforce. I’m here too, and having spoken to your org in the past, I think we can do some really powerful things for you all. Can you carve out 5 minutes to meet for coffee?”

Leadership intervention to move a deal:
“[Name], [Sender], [Exec Title] at [Company]. [Rep] on my team tells me we are nearly aligned to support you. Seems like there are still a few items you are considering but she hasn’t gotten a next call set. Can I help? What works for a call to go over your next evaluation steps?”

So, should you text sales prospects?

Pre-COVID, texting sales prospects may have been something of a professional faux pas in some quarters. But used in the right contexts, it can be part of a well-crafted sales flow. 

So the next time you need to send a reminder to a prospect about an upcoming demo meeting, do your homework — and maybe send them a text.

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