Read time: 3.5 mins

Fun fact: In July I’m launching something never seen before in the SDR space. Watch this space.

Fun fact 2: I’m testing a new section for this newsletter. It’s called the ‘SDR Job Board’. Hope it brings extra value for everyone.

Anyways, let’s do this:

Most teams I work with have really low response rates on email. Usually, it’s because of their messaging. Some reps are good at it, others aren’t so good.

The big problem? Most reps don’t know why they are good or bad and neither do their managers. In this edition, I’ll give you my secret guide to easily identify what good looks like when it comes to personalisation on email.

The 4 Levels of Personalisation:

By definition, a personalised email is a message the recipient feels is for them and only them.

A recent study I read stated <2% of VP-level individuals felt they received personalised sales outreach. Whilst this upsets me, it means the bar is SO low, and if you put in the effort you can win more easily than you think.

Back in 2017, my SDR teams’ email response rate dipped (really badly).

So, in a panic (classic), I decided to do the only thing I knew at the time.

I set a KPI around the number of personalised emails each rep had to send a day (I set 25).

On Monday morning, I communicated this to the team, they set off to work and I thought the problem would be solved by Friday at the latest.

The results by Friday were really poor. In fact, the response rate had decreased further.

In my haste to solve the problem, I didn’t show the reps what the definition of personalisation actually was so naturally they had all interpreted it subjectively.

At one extreme SDRs thought I meant ‘hyper-personalisation’ and set off trying to link personal information like the prospect’s hobbies and choice of university to the problems our business could help them solve.

At the other extreme, SDRs were only adding custom fields for {job title} or {first name} to automated emails.

The results across the team ranged from >20% response rate to <1%.

So, I sat down in 121s with all the reps to figure out what was actually going on.

My Findings:

1 - The best reps could link personal and company research to problems my company could solve. For example; if a prospect got promoted they could link that to a specific problem the prospect may face in their new role.

2 - The middle reps could only link company research to problems we could solve. For example; the company had raised capital and they could link that to a specific problem the business but NOT the individual prospect may now face.

3 - The lowest performers only used automation and/or were unable to link their research to problems we could solve for the prospect or the company. In essence, they were not able to make their personalisation, relevant. For example; they would say things like ‘congrats on the new role’ and then immediately pitch our product.

Results across these groups ranged from >20% response rate to <1%.

Overall, we knew personalisation AND relevance were both important but we found the key to teaching reps this was to split them up and score emails on both factors separately.

So I created a 4-level system for the SDRs to follow that would help all reps judge whether the first factor (personalisation) was high quality or not.

My Guide:

Level 1 - Automation - defined by a mass email with no peronalisation. 0/3. Low score.

Level 2 - Company Personalisation - email mentions company-level research. For example; ‘I saw you raised $20M’ or ‘I noticed the Merger’. It’s level 2 because prospects care less about their company’s updates than their own (they’re human). Score; 1/3.

Note; a lot of SDRs get stuck here thinking this type of research is enough. The fact is, most other SDRs are using this so your prospect’s inbox is already full of these types of messages and you end up not standing out and not getting a response.

Level 3 - Professional Personalisation - messaging mentioning individual professional research. For example; ‘I noticed your promotion’ or ‘saw you’re expanding your team’. It’s more impactful than level 2 because it refers to the individual, not the company. This is where you start standing out in inboxes more regularly driving much higher response rates. Score 2/3.

Level 4 - Personal Personalisation - messaging mentioning individual personal research. For example ‘noticed we both went to the same uni’ or ‘saw you’re dog has the same name as mine’. This is hyper personalisation but it comes with a warning tag. It’s HARD to link to something relevant. So whilst you may get full marks for personalising on this level, if your message isn’t relevant it will rarely get a response. If you do manage to make it relevant your response rate will blow up!! Score 3/3.

Key takeaway; when you’re assessing email quality. Start with personalisation and attach one of the levels above to how ‘personalised’ the copywriting really is.

Only once you have done that should you assess ‘relevance’ which we will learn more about next week.

For reference, I encourage reps to aim for level 3 or 4 at least 80% of the time.

Of course, it’s not always possible depending on the information you have available on your prospect but we should be pushing reps harder on this to drive up response rates.

Final note; remember it’s not about us. It’s about the prospect and standing out in their inbox.

See you for Part 2 next week.

Good luck!!

P.S. If this is useful, feel free to share it with your team.

SDR Leader Spotlight:

The man, the myth, the legend; Andy Laws, Senior BDR Leader @Braze.

His journey:

Andy’s starting point was in professional cricket. At 17, he signed a contract with Middlesex County Cricket Club. At 22, his dream ended which led to him struggling with anxiety, depression, and painkiller abuse. After a tough time, he went back to school, got a Masters degree in advertising, and landed a role at EF for 2 years. He then started dating an SDR, Celina (check out last week’s episode). and saw his partner doing great. After a quick search online he found Braze and hasn’t looked back since. He now leads a team of high-performance SDRs across EMEA and lives by the mantra; pipeline is the byproduct of talent development.

His top prospecting tips:

• Send blank connection requests then first touch voicenotes / LinkedIn videos.

• Copy and paste your original personalised emails into LinkedIn Inmail and send them as an image (this is SO unique, love it).

• Use Whatsapp as a touch after an attempted call to let the prospect know who called and they can put a name to a face.

His advice for new leaders:

• It’s easy to just look at performance but be human first. Think about the challenges that exist for the av. SDR. They are often very young in their professional career, likely relocating, potentially, etc. Go deep on getting to know them as people.

• Go deeper than other sales leaders on the data. Too many leaders don’t look at how you can objectively look at and measure data across your team. Work out how you can use particular data points to help steer efficiencies across your team.

• Have an understanding of your ecosystem, and who are the critical people that will help you push the needle with your team. Build those relationships.

Top advice, IMHO.

Gracias, amigo!

SDR Job Board:

My friends at Pexapark are hiring SDRs. If you’re interested, please reach out to Tom Salley who is the SDR Manager there.

That’s all for this week folks.

See you next week for ‘Good Emails’ Part 2.

And in the meantime, remember you're a legend! 🙂 

1 way I help SDR Leaders:

—> SDR Leader Bootcamp - The last one SOLD OUT ALL 24 SEATS in a week. The next one will launch in August. Respond to this email to reserve a spot. Only 8 left already.