In my experience, the key ingredients for sales development success are:
quality
quantity
persistence
timing
relevance
personalization
right toolset
and right sequences
Once you connect all these dots, you can expect great results!
I've already addressed some of the listed aspects — relevance, personalization, and timing — in my previous posts (make sure to go check those out!)
So today, I invite you to decode the sequences as a part of sales development with me and talk about the must-have types of sequences every SDR should be using.
1. ⚡️ Outbound Sequence - Tier 1
Such a sequence is designed for cold, outbound outreach.
It's a multichannel (email, phone calls, LinkedIn touches) sequence targeted at companies you want to see as your customers. It typically consists of 15-20 touchpoints spanning over 30-90 days, depending on how aggressive you want it to be.
2. 🔥 Outbound Sequence - Tier 2
Such outbound sequences are designed for accounts you want to see as your customers, but also might include decision-makers that do not match your ICP. These usually have more emails and fewer phone calls or LinkedIn touches.
3. 👋 Outbound Sequence - Tier 3
This is an email-centric outbound sequence, consisting solely of automated emails, so your SDRs won't spend too much time here. The sequence is designed for Tier 3 and 4 accounts and non-ICP personas.
4. 🙈 Demo No-Show Sequence
Even if you've scheduled a demo, there is always a chance that the prospect will still ghost you. That's why every SDR should have a sequence designed to help reschedule a meeting with that prospect. After all, it's easier to reschedule a call rather than generate a new one.
5. ✋ Website Hand-Risers Sequence
Your marketing team does an amazing job attracting visitors to your website. Some of those visitors might start a chat on a website, use a contact form, call you, etc. However, it's practically impossible to respond right away (there are tons of reasons why). This is when a sequence designed exactly for this type of inbound leads comes in handy, helping the SDRs convert inbound leads into demos.
6. 📚 Downloaded Content Sequence
Gated content on a website is another valuable source of MQLs, that could be converted into demos. So, every time a prospect downloads a pdf, ebook, report, webinar recording, etc., the SDRs should check if a prospect matches their ICP and proactively reach out to them using a dedicated sequence.
7. 💻 Post Webinar Sequence
Similar to the downloaded content sequence, this one is focused on the webinar registrants and attendees. The SDRs would go through the list of attendees, identify the prospects that match their ICP, and get in touch with them after the event.
8. 🤗 Trial-Not-Converted Leads Sequence
If you are selling SaaS, your product might have a freemium or free trial version. In this case, the SDRs should check their CRM and filter out the leads who have created a free trial account some time ago. Using this info, they can build a list of contacts that match the ICP and reconnect with them again using a dedicated sequence.
Of course, those leads might be already added to multiple re-nurturing marketing campaigns, but a personalized, hand-written email from an SDRs could help as well.
9. 👻 Ghosting Opportunities
AEs and sales teams often forget to get in touch with their old opportunities. This offers another chance for the SDRs to re-engage this type of prospects with a suitable sequence. The same goes for lost and abandoned opportunities.
10. 🤝 Outbound Referral Sequence
This type of sequence aims at connecting with entry-level employees to find out who the decision-makers are and which services/software they use, so that the SDRs can create more relevant and personalized emails to reach decision-makers later on.
11. 👆 Demo Request Sequence
Just like the website hand-risers, the prospects who request a demo on a website are the most promising ones. So SDRs should have a dedicated sequence to engage them and prioritize their tasks accordingly.
12. 🪝 Inbound Trigger-Based Sequence
Not all buying signals are as obvious as the demo request, so the SDR team should be monitoring various triggers and proactively contact the prospects showing them. Those triggers might be unique for each company, but there are a few universal examples, e.g., visiting your website or specifically the pricing page, spending X hours on your website, actively inviting new users to a product, etc.
13. 🤩 Interesting Responses Sequence
Not all positive responses result in a booked demo or meeting. Sometimes, prospects respond with something like: "let's connect in 3 months", "not interested right now, check back later", "let's stay in touch", etc. This is another opportunity for SDRs to add those prospects to a dedicated sequence and reconnect with them later.
In this case, it makes sense to start a conversation with a reference to the previous contact: "As per your request, I’m following on our previous thread regarding X". Adding a personalized video here will create a WOW effect.
14. 🌞 Warm Outbound Leads Sequence
Sometimes the prospects would open and view your emails dozens of times while never responding back. At Reply, we have an automation that triggers each time a prospect opens the email more than 7 times and adds them to a new highly personalized multichannel sequence.
15. 🤞 Finished Never Opened Sequence
There might also be thousands of prospects who have completely ignore your emails. Say, you send them 4-5 emails, but they never really open them. The SDRs can filter those prospects in their SEP and move to a new sequence, with slightly modified templates, subject lines, CTAs, etc., or using other outreach channels (LinkedIn, Twitter, phone).
16. 🏝 Auto-Reply and OOO Sequence
I've shared our playbook for this type of sequence earlier 👉
Are there any missing sequences? Should I write a separate blog post for each one of the mentioned sequences (including templates, sequence examples, stats, etc.)? 🤔
Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for joining me today! See you soon 👋
Gold!!