{"id":3627,"date":"2017-07-06T14:39:39","date_gmt":"2017-07-06T12:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/?p=3627"},"modified":"2025-01-21T10:26:32","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T09:26:32","slug":"research-sales-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/research-sales-email\/","title":{"rendered":"What Should I Learn About a Company Before Sending Them a B2B Sales Email?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a piece inspired by a very good question I’ve come across on Quora. It will be especially helpful to those of you who either prepare to start their first sales<\/span> email<\/span> copy, or they’ve been sending cold emails<\/span> that don’t bring the desired effects.<\/p>\n

Why do I\u00a0need company research in the first place?<\/h2>\n

For starters, let’s switch the perspective from a cold email<\/span> sender’s to the cold email<\/span> recipients. You know the emails<\/span> that sometimes come to your inbox<\/span> asking or “just checking” if you need something: Maybe you need a web development services? Or a product explanation video? Or a mobile app?<\/p>\n

Have you ever responded to such a B2B<\/span> sales<\/span> email<\/span>?<\/p>\n

As a cold email<\/span> sender, you need to know that the “just checking” emails<\/span> sent to thousands of prospects will not bring you many responses, not to mention valuable business relations. What they may bring you, though, is a ban on sending anything from your email<\/span> provider, or a spam report from some of your addressees.<\/p>\n

So before you decide to reach out to a company and ask if they need your service, you should have a very good reason to suspect they may actually need it at the moment. In other words, you need a context.<\/p>\n

If you do your research, you’ll be able\u00a0to create the right context and verify if your prospect may actually be in need of your solution. Then, instead of “just asking” you can actually propose some value in advance. And that significantly increases the\u00a0chances of\u00a0getting positive replies.<\/p>\n

What should I do before sending my first sales email?<\/h2>\n

First things first, you need to know what companies you should actually look for and make the subjects\u00a0of your research. This is the point at which having some hypotheses about your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) is\u00a0necessary to move on. Without this profile defined, you won’t really know the direction of further research.<\/p>\n

Read\u00a0What\u2019s the First Step to Building a Good Prospect Base?<\/a>\u00a0if you’re not sure about your ICP yet and couple it with the article that talks about why success is the only thing that sells in B2B sales<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How do I start the research?<\/h2>\n

As you have in mind a profile of the companies you see as your ideal customers, you can start looking. I already wrote about\u00a015 Places Where You Can Find Prospects, Other than LinkedIn<\/a>, but you can, of course, use LinkedIn as well to look for the companies that match your ICP and will be the subjects of your research. As soon as you gather a list of such companies, you can start collecting specific info about them.<\/p>\n

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