800 000sales conversations by email

Sales email statistics

Sidetrade Group

A Sidetrade company

The challenge when booking meetingsReaching a decision maker is twice as hard as it was 6 years ago.

We now need more than 8 attempts on average to get a response, whether negative or positive.

As stated in recent studies on time spent on prospecting, 67% of the sales rep time is now spent on reaching out to a lead.

This is why in the last years sales representatives have tried to automate part of these repetitive tasks : with automatic dialers, email templates or more recently automated sales email scenarios.

20%

67%

13%Meetings Sourcing

Outreach

Sources : CSO Insights, Pace Productivity, IKO System

2010 2012 2014 2016

4,7

5,6

7,3

8,2

# of attempts to reach a decision maker

Sources : Ovation Sales, TeleNet

A Sidetrade company

Other functions 12%

CFO 8%

BU Manager 8%

GM/COO/CEO 9%

CMO 19%

CIO/CTO 20%

HR Dir. 25%

Meeting requests sent to 100 000 decision makers

For the last 12 months IKO System has analysed 800 000 meeting requests by email, sent by sales reps to European decision makers.

These email requests are sent straight from their mailboxes without any marketing tool involved.

ConstructionTransportation

Medical

Entertainment

Corp. Services

Finance 14%

Industry 15%

Consulmer Goods 20%

High-Tech 21%

More than 150 industry sectors are targeted by sales representatives.

In that very large data sample we note the top industries are High-tech (21%), Consumer Goods (incl. Retail), Industry and Finance (Banking/Insurance).

HR Directors (25%), CIOs (20%) and CMOs (19%) are the most targeted corporate functions.

A Sidetrade company

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

# emails sent Recipient availability

65%

44%

101%102%101%109%

94%94%

109%101% 102% 101%

44%

65%

Best days for prospecting

We analyse both meeting requests and responses from decision makers. Sales reps in the UK, Benelux and Northern Europe mainly prospect on Mondays and Tuesdays (60% of sales emails sent) and obviously avoid week-ends.

The study of response dates (with regards to the volume of requests) easily helps build a day-by-day availability index for decision makers.

We then note that the top-availability weekdays are Tuesdays to Fridays. Without surprise, decision makers are unavailable on Saturday but come back to their mailbox on Sunday evening.

A Sidetrade company

15%

30%

45%

60%

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

# of words in subject line Open rate

Email subject : length and personalization

While sales reps tend to use 3 to 5 words in their subject lines there is no evidence of impact between subject length and open rate.

Personnalisation of the subject line can have a relative positive impact on open.

While using First Name, question or exclamation marks have zero impact, using the Company name variable still works (+15% on open).

Attempts to make their emails look manually written are pretty tricky techniques: injecting special characters (: / < >) has a negative impact (-11%) but starting the subject in lower case is a trick that works on open rates (+10%).

Company name in subject line

Lower case at the start of subject line

Question (?) in subject line

First Name in subject line

Exclamation mark (!) in subject line

Special characters ; / < > in subject line

+0.9%

+1.8%

+15%

+10%

-11%

-0.4%

A Sidetrade company

Start with Good (morning, evening)

First name in first sentence

Start with Hello

The first sentence (the preview)

Formal start (Dear, Sir, Ms…)

Last name in first sentence

Quote the Job/function in first sentence

Special characters ; / < > in first sentence

Most recipients mailboxes (Outlook, Office360, Google Apps) now show email previews by default. As the first 30-50 characters of the body influence open rates, we have analysed the impact of first sentence on opens.

Showing energy and an informal tone at the start of a first sales email drives a significant impact on open rates.

For buyer personas who do tolerate proximity, starting with a refreshing “Good morning” (+104%) or “Hello John” (+86%) make decision makers click. “Dear Mr Doe” thus damages open rates on average.

+104%

-46%

+86%

+20%

-25%

-12%

-10%

A Sidetrade company

Impact of the body on responses

Most of these sales emails are meeting requests. Once the recipient opens the email we consider this is the message body that directly impacts the response rate and meeting acceptance.

Body length has a slight impact on responses. Original content works best, either with very short messages (less than 50 words) which creates curiosity, or with pretty long messages (> 200 words) which leverage the reciprocity principle.

While we might avoid quoting the job or function of the recipient in the first sentence/preview (-12% on open), using it later in the body drive responses (+27%).

Even if some sales reps hesitate in asking straight for a meeting or conversation, data shows a positive impact on responses (+18%).

[0-50] [50-100] [100-150] [150-200] [200-250]

Sent emails by sizeResponse rate

19%

15%13%14%

17%17%14% 13%

15%

19%

Number of words in the message body >>

Quote the Job/function in the body

Ask for a meeting (5 mins, 15 mins…)

Use Company Name in the body

First Name in the body (not preview)

Special characters ; / < > in body

Thank (thanks, in advance…)

+27%

-21%

+18%

+1%

-11%

-16%

A Sidetrade company

In the first part of this study we have focused on the first sales emails sent to a decision maker. Normally sales people send multiple follow-up emails to obtain a meeting. The ones automating follow-up emails with automated outreach scenarios* send 5.1 emails on average.

Data shows that our potential to get a response with the 4th or 5th emails doesn’t drop significantly.

The strength of following up

* IKO System offers such a solution.

email #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 follow-up #7

18%

14%12% 13%

10%

27%

17%

Response rate depending on email position in scenario

13% chance to have a response on 4th follow-up

A Sidetrade company

When decision makers accept meetings

On average, email scenarios reach 69% of decision makers (i.e. they read at least one sales request). Among the readers, 28% give a response to the messages sent by sales reps.

31% of responses are positive (i.e. accept the meeting request).

Email position in the scenario >>email #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 follow-up #7

40% 38%42%

27% 27%

37%

20%

Positive response rateSimple maths: out of 100 leads engaged in a sales scenario, 6% accept the meeting request.

Data shows that responses roughly keep being positive despite the pressure induced by follow-ups.

A Sidetrade company

We all react differently to prospecting. Buyer Personas condition the various psychological profiles.

Even if company size matters (i.e leads in SMB companies respond 40% better than the ones in large companies), the ranking of responsiveness across personas keeps being pretty consistent: VPs of Sales, CMOs, CFOs or CEOs respond better than CIOs or HR Directors.

Each persona responds differently

VP of Sales

CMO

CFO

CEO-COO

BU Management

HR Director

CIO-CTO

Average 28,0%

21,0%

29,0%

30,0%

19,0%

22,0%

22,0%

30,0%

69,0%

54,0%

58,0%

58,0%

72,0%

58,0%

67,0%

72,0%

Open rate (scenario) Response rate (scenario)

20%

40%

60%

80%

Open rate Response rate Positive responses

Large companies SMBs (<500)vs

+27%

+5% +75%

(over responses)

A Sidetrade company

The most responsive industries

There are also some minor gaps in responsiveness depending on the industry sector of the decision makers.

The most responsive industries are the Legal Services (where 25% of leads respond), Corporate Services (Training, PR, Marketing agencies…) or Government agencies, while Transportation or Consumer Goods are among the toughest industries to prospect.

The data underlines that the Public sector (despite being famously feared by sales developers) appear as a great opportunity for email prospecting.

Legal

Corporate

Government

Service

Construction

Medical

High Tech

Manufacturing

Finance 29%

29%

23%

30%

26%

33%

37%

30%

37%

54%

56%

70%

56%

73%

57%

54%

69%

67%

Open rate (scenario) Response rate (scenario)

We predict and automate outreach to your decision makers. In one click.

For more detailed statistics or share experiences on your ta rge t buyer persona , se t an appointment with us.

www.iko-system.com

Study conducted by:Fabian FooIKO System (Sidetrade Group)fabian@iko-system.com

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