How to Create the Perfect Sales Cadence to Convert Your Prospects

Perfecting your sales cadence - the schedule of actions you take, contacts you make and communication methods you use to nurture leads and close deals - will make a big contribution to your lead conversion rate and revenue generation for your business.

Considering just how important this could be to your overall performance and financial results, it's worth investing sufficient time and effort into constantly improving your sales cadence and monitoring the results it's delivering.

So what are the key goals you should be working towards to step up your performance on this front?

1. Do your research and understand your audience

Thorough research and preparation are essential if you want to optimize your sales cadence and avoid wasting time and resources on practices that don't deliver results.

When you receive leads from the marketing department, resist the temptation to jump straight into contacting them without laying the groundwork. Some of the crucial pieces of information you should know about particular contacts before reaching out to them include:

• Their biggest pain points and concerns
• Key trends and changes that have occurred in their market recently
• What the competitive landscape looks like in their sector

Armed with this knowledge, you'll be in a much better position to tailor your communications for maximum relevance and impact, which will help you generate the best possible results from your sales cadence.

One particularly useful insight you can achieve by building up a strong understanding of your target audience is the forms of communication that work best for them. While your sales cadence is likely to include a range of channels - from phone calls and voicemails to emails and social media messages - knowing which ones give you the best chance of engagement will help you decide where to focus your efforts.

2. Perfect your timing

Timing - specifically in terms of when you contact your prospects and the amount of time you leave between communications - is a crucial factor in the success of your sales workflow and your lead conversion rate.

It's a delicate balancing act. Contact people too frequently and you risk annoying them and putting them off your business for good, but leave it too long and they might forget all about you.

One of the most useful tools you can make available to your sales team is a clear, documented sales cadence that outlines which method of communication should be used at what time.

For inbound sales opportunities - where a contact has already expressed some sort of interest in your product or service - your schedule might look something like this:

• Day one: Reach out on social media (by sending a LinkedIn connection request, for example) and follow up with a phone call
• Day two: If you didn't get a response to your first call, try calling again, and this time follow it up with a personalized email
• Day five: Send a follow-up email going into more detail about the customer's pain points and priorities, and how you can help them in these areas
• Day eight: Call the prospect and leave a message or email if you can't get through
• Days 11-15: Send two more follow-up emails going into more detail about the value of your product or service, potentially with supporting information such as case studies or testimonials from past clients
• Day 21: Make one final effort to call the contact, and if that fails, send an email reminding them of how you can provide solutions to their challenges, and leave the door open for them to contact you in the future

Outbound sales - where you're focusing on colder leads - will require a more gradual and patient approach, with more emails and social media communications before you attempt a phone call. It's also likely to comprise fewer touchpoints over a longer period of time.

3. Support your communications with good content

Your sales cadence isn't just about frequency of communication and the channels you use to contact leads; the content you provide is crucial as well.

It's important to think carefully about the types of content that will prove most relevant and engaging for particular prospects, and how you can present it to increase the likelihood that it will be seen and used.

In the early stages of your communication cycle, which are likely to involve a lot of email and social media engagement, you might want to consider tactics such as sending an ebook you've created that explores a common issue in the prospect's industry, or sharing links to articles they're likely to find interesting and informative.

4. Measure results to identify best practices

Like any big business investment or new marketing initiative, your sales cadence should be the focus of regular monitoring and measurement. This will help you gauge which elements are working, where you need to make immediate changes and where you have scope to experiment and try new things to optimize your results.

A key part of this process is focusing on relevant metrics, such as:

• The average number of 'touches' required before you get an initial response
• How many touches it usually takes before you can move on to a prospecting call and eventually close the sale
• Email open and click-through rates
• The percentage of prospects that convert into customers

By taking a consistent, structured approach to collecting and analyzing this data, you can ensure your sales cadence is constantly evolving and your team have the information they need to develop and thrive.