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The concept of multi-touch sales development has been around for a long time. It primarily refers to the idea that multiple “touches” (contacts via email, phone, video, text, and social) will ultimately result in more sales opportunities.
“Cadence” refers to the number, sequence, and timing of various touches. Maintaining this cadence manually is virtually impossible and would require far too much of a sales person’s time.
Multi-touch sales cadence software makes it much easier to develop an effective multi-touch sales development rep (SDR) cadence. The email sequence software that includes email automation is an effective way to employ the sales cadence concept for sales prospecting, leading to better sales engagements across the board.
It takes more attempts than most people think to convert a contact into a sales prospect. It can take 10 or more touches to actually talk to a prospect for the first time. Phone dialers and data enrichment tools can make the process easier and lead to sales prospecting and more sales engagements.
The Importance of a Multi-Touch Sales Cadence
If multiple touches are one of the keys to sales success, then the cadence of those touches is critical. Contacts need to be touched on a regular basis in a multitude of ways. Your sales reps and sales teams can be more effective when there are multiple touches happening automatically while they are busy closing business.
Whether you are selling a product or service, your sales team needs more prospects every day. They cannot rest on their laurels, but must be constantly employing multi-touch cadences that leverage email sequence software and email automation for sales prospecting that lead to more sales engagements.
Components of a Multi-Touch Cadence
The concept of a multi-touch cadence has evolved into a very sophisticated and automatic way of generating more touches. Sales prospecting and sales engagement tools include the following components:
1.Telephone
The old idea of multiple sales reps sitting in a bull pen pounding out calls has been replaced with new dialing processes. There are sales dialing tools available that can lead to dramatic efficiencies in the sales process2. Email
Using email automation programs, sales teams can set up auto response emails timed to touch prospects on a regular basis and as automatic replies and responses to frequently asked questions. Email sequence software makes it easy to generate the right emails at the right point in the sales process.
3. Internet and Social Media
Nearly everyone in the world is now connected via the internet and many people have replaced watching TV with interacting with others via social media. Multi-touch cadence tools make it easy to automatically reach out to prospects via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others.
4.Texting
Texting is now a way of life for tech savvy prospects. Your sales team can automate their texting follow-ups to include attachments of sales materials and other information relevant to the specific suspect or prospects. The email sequence software can also be used to automate the cadence of the texting process.
5. Chatting
Chat lines deployed with your website is a great way to touch live, active prospects. All the text from these conversations can be automatically recorded and forwarded to sales reps for follow up.
Prospects Respond to Different Forms of Contact
Because people are all different and seek information about items they want or need, it is your role as a sales professional to provide your prospective customers with many different ways of learning about your products and services. This concept of providing different forms of contact is called multi-touch sales development. Sales people all develop different types of cadences. Some may use phones as their primary way of engaging prospects while others may use email sequence software. However, as they conduct their sales engagement, the messages and approaches must vary depending on the type of products and services being sold, the types of customers they are targeting and the cost of the products and services being sold. A high priced item to a highly educated target requires an entirely different approach than selling popcorn at the movie theater.
