How to book more sales meetings with prospects

January 29, 2021
X
min.

Pave your way to booking more sales meetings with a few simple B2B outbound hacks. From warming up your leads to winning back the ones you thought were lost, these six strategies are super easy to set and follow.

Have you tried to book sales meetings and calls with leads without scheduling apps?

I have! It's how hell looks like. 😡

You spend time grabbing the prospect's attention, receive a reply and you can smell the celebration time coming. 🎉

But...

This tends to happen when you're not using scheduling apps.

Book more sales meetings

To avoid situations like this one (when you fail to book a meeting), people (including me 🇺🇦) usually use scheduling tools.

And that's why we're gathered here today. To share the best growth hacks & tactics you can use to book more sales calls and meetings.

1, 2, 3, let's crack it wide open! 🤘

#1: How to book 1,5x more calls using scheduling tools

To test this strategy I'm going to use Calendly.

Why Calendly?

Its popularity, confirmed by sales experts in our lemlist family community who voted it as #1 scheduling tool.

What appointment software to choose

It looks quite obvious, but I still wanted to test it and be sure.

Using Calendly in my cold emails vs. no scheduling tool whatsoever.

I took this email template from our Cold Email Hub, kept all things the same, except one thing.

The way people book meetings and calls.

Version 1:

Book more sales meetings in cold emails

Version 2:

appointment tool in cold emails

Results:

Version 1 scored 12, whereas version 2 scheduled 19 meetings during a week.

It's more than 1.5x times higher!

Conclusion?

It's just easier to do it with Calendly.

Prospects don't have to figure out time zones on their own, there's no going back and forth with emails, etc.

If you're not using Calendly (or similar apps) in your cold emails, think again.

#2: How to get 3x more calls and meetings by personalizing your outreach

Land-3x-more-meetings

Continuing on from my A/B test above, it's fair to say that a Calendly link can't get calls on its own.

You need to make your email count and motivate prospects to talk to you.

Three words are all I need to explain how I did it.

P-E-R-S-O-N-A-L-I-Z-E-D landing pages.

Like this one, for example...

Generate more sales calls

I recorded a quick video and combined it with lemlist's dynamic landing page feature. This strategy is called personalized video thumbnail and it's superb for scheduling more meetings.

It got me a 56% reply rate!

I'm gonna explain how to set it up step by step.

How to embed youtube video in a lemlist email:

Make sure to follow carefully, start your free trial account and let it roll. You will be amazed, I guarantee you that. Plus, it's free to test it out.

  • Step 1: Create a video and upload it to Youtube

If you want to show this video to leads in your campaign only and not have it on your YouTube channel, just choose “unlisted".

  • Step 2: Copy the video link in lemlist after clicking “Insert video button”

Once you start writing your cold email, you'll see this option in the editor.

video embed in a cold email
  • Step 3: Customize the landing page to your liking

Prospect's logo, colors, personalized text... do you. For example, if you write “Hello {{firstName}}”, lemlist will automatically put the recipient’s first name.

video personalization lemlist
  • Step 4: Add your Calendly URL below
calendly lemlist
Bonus - You can show a custom pop-up message (in chat) once the person is done watching your video

In order to do this, create an account at lemtalk and copy the “Your Application Id (appId)”.

cold email campaign

Once you take care of all that, your leads will see a pop-up like this one in the bottom right corner...

The end result is a tailor-made cold email + dynamic landing page... and both are updated automatically for each prospect.

For inspiration: Choose one of our inspirational cold email templates

Results?

I've booked 39 new meetings in one week.

book sales calls from cold emails

#3: How to warm-up your leads with facebook retargeting

Warm up your aduience

Email outreach is not a game of just numbers. You can't send billions of emails and get millions of clients.

Time has changed. Segmentation and paying attention to the hottest leads is the new law.

Lemme show you how to reach people who booked a meeting through FB ads, so you can generate more clients from demos.

To use this growth hack, besides Calendly, you'd need a URL shortener tool with FB retargeting (like JotURL, PixelMe, Reactlink, Rebrandly or other). I prefer Pixelme.

Oh, before you ask, you can also retarget people through LinkedIn and Twitter.

Step 1 - Create your "Business account" on Facebook

Have one already? Excellent, skip this step.

Step 2 - Go to Event Manager to create your FB retargeting pixel
Step 3 - Copy the FB pixel id
FB retargeting pixel
Step 4 -  Set up your Pixelme account and copy your Pixel

Go to Settings, add a new FB Pixel, and paste the id.

Pixelme set up
Step 5 - Create a new retargeting link with Pixelme

Choose the FB retargeting pixel to collect those who clicked on your Calendly link.

FB retargeting on calendly

When you fire it up, you can share a new link and start running retargeting ads.

Pixelme calendly

Now, you might ask...

"Why should I use "pxlme.me/jhkvdakhvdskjvkjds" links?"

You can customize them and have "link.yourdomain.com". Discover how to do that here.

Now it's time to place your ads in front of people who clicked on your Calendly URL.

Once you're logged into your Business Manager, you can find the 'Events Manager' in the navigation. Click on your pixel.

Create FB ads

Click 'Create Audience' to start segmenting your users.

FB retargeting ads

In the window that pops up, do the following:

  • Select the option “People who visited specific web pages”. Either select URL -> 'equals' and add the specific links you'd like or choose to select all your pixelme links by pressing URL -> 'contains' and writing 'pxlme.me'
  • Give it a name! Make sure you can recognize it later. For the sake of this post, let's name it 'PixelMe Audience'
  • Click 'Create Audience'
Warm-up audience

Now that you have your PixelMe audience, you can start creating your ultra-targeted ad. All you have to do is select the audience you just created (your 'PixelMe Audience').

In 'Ad set' in the left menu, you have the ability to customize the audience.

If you click on 'Create New' and use the 'Custom Audience' dropdown menu, you should be able to see the list of all your custom audiences. Pick the 'PixelMe Audience'.

Warm up the audience

As a result, your emails will look like this:

Cold email with calendly link

Everyone who clicks on that link will enter your retargeting funnel.

#4: How to warm up your leads by welcoming them with a cool email

calendly zapier

When it comes to "cold email outreach", everything is super clear.

But what if you generate leads from your website? Like this...

Calendly on the website

You need to warm them up and stand out in the crowd.

Why?

Since they visited your website and booked a meeting with you, they might do the same with your competitors.

The tactic I'm about to show you has a noble quest. Send a "welcome" email with your best content.

Of course, your leads will get an email from Calendly, but it's a generic message with "If you want to cancel or reschedule - click here".

But you and I, we want to stand out because we're willing to go the extra mile and deliver VALUE.

Welcome email

How to set it up?

  • Step 1: Create a campaign in lemlist

Again, if you're not a user, sign up for a free trial and test this hack at zero cost.

Here are some more cold email templates to inspire you.

  • Step 2: Go to Zapier and set up an integration between Calendly and lemlist

So that everyone who picks a time will join the lemlist campaign and get a personalized email down the road.

Here's how to get it installed.

Create a new trigger "Invitee created" by Calendly:

Calaneldy integration with Zapier

Add your Calendly API on Calendly Integrations page and put it in Zapier:

Calendly API

When you connect your Calendly, you need to add another step.

"Add a lead to campaign" with lemlist:

lemlist zapier

Customize the data you will send from Calendly to your lemlist campaign.

There are 2 required fields, like email and campaign in lemlist, but my recommendation is to also add additional info.

Like the first name, so you can customize it in a smarter way:

lemlist zapier

When it's done, you'll send "welcome" messages to your new leads and nurture them with your content.

Make sure that content counts and it's tailored to their needs.

#5: How to push leads through your pipeline

add leads to pipedrive

By now you're fully equipped to book more meetings. The next step is to gently push your leads through that pipeline.

I'll show you how to avoid missing leads by just adding them to your CRM.

There are two cases of how you can get a new lead:

  1. outbound cold outreach
  2. website or by directly sending a Calendly URL

When you're doing a cold outreach campaign and add a Calendly link, you need to stop your follow-ups IF they booked a call.

We'll use Zapier to be sure.

sales automation workflow

Here's how to set it up:

Step 1: Go to Zapier and choose a trigger "Invitee created in Calendly"

This means Zapier will work for those who picked a slot on your Calendly.

sales automation workflow

If you didn't use Calendly and Zapier together, you'll need to put an API key from Calendly to Zapier.

Just log in to Calendly and go to "Integrations":

Calendly API

Step 2: Stop a campaign for a specific person

Skip this step if you're making an integration for inbound leads.

To do that, we pick lemlist and choose "Stop emailing a Buddy-to-be in a campaign"

Stop campaign lemlist

Step 3: Define the fields "email" and "campaign" to exclude people

It's super easy to do:

  1. Choose the email that came from Calendly
  2. Select the name of your lemlist campaign
sales automation workflow

If you haven't connected Zapier and lemlist before, Zapier will ask you to connect your lemlist account.

In order to find your "login and password for Zapier", go to lemlist --> settings --> integrations --> scroll down to "Zapier".

lemlist zapier

Step 4: Create a new person & new deal in Pipedrive

Pick "Pipedrive" and the new action is "Create Person"...

Pipedrive integration

Step 5: Choose custom variables that will be added to your Pipedrive record

  1. Name (from Calendly)
  2. Email (from Calendly as well)
Pipedrive zapier integration

Step 6: Create a deal in Pipedrive with the person you created in the previous step

Pipedrive zapier integration

Again, if you didn't use Zapier and Pipedrive, just allow access to your Pipedrive account.

Pipedrive zapier integration

The end result is this amazing workflow.

Pipedrive zapier integration

Everyone who books a meeting or call with you will be added to Pipedrive automatically. No need to worry about wrong people getting emails anymore.

#6: How to send follow-ups after sales meetings and calls

It's impossible to sell the product right after the first call. Remember, you're selling the next step.

It might be:

  • discovery call
  • trial of your product
  • anything else

So right after a call, you need to send a follow-up email that sells the next step.

Alfie from Spendesk once said on our webinar:

"Don't sell the whole product, sell the next step"

I'll show you how to automate the process of "selling the next step".

This example will is for Pipedrive users since it's one of the most popular CRM platforms if you ask sales experts.

What-is-the-most-popular-CRM--1 (3) (1)

This example will be for product companies, but you can adapt it to your needs.

The whole idea is:

  1. You fill important fields in your CRM during a call
  2. Connect your CRM and lemlist
  3. Create a campaign with those important fields in your email
  4. It works automatically

Here's a quick example of how the email would look.

cold outreach campaign
Step 1 - Create the fields you'll use in your emails

In the case of Pipedrive, just go to Settings -> Data fields -> Person -> Add custom field.

Choose "Autocomplete" type of the field.

pipedrive lemlist integration

IMPORTANT:

You also need to create one custom field for Pipedrive <> lemlist integration, in our case it's "Demo" and choose "Autocomplete" type of the field:

pipedrive lemlist integration

Create a filter based on this "Demo" field, so you will send emails to this group of people only.

Come back to "Contacts" to create a new filter. Click on "Your name" -> "Add new filter".

pipedrive lemlist integration

And create a filter like:

  • if field "Demo" is "yes" then mark as filtered
pipedrive lemlist integration
Step 2 - Go to lemlist to make an integration:

Go to lemlist --> Settings --> Integrations --> connect Pipedrive CRM.

pipedrive lemlist integration
Step 3 - Create your campaign

As the lead source, look at "from  Pipedrive" and choose the name of the filter.

pipedrive lemlist integration

Create an email you'll send those people automatically.

Best pipedrive integrations - lemlist

It's always a good idea to add smart follow-ups, because sometimes people forget to reply to the first email.

When in "Options" stage in lemlist, put a mark on "Review automatically new Buddy-to-Be inserted in the Buddy-to-Be list".

Best pipedrive integrations - lemlist

By doing so, you're ensuring all emails are sent automatically, without you having to review them manually.

When it's done, you can fill the data into Pipedrive during a call. And after the call just put "yes" next to "Demo" field, and lemlist will automatically send an email campaign:

Best pipedrive integrations - lemlist

Bottom line

Now you know how to generate a lot more qualified leads and ultimately convert them as clients by using these great tactics and strategies for booking more meetings.

Hope you liked this article and we'd appreciate if you could spread the word by sharing it... 007 style.

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