Episode 211: Jed Mahrle – Mastering Email Outreach: Strategies for Building Trust and Driving Engagement

Jed Mahrle  00:02

Making Sales Social to me is Earning trust with people before I even talk to them through my content and through what I’m sharing on social so that when I do reach out to them, you know to book an appointment for example, there’s already that level of trust through my content through what I’ve done on social.

Intro  00:19

Welcome to the Making Sales Social Podcast featuring the Top Voices in Sales, Marketing, and Business. Join Brynne Tillman and me, Bob Woods, as we each bring you the best tips and strategies our guests are teaching their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show!

Brynne Tillman  00:44

Welcome back to making sales social today. We have a special treat. We have Jed Mahrle joining us from Mailshake. He is also the creator of the practical prospecting newsletter jed.substack.com. He’s going to talk to us today a little bit about how to make emails more engaging and how to get better responses, as well as how you leverage email, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and maybe even some other tools, as we’ll see, in order to make sure that we are booking more appointments. Jed, Welcome to the program.

Jed Mahrle  01:23

Yeah. Thanks, Brynne. Excited to be on.

Brynne Tillman  01:25

Yeah, we’re excited to have you. Before we get started, we ask all of our guests, What does Making Sales Social Mean to you? 

Jed Mahrle  01:33

Yeah, So I think for me, particularly because I sell to a sales and marketing audience because I create content on LinkedIn around what my product solves, which is called email. Making
Sales Social to me is earning trust with people before I even talk to them through my content and through what I’m sharing on social so that when I do reach out to them, you know, to book an appointment, for example, there’s already that level of trust through my content through what I’ve done on social.

Brynne Tillman  01:59

Oh, I love that. Alright, so we’re gonna kind of feel that part as we go through some of the questions, but I’m gonna start on the email side. I live to die by social selling, but my email list really is a huge part of my conversion. So often, I think about LinkedIn. Well, I think about it in a lot of ways. But if I can get folks to opt in to the email list, I have a little bit more control over it. And there’s an expectation of automation on email that is acceptable that’s not on LinkedIn. 

So to kind of talk about some of what’s going on in the email, email environment today. So I’m gonna start with. We have this influx of AI. Yeah, so much automation is happening. Some of it tries to pretend that it’s personalized, and often it falls short. So talk about how we are standing out today? How do our emails really show up? And do we want to personalize it more? Or is it worth going the AI route?

Jed Mahrle  03:07

Yeah. And so I’ve been testing all of this for the last few years, particularly a lot, the AI stuff recently, and I think AI is great, but it’s only going to get you so far. And so the way to really stand out in my opinion right now is by using relevance in your emails, and I’ll kind of dive into that a little bit deeper. So for example, identifying common buying triggers with your buyers based on, for example, sales, navigator filters. 

So a good example of this might be using a Sales Navigator filter that shows people who recently changed jobs for people who recently got promoted, you can use that as a relevant trigger and use that in the intro of your email, kind of referencing the fact that “Hey, like, maybe you’re a sales manager, now you’re the director of sales, use that as kind of your icebreaker intro, and then a quick email kind of relating to your value prop.” And so that’s the biggest key differentiator, in my opinion, is like leading with relevance. 

So that first line, the preview line that they’re going to see before even opening, that email has something personal about them. So you just got promoted. And so you just joined this company, I saw you guys just hired or are hiring for XYZ position, lead with that, and then go into what your solution solves. And then obviously, make your ask. But that’s really the biggest differentiator and that doesn’t require AI and doesn’t require a lot of work, researching for, you know, 10s or hours, on LinkedIn profiles, it’s pretty easy to kind of write that up and send it out.

Brynne Tillman  04:28

Interesting. So like in social selling, if we pitched that soon, we’d get blocked but you’re seeing in the email side of things, that having an ask in the first cold email is effective.

Jed Mahrle  04:43

Yes. Except my ask isn’t like for example, it’s not for time, it’s not for sale. It’s not anything like that. My advice is just to send more information. So I’ll find a vine trigger, and I’ll make an assumption. “Hey, I saw you just got promoted to this position.”, “Have you considered for example, we’re a cold email solution.”, “Have you considered the new Matt pitch for increasing response rate and cold email?” 

“I have a few ideas that might be helpful for you.” “Do you mind if I share them?” That might be one of my emails, Right? And so it’s a really low friction, ask because I’m just trying to provide value upfront. I saw this buying trigger. You know, in theory, if you say yes, I’ll send you some helpful information. And then I’ll potentially ask for time after that.

Brynne Tillman  05:20

So one of the things you said that I really, really, really love is permission to send content permission to send invites. This is a huge piece of our philosophy. But talk to me a little bit about the success you see asking permission versus just sending content.

Jed Mahrle  05:39

Yeah, it’s, uh, everybody gets sent content. I’m on like, 20, email lists, I don’t even know how I got on them. Right. And so I never open those, they’re kind of there. I’m always unsubscribing to those lists. And so it’s really, it’s kind of a pattern interrupt, in a sense, because not many people are doing it that way. And then once you get their permission, it’s really easy to convert those leads at that point, because you’ve already started the conversation. But the key is asking for permission to send something relevant.

And so going back to those buying triggers I mentioned, for example, let’s say the buying trigger that is identified is that they’re hiring for a certain position, I can say, “Hey, do you mind if I send some resources on how those XYZ new people you hired can potentially ramp faster in their new roles?” So you want to send them relevant information, ask for permission to send something relevant. And that’s kind of the key to actually getting that permission. But yeah, and anything I do, particularly cold email-related permission is a key piece to it.

Brynne Tillman  06:32

I think that’s critical. And I think it’s earning the right and they don’t feel spammed, and there’s so many good things around that. often will say, I’m not sure if you’re exploring this, but if you are, what do you think of that as a line? 

Jed Mahrle  06:47

Oh, not sure if you’re exploring this? Is that what the Yeah, So.

Brynne Tillman  06:50

Instead of saying, “Can I send this to you,” I might say, “Hey, I’m not sure if you’re exploring new ways to do XY and Z.” But if you are, I have a blog post on ebook. Happiness.

Jed Mahrle  07:03

I love it because I think it does two things. First, I think it kind of creates FOMO. And a sense, like fear of missing out because they’re like, “No, actually, I haven’t let me learn more about this.” And that’s the way you should be reaching out to people with a level of expertise and trying to share new knowledge. So I think it kind of creates that curiosity factor. But I also like having, I guess, you call them unsure tones in your outreach. 

Because when you sound too competent to matter of fact, I know that’s kind of common sales practice that you just have to be confident, you’re 100% Sure you can help them. That’s not really believable, and it turns people off. And so if you can show that you’re kind of human, you’re not 100% sure that what you’re selling is for them, it kind of gets them to open up and it breaks down that barrier. So I love that line. That’s great.

Brynne Tillman  07:42

Good, because I’m using but you know, you’re the expert here. So it makes me happy that it works for you. So, I’ve heard it’s the subject line that is the key to opening in open rates. Talk to you. Now, you already mentioned a few things around, if you’re so you had a new job or something very specific. But if you’re doing, let’s say you have an email list that you’re sending out to, and so you’re not as personal as you’d like to be. Talk to me about open subject lines and openers that get people to actually want to read.

Jed Mahrle  08:21

Yeah, so I think the easiest way for anybody listening to do this is go in your inbox and think about the last five to 10 emails you actually opened and what was common about those emails, right? And typically, what I try to do is avoid the email that looks like they’re coming from a marketing list, because they tend to have a lot of exclamation points, emojis, big, bold letters, and they’re looking, they’re kind of flashy, Right? 

But the emails you do look open are the ones that kind of look like internal emails once they came from a colleague. And so I try to write in that way, where it’s, maybe the whole subject line is lowercase, for example, it’s kind of casual boring words is what I tried to do, because I tried to have a pattern interrupt that almost makes it look like it was an internal email. So an example, let’s say you’re sending an email list. 

Again, I’ll use my company’s example, where we help with cold emails and increasing reply rates. My subject line might just be three words, increase reply rates, and it’s all lowercase. So it looks super casual, you know, people are interested, I do want to increase my reply rates and openness. So I guess in terms of a few bullet points of tips, don’t make them flashy, lowercase, or just casual, almost boring language if you will.

I tried to do one to three words max, so that preview text can still be visible before they open the email. And then just try to take whatever your email is about and distill that into a few words. Like in my example, increased reply rates. And so that’s generally the rules I follow when it comes to the subject.

Brynne Tillman  09:49

What is your preview text be? What’s the next line that they see that would also help to increase opening? 

Jed Mahrle  09:58

Yeah, so if we’re doing an example where or it’s not personalized. And I’m not using that, like those mind triggers I was talking about before, I like to lead with a problem. So increasing reply rates is the subject line. My opener might be have you ever run into issues where your emails are going into spam a lot? 

Or do you ever run into issues where your cold email campaign doesn’t have the reply rates you were looking for. And so something that’s relevant to a problem that they can relate to, to get them to open it and see what the solution is or what the offer isn’t making?

Brynne Tillman  10:29

You know, I love that I love love, love more than an email, even when we talk about building out LinkedIn messaging, or even your profile, when you start with the challenge when you capture them with the challenge they’re going to lean in. So and it’s funny, we don’t do that in our preview text, we just go one step deeper of the positive. And so that’s my mic drop takeaway from my preview text moving forward. It’s dropped the challenge. Yeah. So many more people will look at how to solve a problem and how to just have a nice day. Right?

Jed Mahrle  11:09

Yeah, 100%. And like, it comes with knowing your buyers as well. Like, if you’ve done proper research on your email list, and the people you’re reaching out to, you should know their top one to three challenges. And if you can, particularly worded in a way that they would talk about their challenges, then you’re kind of, it’s good, Right? Like you want to put it in their language, you want to lead with challenges that are relevant to them, and you’ll get pretty high open rates.

Brynne Tillman  11:34

Awesome. So often, when I’m talking with folks, their biggest challenge, although open rate is a challenge, their even bigger challenge is conversion. Right? They opened it. Maybe they clicked on something, maybe they didn’t, then we can measure it. But what creates that, what’s the CTA the call to action that actually creates the click that gets them to take it to the next step?

Jed Mahrle  12:05

Yeah, so we just covered subject lines, right, and then we covered the first line. So let me just kind of break down how I think about an email in whole. So we’ve got, 

Brynne Tillman  12:13

Perfect.

Jed Mahrle  12:14

Yeah, you’ve got the opening line, you have two choices for your opening line, it’s leading with a, I guess, generic challenge that you know they can relate with, or something relevant based on those buying triggers we talked about before. And then your next line is kind of giving them a sneak peek into how you might solve that problem. So I like to do this with social proof. 

So for example, let’s say you sell to agency customers, you know, the second line after Do you ever run into emails going to spam? It could be, recently helping so and so agency customers, where we’ve helped over 100 agency customers, reduce their spam rate through a couple of simple methods, Right? 

You’re not really giving away all the secret sauce, if you will, you’re just kind of peeking their curiosity. And then the call to action is, again, that permission mind if I share some information on what that looks like, or mine if I share a quick one-minute video to explain more? Or would you be open to learning more. 

So just an interest-based or an information-based call to action, after you create a little bit of curiosity with some social proof as well. And that whole email should really only be three sentences. And that’s perfect, because nobody really wants to read a long email. We all know this. And if you keep it really short like that, you’ll get them to read through and hopefully take action.

Brynne Tillman  13:18

So that’s awesome. Let’s look when you’re working with a client, they’re probably coming to you to say, and they have the wrong goal of the email. Yeah, Right? They’re probably coming to you. And they say, “I want to schedule more appointments.” Like that’s it, what are the baby steps that get you there? Like, so it’s like, yeah, no, this first email is gonna get you to what that gets you to the scheduled call, like, what is that cadence look like? That’s the word.

Jed Mahrle  13:48

Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s a lot of data on this. And I think there’s a general rule of thumb that, at any given time, your total addressable market, only 3%, are actually in the buying phase where they’re ready to buy something. And so if you send emails with your only goal being to get an appointment, at the very best, you can convert on 3% of them, which isn’t, I mean, yes, it’s good, but it’s not super high. And realistically, you’re never really going to get there anyways. 

And so you have to have much lower friction. So obviously, the first step is getting your emails open. When I do like a multi-email cadence, it’s usually five to six emails, or over the course of two to three weeks. And so it’s really soft asks, and then over time, as they’ve started to open, you make more direct asks for time, but you have to kind of earn their trust by sending resources. So for example, after that first email, they don’t respond. 

Maybe I’ll follow up with something like, Hey, not sure if you saw my last email. But here’s an example of you know, how we helped XYZ agency, increase reply rates, and I’ll provide a helpful resource and so you’re kind of following up with nurture drips of resources, and then maybe if they don’t respond to those first two or three emails, you come with a new challenge, Right? Ideally, you solve a couple different problems for your buying market. 

And so you come with a new email similar to the one we talked about earlier. During this time, you’re focusing on a new challenge and new content to support it. And so in terms of like the end goal, you just want to slowly nurture them with softer asks, and then getting to a more direct ask. And then obviously, you go for that appointment. But my whole goal is just to get replies. Right. And so if I can create curiosity and get a reply, once I’ve started the conversation, I can get the appointment later. I don’t need to get it right away.

Brynne Tillman  15:22

So I think I think that’s right, like we talk a lot about slowing down your outreach to speed up your outcome, like just he said, Right? like, yeah, that you’re not going to make a sale today on that, right? And if you try, you’re gonna lose them. So you’ll never make the sale. So I love that a lot of times when we’re not getting responses on resources actually and I’ve done this specifically to get in touch with one person.

But we’ll put out a poll and ask their opinion on the poll, get their vote on the poll, or I’ll say, Hey, I’m writing an ebook on XY and Z. And I’d love a quote from you, would you be open to jumping on a quick zoom call? We don’t bait and switch it, but we re-engage them. It by really highlighting them as a thought leader? What are your thoughts on that?

Jed Mahrle  16:10

That’s great. Yeah, I mean, like here at Mailshake, for example, we rent and run a podcast as well. So maybe we’ll invite them onto the podcast or, you know, we’ll have them get we sell a product for sales leaders, we might reach out to sales leaders and say, “Hey, do you want to be involved in this next content piece we’re doing?” I think that’s the next step. 

And not a lot of people take it, particularly because it’s a long-term strategy, and people want immediate results. But no, I absolutely love it. And I think just in general, like, going back to what we talked about, at the beginning of the show, what is, being social media sales for you, like, that’s exactly what it’s about, is engaging with people’s content so that when you do reach out, they’re familiar with you. And you’ve kind of built that trust before making your ask.

Brynne Tillman  16:47

So I love that I have a couple of quick more questions before we start to wrap this up. But this has been phenomenal. What you mentioned about earning the right. And I think that that is an absolutely critical piece in any kind of sales and marketing, Right? Like you’ve got to earn the right one of the things that we find is that folks shift salespeople specifically that don’t necessarily have the marketing support.

Will share content they care about, not necessarily content that their buyer wants to consume. So there’s a shift in that, right? And so we have to, in my mind, we have to do some research to find out what they really care about? And where can we bring value? How do you feel when you’re Mailshake? When you’re working with your clients? How do you identify what content their buyers want to download? 

Jed Mahrle  17:39

Yeah, so for me, it’s kind of easy, because I sell to I’m a sales leader, myself, and I sell to other sales leaders. So I know what content I consume, right? But if you’re if you don’t have that luxury, where you are the buyer yourself, and you don’t know what, like you particularly consume. It’s really simple. Like if you’re new to a company, for example, the first thing I would do is go interview your current clients and reach out to them. 

Do you see the economy for your gift card, just to kind of pick your brain for a little bit? Ask them, “Hey, where are they? What are their biggest challenges? Where are they consuming content from? Where do they go to solve these challenges? What communities? Are they hanging out? What people on LinkedIn?” Do they follow whose podcasts they listened to? 

So you want to just do all this market research, essentially, by just reaching out and doing interviews? The best place to start is your current clients. And so that’s exactly what I do. And you’ll learn a lot from that you can even go on. For example, if you work for a software company like I do myself, you can go on your software reviews online, and kind of find a lot of information there as well. So it’s just buyer, buyer research pretty much.

Brynne Tillman  18:37

That’s awesome. Well, and that’s all amazing. And at times you call it social listening, but you’re talking about social listening to that next degree even if it’s not just listening, it’s pure research, I hear you’re gathering those insights, which I think is great. One of the areas we talk about on LinkedIn is don’t just look at what they’re engaging in. 

But take a look at what their client’s industry is doing, who they sell to and what trends are happening in your buyer’s buyer, because they may know a lot about their own industry. But if you can share information about the economic trends and the people they’re selling to, often you stand out more. How do you feel about that? And kind of skipping over their industry and going right into their audience. You know who their audiences are and insights around that.

Jed Mahrle  19:31

I think that’s great. I think for anybody listening to this fraud, most people do not do that. They’re not taking, they’re hardly taking the first step, which is understanding their particular buyer’s industry, but taking it to that next step deeper, I think is going to make you even more stand out even more. I think it’s particularly worthwhile for Mailshake since again, we sell a solution that is for doing cold outreach for doing cold email, things of that nature. 

And so if we can come to them and say like, “Hey, look, I see you sell to, you know, the insurance industry.” Here’s some insights on why insurance pays people to respond to cold emails and what sort of emails they respond to. And if we can provide them that resource, then it’s huge, right? It’s a huge value differentiator. So I love it. And I don’t think enough people do it.

Brynne Tillman  20:09

So okay, that’s great. I really love your position on a lot of this. And, you know, I’m not a big fan of cold outreach on LinkedIn, but on email, it really can have an impact. So you know, we just found out today, because we did our analytics, and you know, we have 30,000 active emails, we have a bigger list, but 30,000 are active every single day. Yet, we’re probably not leveraging the power of what you’re talking about. 

Because I’m so focused in the LinkedIn area, I recognize the gold really can be in this email. In the email. Two more questions. I think I might have said that I only had one more, but now they just keep coming to my head. What do you recommend people do? Alright, so now we’ve got this engagement, I see that people downloaded, you’ve got marketing that does their own drip, but as a salesperson, if you see a lead come in, what is your next recommendation?

Jed Mahrle  21:12

Yeah, like they have downloaded some sort of resource?

Brynne Tillman  21:14

Right.

Jed Mahrle  21:15

Um, yeah. So this is where it’s interesting, right? Because well, you don’t want to necessarily bait and switch them before, but you want to give them a reason to take an appointment. And usually, that reason to take the appointment is to dive deeper into that resource. So I’ll give an example for it. If I send somebody a resource on how to increase their reply rates on cold email, maybe it’s like an email playbook or whatever that we might send them and they downloaded that.

I can say, “Hey, you know, I saw you download this resource.” You know, if you’re open to chatting, we can kind of dive a little bit deeper and share some ways you can actually put those resources into action. And so it’s not just like, Hey, I saw you, on the resource I want to take a meeting with me now, because you just took the first step, it’s giving them a reason to take that meeting. And it’s usually the next step. And whenever that resource was, I love that.

Brynne Tillman  21:59

Okay, last question. And then we’re gonna wrap it up. No, I? Well. My last question is, I have so many last questions. As I’ve taught, I have like 200, top 10 movies. So it’s always how do you leverage Sales Navigator to grow your email list?

Jed Mahrle  22:18

Well, yeah, I think what I love about Sales Navigator is that they keep adding new filters so that you can get really specific in terms of like the type of if you are really in tune with who your buyer is down to, like very specific, company size industry? How long have they been in the role? What type of role are they in, you can very clearly identify the best people for you to go after.

You can create a list and Sales Navigator, then you can start reaching out and creating connections and relationships from there. So that’s how I’m using Sales Navigator, I think it’s the best tool for really drilling down deep in terms of all the filtering, they have to find the perfect buyers for you. And then, starting those relationships on LinkedIn, email, that sort of thing.

Brynne Tillman  22:58

And then at what point do you say, “Hey, opt into my ebook?.”

Jed Mahrle  23:01

That always depends, Right? I like to start with connections on LinkedIn with some sort of personalized, No. And then, if I get some engagement, add them to an email list where I’m sharing helpful resources. And so in terms of opting into this, this list or this ebook that starts with that first email, where I’m saying like, “Hey, would you be? Would you mind if I send some more resources?” And so that usually comes a couple of weeks after connecting on LinkedIn. 

Brynne Tillman  23:25

All right. so I gotta go deeper. Forget my last question. Okay. So what about we have the ability in InMail, to have a signature line? How do you feel about having a download in the signature line? So it doesn’t feel like you’re pushing it in the message, that it’s just the signature?

Jed Mahrle  23:46

I’ve actually never tried that. And now I think I might, I think that’s a really good idea. Because it’s really casual, right? And if you add something in that signature line, because we do that in the signature of our emails, but doing that on LinkedIn is great, because everybody’s so turned off by the pitch slap, if you will. I mean, they don’t want to get a connection and immediate message. But if you give them a reason to click that link on their own in your signature, I think that’s great. And I’m probably gonna start using that.

Brynne Tillman  24:10

Yeah, I helped the email genius. Email idea. Okay, so I know I could go on and on. And this actually completely exceeded my expectations, because I like email, but I never, I’m such a LinkedIn myopically focused person that there’s so much we’re missing and we’re building huge lists, you know, through LinkedIn piece, I’m going to just share a couple of things for building your email list. If you are in creator mode. 

On your profile, there is a call to action button. We have joined our library which is free. It could be sign up for our newsletter. Download it right there. So use your profile to build your email list too. And when you’re asking permission to send, they’re more likely to be okay, with an opt-in page, the gated page versus an ungated page. 

But if you have Sales Navigator, Smart Links is a hub for content. Yeah, you can have an ungated piece at the top, and then the next one down could be gated. So lots of ways to build an email list using LinkedIn and Sales Navigator, and so on another day. But Jed, last question, I promise, what question Did I not ask you that I should have?

Jed Mahrle  25:37

Oh, you asked a lot. Um, I feel like you’ve covered all the bases. I guess, one question is like, will AI because I think a lot of people are concerned about that? Will AI make it so that you can’t really be successful with cold email anymore? If that was a question that you would ask me, I would say no, absolutely not. Because, again, going back to what we talked about, again, at the very beginning of the podcast.

I don’t think AI can replace the kind of more human relationship that you start with on LinkedIn, for example, that then leads into your emails. And that’s how you get people to open most of the time people open emails, not just because of subject lines, preview lines, or whatever. It’s because they see the name, and they trust the name and they build some sort of trust, and that comes through LinkedIn. I don’t think AI can necessarily replace that. So that would be my answer.

Brynne Tillman  26:27

That’s a beautiful answer. I’m so glad. How can people get in touch with you?

Jed Mahrle  26:30

Yeah, I’ll reach out to me on LinkedIn. I have a newsletter as well, the practical prospecting newsletter where I share a lot of this information. But other than that, yeah, just pretty much on LinkedIn.

Brynne Tillman  26:39

Awesome. And it’s jed.substack.com. 

Jed Mahrle  26:43

Yes. 

Brynne Tillman  26:44

And it’s Jed Marley on LinkedIn at Mailshake. Thank you so much. This was fabulous. So yeah, to our listeners when you are out and about don’t forget to make your sales social.

Bob Woods  27:02

Thanks for listening and joining us again. For more special guest instructors bringing you marketing, sales, training, and social selling strategies that will set you will park don’t forget to subscribe to get the latest episodes from the Making Sales Social Podcasts, Leave a review down below. Tell us what you think, what you learned, and what you want to hear from us next. You can also listen to us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play. Visit our website socialsaleslink.com for more information.