How Sales Email Tracking Can Boost Your Pipeline
Let’s use a quick example to introduce the relevance of email tracking. So you just finished preparing your email, or maybe it was an email campaign for several clients. You give your email one final read and are satisfied with the result. You click on “Send”. Now what?
Well, now you play the waiting game. That game is never fun, especially when you spent time and effort on your email or when you thought your sales meeting had gone well and you had a real shot at gaining a new client. It could take days for your client to read your email, or they may never even read it. There’s no way to know. Or is there?
Waiting for an answer is frustrating, but you don’t have to do it with your arms crossed. There’s something you can do about it: tracking your emails.
Email tracking can change the way you see email communications in general. It can open many doors you didn’t know existed. In a nutshell, it can become a powerful ally that brings you efficiency and value to your interactions with your prospects and clients. Let’s discuss why you should start tracking emails.
What is sales email tracking?
Before we dive deep into the benefits of tracking emails, let’s first review what it means. You already know part of the answer just by the definition of the words. Email tracking implies following an email you send and track specific information related to that email. It’s a little like sending a certified letter and requesting a notification when the recipient receives it.
The information you can track is what makes email tracking so powerful. You can essentially:
- Know which clients open your email and at when
- See how much time each client spends on your email
- Learn the location of your prospects if you didn’t already know it
- Know whether or not they click on links and open attachments
- Receive a notification when a client opens your email
- See how your clients interacted with your attached sales content
Email tracking allows you to see who opens your emails and how they interact with them. If your tacking tool includes a video of what the recipient does with your email, you could even see how the recipient interacts with your sales content. E.g. which numbers they entered in your ROI calculator and what result they got. That can give you an indication of how your client thinks your product can help them.
With this video recording feature, the email tracking tool will record your client’s screen, showing you precisely what they did with your email, which attachments they opened, where they clicked, etc. It will be like you were sitting beside your prospect when they opened the email.
All these possibilities give tremendous insights into your client’s business and how they might need your product. Now, we’ll have a look at the benefits for you and your company.
Why you should start tracking emails now
Become more efficient
Instead of waiting endlessly to get an answer from your prospects, email tracking lets you quickly know who reads your email. As we saw before, you can uncover a lot more information that helps you take the necessary actions.
If your prospect has not read your email, it may be worth following up to try to catch their interest in another way. If you have already sent several emails and they never opened any of them, it’s a sign that you should focus on other prospects that have more interest in becoming clients.
When your prospects read your emails and the attachments or links you provide, it’s a sign they’re interested. You can send follow-ups with additional information they might need based on what you know they read.
If you want to be very proactive, you can set your tracking tool to receive a notification when your prospect opens your email and plan to send your follow-up immediately after. That way, you are sure to catch them at a good time, and the content of your first email will still be fresh in their mind, making them more receptive to your second email.
An email tracking tool will make you gain efficiency quickly. You can know whether your prospects are interested in your product, and you can often know why. That will let you keep the conversation rich and relevant.
Know what your clients read
When you send out communications and material, it’s convenient to know what your clients read. It tells you what they find interesting or relevant. It also lets you know what you need to cover during a meeting. If they open a support document, you can reasonably assume they read the background information and might not need a lengthy recap when you meet.
You can also gauge interest. When a prospect opens a proposal or document several times, it usually indicates they are considering or studying your offer seriously.
Keep track of your clients
Like many companies, you might have several clients, and even more prospects, on board. Keeping track of all those individuals and their companies can become quite a challenge.
Sales enablement tools allow you to create a basic profile of all your leads or people to whom you send your communications. That will enable you to identify your clients and access information about them quickly, and gather general statistics about their interactions with your content. You can also add notes and reminders to help you manage your communications strategy with specific clients.
Have a more meaningful conversation
If you want to increase your sales, communicating with prospects has to go beyond sending brochures and documents. You need to know which documents your prospects need or want to see. One way to do this is to track your emails and see how your recipients interact with them. Seeing this on a video recording of their screen is even better as it gives you an insight into your prospects’ business and thought process.
With video, you can see what your prospects do and look for, and also what they may want to know next. It gives you an indication of what supporting documentation or information they need. You can then send more relevant documents and follow-up emails. This leads to richer and more meaningful conversations that have better odds of ending with a sale.
Keep your email list updated
Having a long list of prospects is impressive, but it’s only useful if they are receptive to what you send them. If they are not, it’s better not to waste your time and energy on unresponsive contacts and focus on others instead.
Tracking emails tells you precisely who reads your content and how much time they spend on it. If a prospect never reads what you send, you can assume they are not interested and you should stop contacting them.
If you want, you can ask them directly with a simple “Yes” or “No” question before removing them permanently off your list. If they answer “No” or don’t answer at all, it’s time to shed that extra weight and take them off your list. You will gain efficiency and stop wasting time on leads that go nowhere.
Remember you don’t have to take action
Before moving on to the final points, it’s important to mention that you don’t necessarily have to do anything with the information you get. Sometimes, knowing is all you need. You can gauge what your clients need, and it’s perfectly normal if all they need is time to think.
Tracking emails is about giving you information, not telling you what to do with it. What you do with that information depends on what your clients need, if they need anything at all.
Privacy and email tracking
Setting up an email tracking tool requires defining robust privacy guidelines. It provides information that could be sensitive to some clients, especially if you get a video recording of their interaction with your email, attachments, and website.
As a company, you want your prospects to see you as a trusted partner. The relationship has to start on the right foot, including respecting their privacy when you track their emails. You should do it openly and without surprises. Make sure your email tracking provider is GDPR compliant.
How to track emails
This is the easy part. Most email tracking tools require nothing more than installing what is essentially a plugin. And once that’s done, you can choose the emails you want to track, typically simply by checking a box.
It’s that easy! There’s no more to it.
Track emails and get an edge that makes a difference
As we saw, email tracking can make a tremendous difference by providing useful insights into your prospects’ needs. Opting for an option that gives you a video of how your prospects interact with your sales material is even better.
There’s no question that the market is competitive. It’s essential to use all the tools you can to make your product stand out. Video email tracking is certainly up there as one of the most useful solutions for understanding what happens after sending your emails. It provides a unique view of what they look for, what they enter in an ROI calculator, or what they expect from your product.
Consider leveraging this unique tool to grow your business and bring value to your professional interactions with your prospects and clients.
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