How To Use Industry Research to Craft Compelling Pitches

A great sales email is compelling, engaging and elicits a response. Our hopes for every pitch email we send as sales professionals are that our prospect will (from least to most desirable outcome):

1. Not delete it straight away;
2. Open it;
3. Read it; and
4. Act on it.

Considering you have about half a second to capture someone’s attention when they scan their inbox, it’s mission critical to catch their eye right away.

Across the thousands of email exchanges I’ve had in my career, I’ve noticed that high-level executives’ responses are usually short, punchy, all lower-case and to the point. The best replies from your prospects are the one-sentence questions that clearly mean you’ve hit the mark with the correspondence you’ve sent and maybe even struck a nerve by touching on a problem they want to solve.

So, how can you create that two-way engagement?

Hook them early.

And how do you do that?

Make sure your email stands out.

There are plenty of guides out there for crafting the perfect email – one of my favorite sales trainers, John Barrows, even wrote a guide just on email subject lines! I’m going to leave the nitty gritty of A/B testing and open rates to the email marketing experts, and instead focus on the ways you can incorporate industry research early in a sales email to help your message stand out in a prospect’s overflowing inbox.

I wish I could give you a copy-and-paste, pre-written pitch email that includes industry research, but here’s the thing: it’s really specific to each scenario. That said, the specificity is also what makes it such a valuable tool! Taking information about your prospect, their company and their industry and using it to reinforce the value of your solution is a winning combination.

What I can offer you is a template that will help you write engaging and enticing pitches, my top tips for incorporating industry research, and some examples of emails that hit the mark.

Download the resource above for a repeatable template (including a list of the best kinds of industry data to include in your pitches) and start writing emails that get the attention they deserve!

What to know before writing a pitch email

Know your prospect and their industry

I’ll keep this one short, since we talked about it in my previous article on industry information in sales conversations; do your research! Finding prospects is one thing, but learning who they are, what they do and what their industry environment looks like is crucial to evaluating whether they’re a viable lead or a non-starter, and how best to gain their trust and interest in what you’re offering.

Know your value propositions

To effectively pitch your product or service you need to understand what it can actually offer your prospect. This means knowing your solution’s value props and how they apply to the customer persona of the person or company you’re targeting.

Using industry research in pitch emails

Here are my top five tips for incorporating industry research into your sales emails.

1. Keep it simple

This one might be the most important tip I can give you – don’t overcomplicate it! Your prospect shouldn’t have to work to make the connection between the industry stats you included and their business or your solution. The link should be clear enough to spark an ‘aha!’ moment without requiring several paragraphs of explanation.

This also applies to the questions you ask your prospect. Be sure you’re not accidentally asking two or three questions wrapped up in one and clouding your actual message. Making it difficult for your prospect to engage with your email, the information you’re providing and the questions you’re asking is an easy way to lose a deal before you even have a conversation.

Having a goal in mind for the industry information you choose helps you keep your message focused, relevant and easy to understand. An attention-grabbing data point or trend should fall into one of these categories:

• A positive benchmarking stat (i.e. something they do better than the industry average)
• A negative benchmarking stat (i.e. something they do worse than the industry average)
• A fact they may NOT have known
• A fact demonstrating something they do know but wouldn’t normally hear in pitches, and they’re impressed that you ALSO know

2. Find THE datapoint

One great datapoint overshadows a bunch of fluff. Knowing what you know about your prospect, what’s that one piece of information you can bring to the forefront that will make a business leader pause and give some thought to what you’re saying? How can you help them think differently? Or, better yet, how can you emphasize a problem that may already exist?

In this example, we’ll say you’re working in sales for a local marketing agency, ABC Advertising, that is targeting Janitorial Service companies. You want to highlight your agency’s ability to help companies expand their reach into the residential sector.

You could craft a pitch like this:

Hi [Head of Sales],

While the bulk of cleaning companies’ revenue typically comes from commercial cleaning contracts, did you know that over $8 billion in annual revenue nationally comes from residential interior cleanings?

I noticed your website is geared towards the commercial side and wanted to ask if you’d be interested in learning about a program that could help you secure some of the residential market?

ABC’s janitorial clients typically see [x%] increase in residential services revenue after engaging with our services.

Would you like to set up a call to talk about how we can help?

[Signature]

The key datapoint that’s going to get your prospects interested is the $8 billion annual revenue in the residential sector. There’s a good chance they weren’t aware that figure is so high and now want to know how to claim a share of that market!

3. Incorporate your value props

You can incorporate your value props in two ways:

• Start with the value prop and find the data or trends that highlight the problem you’re trying to solve.
• If you’ve already found the right data, work out which of your value props addresses it.

Let’s say your company, XYZ Workforce, sells payroll software and is reaching out to a prospect in the Industrial Equipment Rental and Leasing industry. Your software includes rostering tools that analyze workforce, revenue and customer booking data to determine the most efficient way to allocate staff across the available shifts. The value prop, in this case, would be optimizing labor costs and preventing over- or under-staffing.

In reviewing the IBISWorld information for this industry, a statistic that immediately stands out is that wages are the largest cost to this type of business, accounting for 23.2% of revenue. Furthermore, wages are projected to grow by 2.7% annually for the next 5 years (2023-28) versus just 0.6% on average in the last 5 years (2018-23).

Taking this information, it would be great to open a conversation with the following:

Hi [Head of HR],

Wages, on average, take up a staggering 23.2% of all revenue in the Equipment Rental and Leasing industry and are projected to continue to increase 2.7% per year through 2028 – that's over 4x the rate of the previous 5-year period!

Has this become an area of concern for [Prospect’s company name]?

What we’re seeing from similar companies in your space is a need to be more precise than ever when it comes to payroll management, with our clients saying they need to maximize their workforce’s efficiency and hire the right number of people for the right number of jobs.

XYZ Workforce helps bring that 23.2% figure down by creating rosters based on your business’s resources, revenue and booking data to optimize your labor costs and cover critical tasks without over- or under-staffing. Feel free to book out some time on my calendar so we can discuss further if you’re interested in learning more.

[Signature]

4. Use a visual

Sometimes the right visual will convey what words can’t. I’ve always found that being able to include a visual about the prospect themselves immediately draws an interest. When working with extremely localized businesses (think those that primarily sell their products or services within their state, or even a smaller radius of just their county), being able to share some information about their immediate market and focal points – like the industry revenue in their county – will absolutely turn heads.

For example, if you’re sending an email to someone in Alabama who works in the Stone Mining industry, this graphic is sure to generate interest due to its specific focus on their area:

From here, you can create a hyper-focused question based off the data and their location:

Hi [Prospect],

While looking at the Stone Mining Industry in Alabama, I noticed that in Shelby County, where your business is located, revenue is expected to decline by an average of 9.1% this year.

123 Purchasing helps businesses like yours optimize your procurement strategy so that you can get ahead of the downward trend and maintain your profit margins.

Are you interested in setting up a call to learn more? Reply here and we’ll organize a time to chat!

[Signature]

5. Include a clear call to action (CTA)

You’ve laid out the industry data and what you’re offering, but if you don’t clearly state what the next step is for your prospect, you’ve made it really hard for them to take it! Remember, the goal is to make responding as straightforward and appealing as possible for the recipient. The most effective pitch emails have one CTA that is direct, easy to spot and offers a clear benefit for taking the action. The CTA should stand out visually as well; consider formatting it differently by using bold text or a hyperlink in a contrasting color (bonus points if it’s your company’s brand color).

Your CTA might look like something like these:

• Book a 15-minute call to discuss your needs. Include a booking link so that your prospect can immediately schedule time to discuss further.
• Reply with any questions. Make it easy for your prospect to get in touch by making it clear that they can reply directly to your email.
• Start your free trial and join hundreds of [industry] businesses using [your product] to [benefit]. If your organization offers user-initiated trials, encourage your prospects get a feel for what you’re offering for themselves. This CTA also incorporates social proof, showing that other clients are already getting the benefits of your solution (and your prospect is missing out).
• Does Wednesday at 3pm or Thursday at 10:30am work for you? If your organization doesn’t use a booking program, suggest two meeting times for your prospect to choose from. Having meeting times in front of them removes the friction point of having to list out their availability and gets you one step closer to a productive conversation.