Using sales signals – your prospect or their employer’s recent activities – to power cold calls is one of the most effective ways to reach a scientific buyer. If you are a SciLeads customer you can leverage a wealth of scientific activities, industry insights and organizational updates and find contextually relevant reasons for you to be contacting your prospects. We call this contextual cold calling, and if you are looking to find ways to improve the response rates to your cold calls and emails, this article might be the best thing you read all day.
Let’s begin by explaining how everything works.
What is contextual cold calling?
Contextual cold calling aligns your outreach with real activities and milestones in your prospects’ professional lives. For example, a prospect may have published a recent study, changed roles, or received a new investment to continue their work. When timing is everything, being the first to congratulate someone and making the subject of your cold outreach about their recent activities can help break the ice. It demonstrates that you have done your homework and improves the chances of creating a meaningful connection, creating space for you to discuss your product or service, and provide real value to them.
By using targeted data, sales reps can break through the noise and make their outreach more impactful for the recipient. Here are some of the ways we like to think about contextual sales signals.
Scientific activities: Creating a strong ‘why’ for your outreach.
In scientific communities, professional milestones like recent publications or newly awarded grants offer unique entry points. Prospects are more likely to be receptive to relevant outreach when they’re actively engaged with new projects, and SciLeads enables sales teams to leverage these signals as they happen.
Here are some of the scientific activities that are worth including in your messages.
1. Published Research
A researcher’s recent publication can be an ideal reason to reach out with congratulations and an offer of relevant solutions. For instance, a molecular biologist who recently published on CRISPR-based gene editing may be considering attending a relevant upcoming conference to discuss their work or purchasing new tools to scale their work. Tailoring your outreach around their specific activities demonstrates a clear understanding of their needs and creates multiple reasons to attempt to meet and discuss their needs with them further.
SciLeads streamlines publication searches with keyword alerts or following a specific researcher or organization to get activity-based alerts, letting you contact the right people at the right moment, before your competitors.
2. Newly Secured Funding
Funding is a milestone with immediate implications for purchasing decisions. When labs or individual researchers secure grants, they’re often tasked with rapid project ramp-up, needing everything from new instruments and software to new vendors to support their project. Reaching out to discuss how your offering could fit into their funded project creates a conversation grounded in their current needs.
SciLeads’ funding tracking helps you target prospects right when they’re ready to purchase, offering them solutions that support their objectives. This approach isn’t about cold selling; it’s about being in the right place at the right time, offering relevant support to a well-informed prospect.
3. Speaking Engagement and Conferences
Life science professionals who are presenting at or attending industry events are likely open to networking and partnership discussions. By tracking these upcoming events, SciLeads allows you to time your outreach, accordingly, framing your product as a potential topic for discussion in their latest work.
A follow-up call timed around an event like the American Association for Cancer Research meeting, for example, could include insights tailored to cancer research that align with the presentation topic. This level of relevance is crucial in distinguishing your approach from competitors who are just ‘checking in.