Email outreach can be tedious and cumbersome, as many investment banking analysts know all too well. First, they have to build their target lists of buyers and investors, then manually copy and paste that list information into an email format. Then, they have to prepare and send those emails one by one. This inconvenient process takes time away from more high-value work.
Adding to the inefficiency, analysts have no easy way to track their engagement metrics, such as open rates, click rates, and responses. Instead, they have to manually monitor their inboxes and draw their own conclusions about whether their emails were successful or not.
Leading investment banking firms are increasingly turning to automated technology to transform this outdated process into a modern, efficient one. That’s why many firms are choosing Intapp DealCloud, the platform built for financial services firms, to manage their deals, relationships, and pipeline from strategy to origination to execution.
DealCloud lets investment bankers fast-track deal outreach, eliminate manual data workflows, and gain actionable insights. DealCloud’s deal marketing solution, Dispatch, leverages AI to further improve outreach and streamline deal marketing.
Learn how Dispatch can support your investment bankers before, during, and after sending outreach emails.
Before: Buyers and investors list–building
Before email outreach can begin, investment bankers need to first build a list of target buyers and investors. Without the support of automated deal technology, this process is typically manual and time-consuming, with analysts copying and pasting contacts into a spreadsheet. This outdated method offers little visibility for the firm as a whole and leaves room for human error.
With DealCloud, investment bankers can use their existing client network to build dashboards that automatically surface prospective buyers or counterparties with a matching investment preference for the industry, geography, or EBITDA range of the clients. Analysts can then select buyers either individually or in bulk to add to a buyers list, then leverage the automated relationship score to determine who should lead the process internally for outreach based on existing connections.
Since lists are built within DealCloud, automated insights are surfaced in the buyers list dashboard. These insights include milestone progressions, who has and hasn’t received a teaser, and who is in the NDA stage or has received data room access. By building new lists in DealCloud, your bankers gain access to institutional knowledge on previous outreach efforts — helping them better predict buyers’ responses based on their previous levels of interest and the reasons they passed on previous opportunities.
Once they’ve built a comprehensive list of target buyers and investors, your firm’s investment bankers can move confidently into the next stage of outreach.
During: Pre-templated emails, AI-generated copy, and test sends
Once an investment banker is ready to reach out to their target lists, they can leverage DealCloud to follow four simple steps:
1) Confirm recipients
Unlike disparate spreadsheets that silo important information, DealCloud allows all deal team members to view the buyers list using a single source of truth. Teams can then quickly and easily select and review targeted recipients for upcoming outreach. Analysts no longer need to ask their superiors to review, send, or provide access to a document. Instead, they can access it directly within DealCloud.
Data living in team members’ email — such as a target’s current job title and phone number — is automatically updated to DealCloud through a Microsoft Outlook integration. The data is then validated through third-party data integrations such as PitchBook, so users can be confident that their lists are as up to date as possible.
2) Generate the email message using templates or AI
When your deal team members are ready to draft their emails, they can use convenient pre-templated email copy to save time and help your firm maintain a consistent, cohesive message and tone.
They can also use AI to generate email copy for them. For example, users can ask AI within DealCloud to recommend subject lines written in their preferred tone.
3) Review emails and add personal correspondence
After drafting their emails, users can add additional personal touches based on information in DealCloud. For example, if a team member recently attended a conference and connected with a contact from their target list, they could mention that along with an observation or insight about a conference event or session.
4) Save drafts, test, and send
After creating their drafts, your team members can save them for later, preview them with test emails, or send them to their target lists with the simple click of a button. Users can also send their emails from existing reports and dashboards in DealCloud, eliminating the need to manually copy and paste information from their inbox for every single email. This also eliminates the need for a separate marketing tool.
Once the emails are sent, investment bankers can begin to measure the results.
After: Automated deal progress, engagement analytics, and targeted follow-up
After emails have been deployed, DealCloud immediately begins to collect data and measure results. Users can easily monitor engagement metrics such as open and click rates, and they can build targeted follow-ups based on these analytics.
For example, if a contact opened and clicked on a link in a banker’s first email but did not respond, the banker could infer that the contact was interested in the content. The banker could then send a follow-up email with additional related resources.
DealCloud also automatically tracks any deal progress made from emails and tracks it back to the company’s profile within the system. This allows dealmakers to understand the full scope of the factors that contribute to a deal’s success, from the macro to the micro level. Then they can better identify successful outreach efforts and use them as basis for future strategies.
Schedule a demo to see deal marketing in action
Firms require sophisticated deal marketing technology to support their buyers list–building and outreach efforts. With DealCloud, your investment bankers can streamline the outreach process while gaining deeper insights into how your targets are engaging with your firm.
Ready to see Dispatch in action and further explore its capabilities? Schedule a demo of Intapp DealCloud today.