5 Sales Email tips to Engage with Your Prospects
Another sales email in your potential client’s inbox. Is it worth opening? If so, is it worth reading? It’s unrealistic to think that all sales emails will be read, but it is possible to follow certain rules to increase the percentage of sales emails that are opened and read.
Sending sales emails to potential clients after giving a keynote at an event is a great way for companies to find additional clients for their services. But the emails have to follow the right structure to be effective and lead to sales.
Good sales emails can open a dialogue and lead to a sales meeting. If they don’t respect basic rules however, recipients will open the sales emails, browse them quickly, and delete them.
In this article, we go over tips to help you prepare more engaging emails that are more likely to be read by recipients. We will cover both the content of the email and useful strategies to send them.
Sales email content: Make it clear and simple
1. Catch your client’s attention with the sales email’s subject
This rule is valid for any email. When reading the subject line, the recipient should have an idea of what the email will cover. With sales emails, the subject should be catchy and informative enough to make the recipient want to open the message. When the message has been opened, the first objective is achieved.
Ideally, find a winning formula for the subject line and stick to it for all your emails. You can even test the success of various subjects through a professional email tracking platform.
2. Connect with your client from the first line
Sales emails have to be short so go straight to the point. Choose any element you know is important to your client and related to your service, and use it to create a connection in the first line. It should show both your product’s relevance for the client and the fact that you are making an effort to personalise your content.
Your first line can serve as a transition to your core paragraph or if not appropriate, add another short sentence to make the transition.
3. Sales emails must explain how you can help the client achieve key goals
Your potential clients could buy your product for a number of reasons. As you are the one reaching out, tell them what your service can do for them and how they can benefit from it.
Keep your core paragraph short and use professional language, not filler words that bring little value. What you say should be personalised and tell your recipient directly how your services will bring value to their business. Generic emails generally don’t sell well.
4. Establish the next step with your client
Once you have presented your service’s value, extend an invitation. Take the initiative of letting the client know that you are available to continue the discussion and present your services further. It increases the odds of your recipient contacting you or scheduling a meeting.
Inviting your recipients to discuss your offer can take the form of a question about their future or a link to book a meeting. If you end your message in a flat way, it is less likely to yield an answer.
5. Provide your contact information in the sales email
Finally, end the message by providing your contact information. Give your potential clients a way to reach you and to easily find out more about your offer. This includes your name, phone number, email address, and links to any social media channels that are relevant to your service. Keep it professional and don’t include any non work-related content.
Track the results and performance of your sales emails
The best way to measure the effectiveness of your sales emails campaign is to track your performance.
You can do this through a professional email tracking platform. They provide a wealth of valuable information, such as:
- who opens your emails and at what frequency
- when your readers open the emails
- how much time clients spend reading the email
- who clicks on which links
- what content prospects interacted with (if content is attached)
- how the prospect interacted with the content
This data can help companies adjust their sales email strategy and target the individuals who show the most interest. Through the data tracking tools provided, it becomes easier to see what works and what doesn’t. Examples include:
- some days are better than others to send sales emails, usually early in the week, on Tuesday specifically
- prospects are more inclined to read sales emails in the first part of the day, generally between 10 and noon
- recipients might be less attracted to certain subject lines
- readers might not see some important links that are not placed strategically in an email
Based on this information, companies can adapt the way they write and send emails following presentations. They can send their emails at strategic moments, and include the relevant content that generally attracts the most attention and generates the most interactions from potential clients. This increases the odds of getting a meeting with a client.
The process does not end with the first sales email
Landing a meeting with only one email is possible, but it’s unfortunately quite unusual. For that reason, sending the initial sales email is only the beginning of the process. How long does the process last? Research shows it can take up to 4 follow-ups in addition to the initial email to land a meeting.
As a result, your sales email strategy must include follow-ups. Your recipients may have missed your first email, or they might be considering your services and simply have not gotten around to answering you.
It’s essential to keep the lines of communication open and remind potential clients of your offer in a professional and cordial way.
When you choose to follow up, target your recipients. Sending an email to your whole contact list is not efficient. As we mentioned before, some never read your emails, so they should not be targeted by your follow-ups. Those who open your emails and read them are the ones who are more likely to be converted into clients.
Show your prospects you know them and their needs
You need to relate to your potential clients. When you choose to follow up with contacts you believe might be interested in your services, include a personal element. It can be something about your recent sales presentation, their company, or themselves that you can find on the company website or a social media channel such as LinkedIn.
In business, networking can always help. You can also consider sharing some of your potential clients’ content and products, or mentioning them in your own publications.
Speak to your potential clients and track your performance
In sales emails, size matters. Your message should be short enough that it only takes a brief moment to read, but still cover enough that your potential client will want to continue the discussion. Be straight to the point and offer to spend time to present your service in greater detail.
Running a sales emails campaign is hard work, so be efficient.
Track statistics to know what content triggers the most reactions and interactions from your clients. This information is useful to provide the most impactful content, giving you a better chance of landing a meeting with your potential client. With compelling communications and a fine-tuned campaign, your sales emails will have more success with your potential clients.
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