Category: digital marketing

With LinkedIn taking the top position among best sources of B2B prospects, sales professionals have massively turned their heads to a new way of reaching out to potential customers – LinkedIn InMail. Meanwhile, your old friend email will be handier if you need a cost-free solution for a sales outreach. What is more, with email outreach, you can send up to 1600 emails a day and track their performance, which InMail won’t cope with.

But, if you decide to use the potential of email marketing for your sales campaigns, you should be well-versed in all  “dos and don’ts” when preparing a sales email. In this post, we’ll talk about them and show you how to craft perfect sales emails that will bring you more responses.

Write a strong opening line

People spend only 12 seconds, on average, reading an email. This means – what you write at the beginning of the email, including the very first sentence after the greeting, should be engaging enough to make the recipient want to get in touch with you.

Image source: Tidio.com

There are 4 principal approaches to writing an opening sentence:

1. Value offering

This approach is particularly common in eCommerce. Companies like Amazon or eBay send out thousands of newsletters daily. They don’t use redundant digressions and get to the point straight away.

Image source: Blogs Brighton

Although such an approach seems fairly utilitarian, it makes a lot of sense. Senders don’t have to invent ornate texts, while their recipients don’t spend a lot of time reading these texts, trying to extract the key point.

2. Asking the question

This is a nice tactic to engage the recipient with email content. People like it when somebody asks their opinion or shows interest in their plans. You can ask a recipient about his/her business and slowly add a problem statement to that question. For example:

How does your company cope with an excess burden of taxation?

3. Praising achievements

Verbal applause isn’t flattery if it’s genuine. However, this kind of opening line requires preparations from the sender’s side, like skimming through the prospect’s recent news or publication on LinkedIn.

4. Introducing oneself

Finally, you can choose to write about yourself or the company. This approach is particularly justifiable for cold outreach when you should make a recipient acquaintance with the brand before any kind of offer.

There are several common tips to write an apt opening sentence:

• if the line is too long, it’s better to split it into two shorter sentences
• use numbers that add value to what you say, for example, “Want to increase sales by 10%?”
• don’t make it too loud – avoid misusing all caps and exclamation marks
• don’t add too many adjectives – give more credits to verbs
• point to something that connects you with the lead – a background, previous experience (including negative), etc.
• tailor statements – do not use common phrases like “we see you achieved much this year”; instead, add some personal touch, like “we see you’ve launched IPO this year”.

Create a helpful email body copy

The message you send should bring value to recipients, otherwise don’t expect they’ll respond to it. Winning sales teams are those that can connect their company’s proposal with the lead’s needs.

Say, you sell a full pack of digital marketing services to small companies. Instead of addressing their owners with a “We will help you to grow revenue” pitch, point that you know how to deal with exact constraints small companies face. For example:

If you want to promote your business on the Internet, but do not know how to do it and where to start, look at what others are doing.

We prepared success cases for you, based on what our clients told us about their SEO techniques and the results they have achieved.

By the way, until January 1, you have the opportunity to get a 40% for any services plan purchased for 6-12 months.

Another technique to write a sales email is to use social proof. People rely on other people’s actions and tend to copy behavior patterns. So, they will be more willing to get in touch with your company if they see others choosing it.

You can wrap up emails by politely asking for sales referrals. People like being asked for help, so if you show them a sort of dependency on their opinion or actions, they’ll be more engaged with your brand as a whole.

An apt sales email copy is not about the content alone. It’s also about text length and structure, wordings, and visual design. If you’re aimed to convert the lead with an email, follow these recommendations:

• identify the action you’ll treat as a conversion

For example, if a company sells subscription-based apps, the target conversion may be either a purchased product or an application for a demo.

• try to squeeze the message to 50-200 words

Long copies can provide the lead with more details, but the issue is – nobody has time to read long-drawn-out rationales. So, unless the email is “clean and neat” enough, it’ll probably be bounced by recipients.

• use short sentences

A sales email isn’t a literary work. Put yourself into the recipient’s shoes – imagine you’ve opened an email in a hurry to quickly get to the point. Would you prefer complex sentences with difficult lexis or – short phrases with “easy-to-digest” words?

• use conversational language

Of course, if you address government agencies or highly specialized clients like healthcare companies, you should use very qualified words. In all other cases, it’s better to simplify the vocabulary. The best approach is to write an email copy as if it was prepared for your friend.

•  use active voice and avoid the “by” passive

Compare two sales email examples:

The increase in revenue was achieved by increasing the share of qualified leads (passive voice)

More qualified leads boosted the revenue (active voice)

The second example looks more conclusive, while the first is stuffed with prepositions. It’s better to add strong verbs in a sales email copy, like “drive”, “grow”, “start” –  to motivate leads to actions.

Wrap up the email copy with a CTA

A call-to-action isn’t a guarantee of getting instant conversions, still, it can create a chance to get them. There are 2 key rules regarding CTAs in sales emails:

• there should be 1 per copy

Remember, the recipient should grasp further actions clearly, so don’t overwhelm him/her with asking for extra actions.

If the email is about to engage leads with content, add a single “Read the full story” button in the copy. You can, however, include links to socials, just make sure they don’t distract attention from the main CTA.

Image source: Sumo.com

• a CTA should be specific

If you wrap up an email copy with a sentence, outline further steps with (tentative) deadlines. Like “Can we jump on a 15-min call on Monday?” or so. A good thing is to add the link to Calendly so that a recipient will be able to schedule the meeting straight away.

Add a professional signature

Employees’ email signatures demonstrate the company’s attention to detail. There’s nothing bad to construct a simple signature with, e.g. by using settings in Gmail. Still, by adding some pieces of design to it, you can stand out from the crowd and look more professional than your peers.

Image source: Mail-signatures.com

A photo in the signature will show you follow the human-centric approach and have nothing to hide. The website address, 2 or 3 social links, and contact information will be sources of extra information and allow leads to get in touch throughout the channel they prefer most.

Best Sales Email Templates

Different selling purposes require distinct outlines and wordings. Moreover, sales templates differ in B2B and B2C markets. Below we’ve listed 6 examples of the high-performing emails that one can tailor and use for the most common business purposes:

1. To promote a free trial

SaaS companies usually promote their products by offering customers free access for a limited time. A corresponding sales email should briefly explain key terms of the subscription, including start day and duration. You can also wrap up the email by providing information on how to upgrade.

Image source: Snov.io

2. To retarget prospects

People who’ve shown interest in the brand are “warm” leads, so try to convert them through retargeting. These kinds of sales emails usually start with a “We want you back” pitch and are commonly used by online stores. Retargeting emails should include an attractive deal, for example, a discount for the next purchase.

Image source: Sendinblue.com

3. To get in touch after an event

Webinars or offline events are good to build brand awareness, but to be commercially justified, they should be followed with a proper sales email. Thank your prospect for the attention to the brand and then – list the benefits of the solution a company sells. And if you provide some examples, make them relevant to the lead by referring to his/her pain points.

Image source: Saleshacker.com

4. To get in touch for the first time

Cold sales are tough yet essential to keep the pipeline full. Pay foremost attention to tailoring copies so that they don’t seem spammy or impersonal. Start with a brief introduction and explain how exactly you or your company can assist a prospect to resolve a particular issue. A good tactic is to also point to mutual interests, especially if a company operates on the B2B market.

Image source: Saleshacker.com

5. To follow up after no response

Wait for at least 3 days before sending the first follow-up email, and increase the pause between all subsequent emails. To attract prospects with an offer, add some extra information or explain the benefits of the product in detail.

Be polite and never insist on answering. Still, make sure you’ve provided the recipient with a “go-to” instruction on how to get in touch in case he/she is interested.

Image source: Snov.io

6. To nurture leads

The best tactic here is sharing interesting content. It takes months to build brand loyalty, so although nurturing emails don’t result in instant conversions – they are an essential part of any sales funnel in the long term.

Image source: a snapshot from Snov.io monthly newsletter

Wrapping up

While preparing your sales outreach, you should consider which communication channel will be most effective — phone or Zoom call, InMail or email — or you might wish to mix them.

And if you stop your choice at email, keep in mind that a sales email takes time to be prepared. The perfect copy starts with an apt subject line and is followed by a neat email body and good wrapping-up. If you doubt how to write a sales email, refer to the best sales emails examples and tailor them as required.

Author:

Yulia Zubova, Outreach specialist from Snov.io