These slogans, at first glance, have the power to remind you of which brands carry them. That’s the power of emotional, lasting branding.
Brand building is developing a company’s brand or a specific product or service. It is also about growing brand equity. The goal of branding is to connect with customers on an emotional level and build relationships due to the customer identifying with a particular image or reputation.
Branding reflects not only who you are as a company but also what you offer and what value and prestige it carries.
But don’t be fooled – in today’s climate, branding isn’t just for businesses and companies anymore.
As marketing looks to the digital world for innovation and inspiration, professional personal branding has become more critical than ever. And in doing so, brands have become more humanized.
What is Personal Branding?
What exactly is a personal brand?
A personal brand has to be something beyond a username and a handle. It starts with your mindset and grows from there. The goal of your personal brand is to integrate your personality, character, and purpose into one coherent message.
A solid personal brand is vital because it helps individuals to stand out in the crowd. It is used to connect with others and help build a support network. A powerful personal brand allows people to recognize, remember, and refer to you more frequently. It’s like having a shortcut built into your name—an easy way for people to access who you are and the type of value you offer.
How to Fine-Tune Your Personal Brand for Success
#1: Have a Sense of Identity.
It’s hard to stand out as a polished and professional influencer online. Your tone, goals, and message must be clear, concise, and cohesive. Your brand identity establishes trust with followers and clients. Create a clear personal brand identity that represents you personally and professionally.
#2: Where Do You Want to Go?
You can’t be everything to everyone, but if you know your brand and how it can make your business more successful, you can be exactly what people need from someone like you.
When we think about our careers, we tend to focus on the present: what about tomorrow? How does your path fit into the future you want? Do you know what that future looks like?
What if there was a way to see all of this in one place? Understand who you are now and where you want to be tomorrow—and then find out what steps will get you there. That’s exactly what personal branding can do.
#3: Your Audience Matters.
The first step in this process is identifying your target audience. This means that before you even begin writing content for your blog, you should have an idea of who would be interested in reading it.
Who is the audience if you’re working on an article about how to grow a garden from seed? Is it just gardeners? Or is it also people who want to learn more about gardening but aren’t ready yet to commit the time or money?
Who do you want to be seen as? What kind of person are you? How do you want to be seen? The factors that go into answering these questions impact how others see you.
What do you want to say about yourself? Are there certain qualities or skills that are important to showcase? Is there something specific that your audience needs to hear from you?
Who is your target audience? What are their interests, and what do they look for when deciding whether to hire someone? What will make them say “yes”?
Once you know that, you can work toward creating a personal brand that meets their needs and speaks directly to them.
#4: Your Network Can Define You, Too.
Networking is a great way to grow your connections and expand your network of contacts, which can be beneficial for your career. In addition, it allows you to learn about opportunities and share information with others.
Networking can be done in many different ways: at social events, over coffee, or even online through social media sites like LinkedIn or Twitter. You can also connect with people through volunteer groups or online communities focusing on topics that interest you.
Here are some tips for building a robust professional network:
Be a good listener—take note of what others are saying, and make sure they feel heard
Be inclusive—invite people into conversations instead of talking over them
Be genuine—make sure that the relationships you’re forming are genuine and not just surface-level
Don’t take yourself too seriously—it’s okay to joke around once in a while!
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.
There are 4 principal approaches to writing an opening sentence:
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.
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.
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:
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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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’ve had two epiphanies lately. The first happened when I was recently preparing for a webinar I conducted with Ray Makela, CEO of Sales Readiness Group. We were getting our content ready, and it dawned on us how naturally what we do at Sales For Life, which is helping with modern digital prospecting, connects to some of the best global sales methodologies.
Today I was with a Global 50 conglomerate’s learning and development (L&D) team talking about making the big plunge into digital sales. The sales team has been selling face-to-face in nearly 100% of their accounts – at the detriment of a bloated CAC (Cost of Customer Acquisition). As their L&D team puts it “we’re spending thousands to make thousands from many of our customers – it’s counter-productive”. This digital sales transformation is about to become a sweeping, universal change for the company. We’re talking about 1,000’s of sales professionals moving from 100% face-to-face, to 80% inside & 20% face-to-face with key accounts. I decided to write this blog from the voice of the customers and their key concerns about this transition.
Do you have only 10 accounts? Does your entire sales division focus on only 100 global accounts? Digital sales is not a “prospecting” motion in your mind, as you’re looking for an account management motion. While these accounts may or may not be existing customers, the 500,000,000 user database in LinkedIn is of little consequence to you.
Whether you like it or not, you can’t stop your buyer from learning. They will learn using their peer networks, and/or they will conduct online research. While they won’t buy a complex solution online like it’s Amazon Prime (the eternal excuse people use to not practice Social Selling is “my buyer doesn’t BUY on LinkedIn”), a PORTION of their buying journey will leverage digital insights, referrals and triggers.
As an excuse, you can argue with me that your buyer is not a digitally-savvy buyer today. Perhaps it’s their industry like coal mining, or their geolocation like Mongolia… I get it. BUT, you CAN’T argue with me that they’re becoming MORE digitally savvy. Come on, whether it’s pressure from the next generation (Gen Z), or cultural changes with a mobile-first economy, digital is only intensifying.
After 6 years, +300 customer engagements, and meeting countless sales and marketing leaders in my travels, I’ve seen the GREAT, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to sales and marketing initiatives and leadership. Leaders have been asking me for tactical soundbites from the strong leaders I’ve met that are inspiring, change agents, and all-around great people to work with.
Based on that popular requests, I welcome you to follow my new series of blogs and video interviews dedicated for senior sales and marketing executives. This is the first of the series.
You can argue with me by saying “my customer is not on social media platforms, and isn’t terribly digital in consuming content”. The reality is some sales leaders believe that the digital evolution will never effect their business. You CAN also argue with me that social selling or digital selling is not a proactive thing in your industry, or your country, right now…
Data is necessary for legitimizing a solution, but a story is necessary for promoting it.
In business, reliable data is needed to make sound decisions, but data can be overwhelming and sometimes cause inertia that slows or stops the buying process. To bridge the gap between the need for data and the need for clarity, sales professionals can include data as part of a larger narrative by leveraging a storytelling approach in sales.
