6 Proven Tips to Improve Your Sales Emails Overnight
A good sales email can be your ticket to effective sales automation, no matter the size and scope of your sales framework. Considering that 80% of all customers prefer that sales reps contact them via email, you should definitely upgrade how you craft sales emails.
However, with so much outbound saturation, it’s difficult to know exactly how to craft that winning email. In this article, we’ll look at 6 sure-fire tips to improve your sales emails.
Let’s jump right in.
Image by Song_about_summer on Shutterstock
Shortcuts:
1. Write a Brief, Enticing Subject Line
2. Personalize the Opening Line
3. Connect the Email Body to Your Prospect’s Goals
4. Close the Email with a Clear CTA
1. Write a Brief, Enticing Subject Line
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Your subject line is what gets your prospect’s attention and gets them interested in the content that follows. Think of it as a fishing hook. The more enticing the bait on the hook is, the better your chances of success.
But if the fish have seen a hook just like yours hundreds of times (and know what it is), you can cast your line all day without catching anything.
Same goes for your email subject line.
You want your subject line to relate to the customer’s needs and what they’re looking for. This makes it much more likely they’ll open your email, out of both need and curiosity.
But that brings up another problem. How do you find out what will hook your prospect?
This is where customer research comes in:
- Research your customers from top to bottom. Find out what kinds of products or services they want, what qualities they look for, how much they purchase, and how often.
- Determine their major pain points and what problems they usually run into with the offerings they buy.
- Address all of those findings in the subject line. Just make sure not to be too spammy or wordy.
Words like “special,” “unique,” “complimentary,” and “final” are all too vague and directionless. Instead, offer solutions for what they’re looking for and ask questions about recent happenings at their company or about them as individuals. For example, they may be joining the trend of moving toward workplace automation, or they may have recently been in the news for a positive reason.
To better explain this tip and others on this list in a visual manner, we created an awesome infographic that lays out everything you need to know about crafting effective sales emails.
2. Personalize the Opening Line
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This one’s true for everyone, not just B2B buyers. Effective sales automation is essential for scalability and success, but nobody likes opening cookie-cutter sales emails that read like they were sent to hundreds of other people.
Instead, address them in a much more personal manner by writing something about the recipient or their company.
For example: “Hi [prospect name], I recently read up on your inquiry on [platform name] about [product type]…”
This does two things right off the bat. It lets them know that you want to solve their specific issue, and it shows that you took personal interest in what they need.
Your opening line should be based on data you already have on the prospect and their needs. Try to find something unique and recent about the prospect, such as a question they asked in a forum.
Avoid generic compliments and statements that sound like they could apply to any other prospect looking for a similar product or service.
Remember that while the subject line is the hook, the opening line is the actual engagement tool. By personalizing it, you’re engaging prospects on a closer, more personal level. You’re more likely to keep their attention.
3. Connect the Email Body to Your Prospect’s Goals
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The email body is where you get to address the prospect’s primary requirement for a product or service. However, it’s not as simple as mentioning their demand and what you’re offering.
You need to connect it with not only their requirement but also their overarching goals related to that product or service.
This focuses the direction of the email on to the prospect instead of the product you’re pitching.
A great way to do this is by first asking a personalized question about something that happened with their company and then addressing their goal. This can look like “Seeing as you recently integrated an inbound sales framework, are you looking to [prospect’s goals] at all?”
Just like in remarketing, the email body gives you a chance to regain the prospect’s interest if you’re starting to lose it. This is why it’s so important to immediately relate the meat of the content with what the prospect wants to accomplish.
4. Close the Email with a Clear CTA {#clo}
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A clear call to action (CTA) provides the prospect with a logical next step following the email.
The CTA is where your prospect finally decides whether they’ll entertain a sales call or go directly to the buying stage.
Depending on how you proceed from there, you can go one of two ways:
- Ask them a question inviting them to a sales call. For example, “Do you have 10 minutes to jump on a quick call [prospective time]?”
- Ask if they’d be interested in buying directly.
In either case, you need to give them a clear direction to proceed. Just avoid vague statements that don’t show purpose. Statements like “Let me know if you’re interested” are a little detached and sound too generic to fit in with the rest of the personalized email.
5. Insert a Simple Signature
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It may not seem like your signature would be important in the grand scheme of sales. However, it carries some weight too.
Your signature should be short yet full of valuable information about you.
For an outbound sales email, your signature should:
- Contain a link to your preferred social media profile (LinkedIn, most likely)
- Be simple and professional, without any clutter
- Not have any images or logos
Avoid falling into the branding trap by including a company logo at the end. This is a telltale sign of the email being templated and you want to avoid the email looking like that (even if you are using a template).
6. Keep It Concise
The worst thing you can do with a sales email is make it long and full of more details than the prospect needs.
With sales emails, it’s all about grabbing interest and creating leads that sales teams can then pursue. By making it too long, you’re ruining the opportunity you might have gained with a powerful subject and engaging opening line.
Make sure the entire email fits on one page and the viewer doesn’t have to scroll down. Your emails shouldn’t exceed 100 words, and it should take the recipient no more than 8-10 seconds to go through it.
Lastly, close the email with confidence and avoid being vague about anything.