10 Tips to Make Your Sales Prospecting Emails Stand Out
Sales prospecting emails are critical to your strategy. Your prospects are online, checking their emails several times throughout the day, giving you the perfect chance to get your message across without the irritation of an unsolicited phone call.
Yet, are your emails bringing in results? Even if you have the perfect proposal or product that’s going to do wonders for your prospect, it’s all for nothing if your emails end up resigned to their spam folder before they’re even opened.
So what should you be doing to make sure your emails don’t just get opened but also draw a positive response? Here are a few tips on how to make your sales prospecting emails shine as they deserve.
1. Personalize Your Emails
Nothing gets your reader reaching for the delete button quicker than a mass generic “Dear Sir/Madam” sales email. If you’re just firing out the same sales pitch to every lead on your books, chances are it’s going to get quickly dismissed.
Instead, show that you have done your homework and really know your prospect. We’re not just talking about basic personalization, like including your recipient’s name here either. If you really want to get their attention, you have to work a bit harder. Do some research and try to include some recent and notable facts or achievements about the company or your industry.
For example, opening your email with personalized content like “I noticed you recently rebranded your website” or “Congratulations on being voted best product” shows you know who you’re talking to and sparks their curiosity to read more.
2. Craft an Engaging Subject Line
Your subject line is the star of the show. It’s the first thing your prospect sees and can be make or break for the fate of your email. If you’ve written a killer email, don’t let it down with a weak or lazy subject line.
So, what makes the perfect email subject? It should be short, punchy, and personalized. Make it intriguing enough to make them want to open your email, but keep it relevant. You want to avoid any spammy or ‘hard sell’ words too, like “free”, “urgent” or excessive punctuation that could devalue your email or even make it a victim of spam filters.
For example, “John, Have you considered these new trends in (industry)?” is more likely to hit the mark than “Hey John! Free trial ends in three hours!!!”
3. Offer Value Immediately
If you want your prospect to keep reading, you need to immediately clarify what’s in it for them.
It could be helpful insights or industry information such as a free trend report, a solution to a unique pain point in their sector, or an exclusive offer. Lead with what you have to offer and make sure it’s impactful enough to keep them engaged and wanting to learn more.
For example, rather than starting with “Check out our new automated payslip feature”, go in with “Discover how you can reduce your payroll workload by 20%”.
4. Focus on the Prospect’s Needs
Remember, the golden rule of sales is that you’re not just selling a product or service, you should always be solving a problem or adding value. Sales prospecting emails are no different.
Avoid the generic sales pitch and instead focus your email content around relevant pain points and needs. You want your email to be relatable and demonstrate how your product or service can make your prospect’s life easier. Opening with a challenge that they can likely relate to and explaining how you can solve it can immediately spark their interest.
For example, you might lead with something like, “I understand managing inventory can be a headache. Our solution simplifies this process, saving you time and money.”
5. Keep It Concise
Nobody wants to sit and read through a wall of text before they get to the point of your email. When you’re prospecting busy people, the harsh reality is they simply aren’t going to take the time to read a long email. So, keep it short and sweet and get to the point swiftly. Leave out any unnecessary details and make sure your email can be easily digested, ideally in under a minute.
Avoid lengthy paragraphs and use bullets and short sections of text for easy reading. If you want to communicate more detailed information, you can include attachments, links, or a “read more” call-to-action for your prospects to discover more.
6. Use Social Proof
While a good attention-grabbing subject line and a tempting offer might pique the interest of your prospects, to really get them on board, you need to add a dash of credibility to your sales recipe mix. This is especially important if your company is a new name in the industry or you’re working on building awareness of your brand.
A bit of name-dropping can do wonders. If your prospects can see that others in their industry have benefited from your product or services, they’re more likely to trust that you can add value to their organization, too.
Include social proof like customer testimonials and references to significant clients in your email, along with stats that show off tangible results. For example, “Our clients, including [Big Client Name], have seen a 30% increase in productivity using our software.”
7. Create a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)
Once your prospects have read your email, be clear about what you want them to do next. Let’s be honest, no matter how good your email is, it’s unlikely they’re going to immediately reach for the phone and ask for a quote. Instead, think of this as the entry point to your sales pipeline and how you can lead them into the next interaction with your company. What you don’t want is for them to read your email, move on to their next task of the day, and likely forget all about it.
Your CTA could be something direct like “Schedule a free consultation” with a calendar link, or a more subtle way of continuing to engage them, such as “Download our guide to innovative call center management best practices.”
Whichever route you choose, make sure your CTA is bold and stands out so they know where to go next. Use bold text or a button to clearly direct them to the next step.
8. Follow Up Strategically
Being persistent is important in sales: your potential clients are likely busy and it can take a few attempts before you get the response you’re looking for. There’s a fine line between being persistent and becoming annoying, though. Don’t hound your prospects with constant emails and follow-ups. Chances are, they’ll just get fed up with your efforts to contact them and you’ll end up actually deterring them from working with you.
That doesn’t mean sending one email and sitting back and hoping for the best, though. If you don’t get a response, send follow-up emails, but space your communication strategically and vary your messaging so it doesn’t get repetitive.
Send a polite follow-up a week after your previous email, offering additional value or more information.
9. Use Email Automation
Getting results from email prospecting can often be a numbers game. To put it simply, the more prospects you can target, the higher the chances of you getting a positive response. To easily scale up your email prospecting, use tools that can automate your email prospecting process.
Email automation tools can help you out by personalizing emails en masse and managing follow-ups, getting rid of the need to manually track and follow up on non-responses. You can also use these tools to track those all-important open rates and conversion rates. This means you easily see if your emails are having an impact, or if they might need some tweaking.
10. Test and Optimize
If you’re not getting the results you want from your sales prospecting emails, it might be worth experimenting with different elements. Try out different subject lines, CTAs, or send times, and consider using A/B testing to see if your changes make a difference.
For example, you might send the same email to one segment of your audience at 9 am, and to a different set of prospects at 2 pm, then track which gets a higher open rate. If your second email gets a better result, you know that your audience is more likely to engage with emails you send in the afternoon than first thing in the morning.
Likewise, you could experiment with different subject lines or CTAs to see which version gets a better click-through rate. For example, “Learn more about how our sales dialers can benefit you” versus “Learn more and get started with our sales dialers today!”
Regularly switch up and test different elements of your emails to see what works best and find the winning formula for engaging your audience with your content.
Perfecting Sales Prospecting Emails
Creating the perfect prospecting email can take some trial and error, but these tips should give you a good starting point.
A successful email should be personal, valuable, and clearly communicate what you have to offer. Remember, the key here is building authentic connections and providing real value so your emails can stand out in your prospect’s crowded inbox.
By implementing these strategies, you’ll be well on your way to mastering the art of sales prospecting emails. Happy emailing!