How to Write the Perfect Sales Emails That Get Responses?
How to Write the Perfect Sales Emails That Get Responses? Email marketing is one of the most used marketing channels out there. Small businesses and large corporations alike use it to bridge the gap between their product and service portfolios and end-users. According to data, 86% of professionals prefer email marketing over other means of advertisement, with 59% of recipients saying that email affected their purchase decisions.
Writing effective sales emails is no small feat, which is what we are here to discuss in greater detail today. How can you write emails which are focused on sales and get the recipients to respond to your pitches favorably?
Perks of Writing Perfect Sales Emails
There are a multitude of benefits to reaching out to potential leads via email as opposed to social media, PPC, or other forms of advertising. For one, everyone carries a smartphone or a similar device with them at all times. Everyone checks their emails while commuting, taking a break at work, or before going to bed.
Emails also give the recipients a sense of agency over how they interact with your sales content. They decide whether to open the email or not, when to do it and how to follow up on your sales pitch. Whether you write sales emails for B2C or B2B leads, you can go in-depth with how you personalize the content to the specific recipient. This allows you to address the person by their name, last name, and position (with B2B emails).
Emails are far more valuable in terms of driving revenue to your business than other forms of digital marketing for that reason alone. Here are the perks you can look forward to once you start writing more effective sales emails:
- Build a professional reputation for your brand going forward
- Easily perform A/B testing to determine which sales pitches work best
- Lead nurturing opportunities for converted customers
- Access to post-email analytics, which allows you to improve future sales emails
- Ability to build and manage your sales email list with surveys and polls
- Direct relevant traffic to your website or online storefront
- Cost-effective compared to paid advertisement channels
Writing the Perfect Sales Emails That Get Responses
1. Use the Subject Line in a Smart Way
Every good email marketing strategy starts with writing the subject line. Your subject lines are the first pieces of content each recipient will see when you reach out to them, followed by a first sentence snippet. With that in mind, you should handle your subject lines carefully and avoid coming off as overly sales-oriented.
Ideally, your subject lines should hover around 50 characters in length and address the recipient by name or last name. You can also include your company’s name and the reason for reaching out in those 50 characters succinctly. Avoid using sales tactics such as all-cap writing, emojis, exclamation points, or other special characters. You don’t want to shock your recipients;| you want to close sales and make them trust you with their time and resources.
2. Personalize your Email Content as Much as Possible
Personalization is what will differentiate you from other brands seeking the customers’ attention. The worst thing you can do is write a single email copy and mass-send it to everyone on your mailing list. Instead, you should go over the data you have on each person on your mailing list and try to personalize your email writing as best as possible.
Address the person by their name or last name – if it’s your first email outreach, tell them how you came to have their email address. Next, you should talk about them, and how they can benefit from the products/services you are selling. Don’t make the email about you and your company – you know who you are, and they can find out through the goods you are selling.
Use personal pronouns and a casual tone of voice while maintaining a sense of professionalism. Don’t be too casual in your writing style and be respectful of your recipient’s time – they will return the favor and consider your offer.
You can also consider working with professional writers on creating more legible, scannable content. Students can rely on thesis writers if they get stuck with a writing task that they cannot identify. Such writing services include not only academic papers and essays but also editing, proofreading, and rewriting tasks.
3. Limit your Email Content to a Short Form – Use External Links
The fact of the matter is that people don’t like receiving sales emails as much as they enjoy reading general mail. This means that you have an uphill battle ahead of you when it comes to gaining the audience’s trust enough so they open your emails.
You can do this by taking mobile users into account, as more and more people read their emails via smartphone devices. Don’t write emails with entire paragraphs of text where you will monologue about how great your products are. Write a 100-200-word sales email with external links to your website and storefront instead.
Anyone who wants to know more about your products/services will click on the links you’ve included. Others will be allowed to consider whether to check your store out or not at their own pace and without pressure. Saying more with fewer words will put your brand at a distinct advantage against your competitors.
4. Improve your Sales Pitch by Using Dedicated Writing Tools
There’s nothing more damning for a sales campaign than grammar and proofreading errors in the email copy. Whether you work as a SaaS company, a home rental, or an e-commerce storefront, writing emails is one of the most effective ways to sell.
Since you want people to pay you for your services or products, it goes without saying that your writing should be impeccable. You can ensure this by using dedicated tools for writing and formatting which are designed with digital content optimization in mind. Here are a few select platforms to check out:
- Grammarly
- Hemingway App
- Evernote
- Readable
- Google Workspace
Pass your email copy through one or more of these platforms before you send emails to your mailing list. Email users are wary of emails with broken English and poor formatting, signs which often point toward spam content.
5. Always Sign your Emails and Provide Other Contact Channels
Common courtesy suggests that you should always sign your sales emails, especially when reaching out to a contact for the first time. Even if you are writing an email as a representative of a very well-known brand, make sure to state your name and title anyway.
This will give credence to your email and make it more likely for people to read through the sales offer. In addition, you can also add other contact details beyond your email address, such as a phone number or social media page links. These will also help establish a sense of professionalism and trust with your recipient.
Avoiding properly signing your emails with the exact position you are filling in the company will result in your emails being registered as spam. There is no sense in asking people to buy anything from you if you are anonymous – trust should be mutual and start from your side.
6. Use Visuals Sparingly and Avoid Motion Graphics in Email Content
Visual content is a great way for you to distinguish your sales emails from others your recipients may receive. Your company’s logo and a footer or a header with complementary visuals will enrich your email and make it more unique.
However, it can also cause issues for mobile users and people with slow or limited bandwidth. Avoid embedding images, gifs, or videos into your email’s body to compensate for the actual text.
Attach any booklets or catalogs you may have in the attachments and keep multimedia as external content instead. Make your emails as lightweight as possible to make sure that as many people can read them. This will be looked on favorably by your mailing list since so many brands don’t care about bandwidth limitations in modern marketing.
7. Entice the Recipients with Calls to Action and Exclusive Offers
What do you want the person to do after they’ve read your email? Do you want them to visit your website, use a coupon code, or share your referral link with their social circles? These outcomes can all be achieved by writing an adequate call to action.
Calls to action are a traditional marketing tool used by professional advertisers to direct customers into taking one or more actions. The best way to use calls to action in sales emails is by combining them with exclusive, hard-to-resist offers. Stating you have a 20% off sale the next 48 hours and then telling the recipient to “Check the store out now” will work wonders.
People like receiving FOMO-centric sales emails, which will help them decide now rather than in the next few days. Don’t be afraid of attaching deadlines to your sales email – you can always extend the sales afterward if enough people responded positively. Without calls to action and some urgency, even the best sales offers may fall on deaf ears and leave your mailing list passive and indifferent.
8. Schedule your Sales Emails Based on the Target Audience’s Lifestyle
The best way to seal the sale with your recipients is to cater to their email reading habits. People who are employed are likely to read their emails in the morning and after work. Young people have school or college, and you won’t reach them during those hours.
If you are targeting international customers, there is even more planning to consider, given different time zones. For you to get the best response rate from your sales emails, you should schedule them based on who you are targeting. Delivering the emails at the exact times people are bound to go through their inboxes will increase your odds of catching their attention.
When people receive your emails at 2 AM and spot them at 10 AM, they might not take your sales seriously and move on. Schedule your emails to be delivered at different time intervals based on who the email belongs to, and you are likely to get a positive response.
9. Mix Up your Email Content Over Time
Writing good sales emails will only get you so far in terms of nurturing leads and gaining customers’ trust. By sending sales-only emails to your mailing list, people will slowly grow tired of your content and start unsubscribing. Before you get to that point, try mixing up your content strategy and adding different emails to the mix.
There is a plethora of different content you can share with your customers, and they will add value to their initial purchase. Some might even be inclined to share your content with others or purchase even more products down the line. The email types you should consider exploring beyond sales emails to keep things fresh include:
- Newsletter email (company news, industry news, new blog posts, etc.)
- Promotional email (new products, events, or innovation in your company)
- User-generated content email (emails centered on user-created photos, reviews, and videos)
- Survey email (emails in which you ask customers what they think about your company and products)
- Freebie email (gifts in the form of eBooks, tutorials, and other digital content are looked on favorably)
- Hiring email (in case you have openings, asking your loyal followers to consider joining is a great step)
- Store-centric emails (emails such as cart abandonment notifications and post-purchase thank you emails)
Sales Email Writing Mistakes to Keep in Mind
Making marketing mistakes can affect your brand image and whether people want to convert into customers. You must avoid the mistakes most brands wouldn’t make by default. While the above-discussed tips and guidelines will increase your odds at sales, the following will do the opposite and drive away potential customers.
- Overly sales-oriented writing without any attention given to the recipient
- Lack of email content formatting leads to confusion while reading
- No clear call to action or direction for the reader to follow after reading the email
- Overreliance on multimedia, motion graphics, and images in the email (slow loading)
- Lack of an unsubscribe button can raise red flags with email recipients
- Not responding to emails from the recipients of your sales email (expecting sales and nothing else)
- Failing to track email analytics once the sales campaign is underway
Writing the Perfect Sales Emails for your Customers
Nurturing your email leads is just as important as acquiring them in the first place. With a good handle on your sales emails, you will be able to encourage people to buy your products or subscribe to your services more easily.
Start by reviewing your current email marketing efforts and try spotting the mistakes you might have made in the past.
Embrace them and learn from them to prepare for a refreshed approach to writing perfect sales emails. Over time, people will warm up to your sales and be much more inclined to follow up on your CTAs and offers.
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Author’s bio for this guest post
Jessica Fender is a professional content creator, copywriter, and editorial manager on a number of content writing projects.
Her experience in digital marketing and professional development has enabled her to write better articles, essays, and case studies on these topics.
Jessica enjoys reading personal development lit and listening to podcasts.
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