B2B Sales Email – How to Write Stellar Emails Your Prospects Will Read
Your long-term objective is to close the sale.
And, yes, it would be wonderful if prospects would read your sales emails and immediately want to buy. Sadly, this is an unrealistic expectation for most businesses. Consequently, your objective for each email should be to move your prospect further along in your sales cycle.
To do this successfully, you need to understand your customer’s journey. Once you do, map how they travel from initial problem identification to brand advocacy. This map will help anchor your expectations for email marketing results in reality. At one stage in the sales cycle, you might expect a prospect to request more information via email. Further along, they could be more likely to commit time to a consultative phone call.
That said, what email guidelines should you follow to get results?
Guidelines for Awesome Sales Emails
Write and design your emails for easy reading on smartphones and tablets. After all, that’s where most decision-makers check their mail.
Skip the fluff. Busy executives don’t have time for it. You need to get to the point and answer the reader’s question, “What’s in it for me?” It’s easy to remember. Just pretend you’re running the radio station WIIFM.
Get personal. Mass emails, often known as email blasts, are not as productive in generating sales as those that are personalized. Your emails need to show an understanding of where the reader is in their buying cycle and what their needs are. When you can’t write one-to-one, segment your audience by needs and buying stage and customize your emails accordingly.
Establish your expertise and credibility. The reader has another pressing question: “Why should I believe you?”
Don’t be pushy. If you approach the sale with the goal of helping someone, you’re more likely to achieve your objectives in the end. The old rules of ABC (Always Be Closing) do not apply.
Subject Line Tips
The subject line includes the most powerful words in your entire email. That’s because if the subject line doesn’t motivate the recipient to open your email, the body of the email will have no value.
Conventional wisdom says that subject lines for email marketing should be personalized, brief and action oriented. There’s a lot of great science behind these marketing best practices but, Steve Schade, veteran sales leader and founder of Claritysoft believes executives are now too familiar with the formula. “Subject lines like, ‘Do you know your customers?’ or ‘Never lose another lead,’ can feel too much like marketing fluff. Decision makers are likely to delete them,” he says.
This begs the question, what works today? Based on our tests, recipients are more likely to open emails with subject lines that arouse curiosity and make the recipient want to learn more. We found that the subject line “Your CRM Project” regularly outperforms those with more hype, such as “Instant Growth with CRM.”
“Your CRM Project” is a basic subject line, and you might wonder why it works. We believe it’s because these words are relevant to our prospects and create some mystery. The reader has to open the email to find out what we know about their CRM project.
Of course, you’ll need to test several email subject lines to determine what works best with your audience. Make sure you send email tests concurrently to ensure that timing does not impact results.
Your Sales Email Template
Below is a sample of what an introductory email might look like.
Subject: Your CRM Project
Hi [FIRST NAME]:
I’m Paul and I’ve been working with technology companies for over a decade now. Time and again I’ve seen them struggle with building customer relationships.
As a representative for Claritysoft, I’ve helped many companies to:
Centralize and secure customer information
Keep track of all customer and prospect related activities so nothing falls through the cracks
Convert leads into sales
Recently, I helped ABC Company to increase revenues by 17% by managing their customer relationships better. Would you like to increase your SaaS sales? If so, I’d love to chat with you. I’ll give you some tips based on what’s worked for other companies. Please email or call me to set up a time.
Have a great day!
Paul Smith
Your Account Manager
(888) 838-7487
See what we did here?
The subject line arouses curiosity.
The first paragraph establishes expertise and shows empathy and understanding.
WIIFM bullet points.
A mini case study about ABC Company that establishes credibility.
A personal reference (SaaS sales).
A soft offer to help…a chat to provide some tips.
Of course, writing the winning email is only part of the successful sales equation. You also need to keep a record of all your communications: email, phone and in-person. Plus, when appropriate, you’ll need to schedule follow-up phone calls. Remember, people are busy. They might not reach out to you, but they may still be happy to hear from you if you can help them.
