How to Write Better Sales Emails

This article is going to be sort of a two-part thing (it doesn’t have to be if you don’t want to), but my idea here is that first, you need to know how to write better sales emails, and then, learn how to not make them spammy and open-worthy.

So let’s begin with the “writing better sales emails” part. I’ve been writing for a bit and thought that sharing my best copywriting techniques to help you write better sales emails would be nice of me. Given the fact that I will be writing a whole 14 tips, maybe at least one (or maybe all of them?) can be useful to you to grab your potential customers attention.

Understand Your Product

Do you know what you are selling? Sounds like a stupid question but… do you? Do you know your product inside out? There is no way around this if you want to be successful in B2B sales. As a sales representative or as a marketing professional you have to learn every feature, benefit or flaw of your product.

I put together a few questions you should ask yourself for a basic guidance:

• How would you describe the product?
• What’s unique/ special about this product?
• What big benefit does it provide?
• What pain does it alleviate?
• What features does it include and what are the benefits of each?

I suggest you take some paper and a pen and write down your answers. It will help you for when you are writing your sales emails, pitching for a decision maker or for speaking with your potential client one-on-one.

Having answers to these five questions will allow you to deal with 90% of sales objections. It will help you figure out what makes your product or service unique and how it can benefit your potential client.

Know Your Audience

After answering the five questions, you will have a solid starting point. Now, get to know your audience. You have to learn about your potential clients as much as possible because there is a huge difference between writing to someone you know nothing about and composing an email to a person that you’re familiar with.

It is quite obvious that in B2B sales, you’ll be writing to people that you don’t know personally. That’s why the best B2B sales reps use social networks, the internet and lead generation tools for the initial background check. The more information about potential clients you’ll gather prior to writing a sales email, the more persuasive and personalized it will be.

There are two ways to do a background check:

1. You can look for information about individuals. Social networks and internet search are the best tools for this task, or…
2. …you could use a lead generation tool for the “similar to” type of clients.

In this case, you have to know particular characteristics about your potential clients, set them up as filters and get a lead list with the people who are likely to be interested in buying your product or service. This group will share a similar position, industry, location or any other criteria with your current clients or with your ideal customer profile.

The most important rule here is to make your sales emails personal. Better knowledge of your audience gets a higher response rate and, eventually, leads to more closed deals. I talked more about creating an ICP (Ideal Client Profile) in my previous article that you can check out.

Appeal to Emotions

Ok, so the decision of whether to buy or not should someone buy a product is not at all. It has been proven that people buy emotionally, therefore it’s important to appeal to emotions and not to logic when writing a sales email.

There are a few driving emotions that are almost impossible to resist:

• Fear
• Greed
• Guilt
• Exclusivity
• Anger
• Salvation
• Flattery

As a copywriter, I incorporate these key driving emotions into my own copy. It can be a bit harder to do if you are a sales rep, so I recommend starting with the basic techniques.

For example, let’s take fear. A basic instinct we all know quite well. Think about what scares your potential client: do they worry that their sales numbers won’t satisfy their manager or CEO? Offer help and emphasize how your product or service could increase their sales numbers by x much percent (it’s also important to be as accurate as possible — I’ll get there a bit later).

Maybe your potential clients are feeling guilty about spending most of their time at work and not with their families? Tell them that your product or service will save x many hours that they usually spend on a task that you know is time-consuming and that your product helps to solve. Tell them that they can spend less time working and more time with their loved ones.

N.B. Appealing to emotions is impossible without knowing your audience and your product.

That’s why the first two steps are a must.

Keep it Simple

Sounds simple enough. Your sales email has to be concise and easy to understand.

Use simple language. Your goal isn’t to impress your potential client with fancy words and complex sentences but to convey a message and get a reply. Copywriting is very different from literary writing, so avoid the temptation to play with words, make long introductions, overuse adjectives, etc. Keep your sales email short, simple and go straight to the point. Trust me, it works.

Benefits over Features

People buy the benefits of your product, not the features. Your potential clients will always want to know how your product or service will make their life easier. People are not willing to listen to how exceptionally unique and useful your product is, so don’t write about that.

In sales emails, you must always emphasize the value that your product brings to the potential clients and problems or issues it can solve.

It’s handy if you have a list of the features because you can take every feature and rewrite it in a way that it becomes a benefit.

Don’t forget that benefits have to be actual benefits. You must step into your potential client’s shoes and think which of your product’s features brings the biggest benefit to them.

Only “You”

Can make this world seem right… (is it only me that I thought of this song?) Anyway, what is the one thing that we never get tired of hearing? Yup — ourselves. We love to listen and read about ourselves. That’s why your sales emails must be not about you or your product but about your client.

Avoid words “I/we/our,” and change them to “you/your.” Of course, you are allowed to say “our” or “we” once in a while but I strongly recommend to keep the focus on the client.

Here is a short example for you:

“I” sentence:

Our tool uses 500+ different technologies that make our product the most comprehensive solution in the market.

Now let’s try a “you” sentence:

Reduce your operational costs by using a solution that combines 500+ different technologies and makes your team’s life easier.

Same thing, but sounds more appealing, doesn’t it?

“Because”

Psychologically, it’s easier for us to do something if we understand the reason. That’s why a simple word “because” can make miracles. And I mean it when I say it. Use it in your sales emails and provide a reason “why.”

Check this article about Dr. Ellen J. Langer and her famous “copy machine experiment” when 95 percent of the time people stepped aside from the queue and let someone else make copies only because they said, “May I use the copy machine because I’m in a rush.” You’ll see what I mean.

Be Specific

While writing sales emails, you should try to be as specific as possible.

General claims and cliches such as “we are a top company” make little impact on readers. And also sound very full of themselves. However, numbers and detailed statistics prove value and make your words more believable.

For example, the sentence “with our product you’ll be saving a lot of time” is much weaker than “with our product you’ll save 2 hours per day”. People love numbers, so you could go even further and say “with our product you’ll save 2 hours per day, that makes 10 hours per week or 40 hours per month” etc. Don’t make it too long though.

Subject Line

The subject line of your email is crucial. Based on your subject line alone, your prospect decides to open or not to open your email. The subject line sets the tone of the email, and my advice is: apply headline writing rules to writing a subject line.

According to the four U’s rule, your subject line should be unique, ultra-specific, useful and convey a sense of urgency.

• Uniqueness is important because your prospects most likely have seen many similar subject lines before and they won’t bother to open your email if its subject line isn’t unique. Being unique doesn’t mean going crazy and writing subject lines like “hey, what’up, open this email.” You can create uniqueness by providing value, by putting benefits over features and by focusing on the client.
• You have already learned how important it is to be (ultra) specific while writing sales emails. This rule applies to the subject line too. Specificity shows how useful your message is and motivates your reader to open the email.
• That said, we are assuming that your email is useful, right? Otherwise, why bother writing it in the first place? Some sales reps treat potential clients only as sales opportunities instead of presenting themselves as trusted advisors and focusing on their prospect’s problems. This kind of attitude doesn’t help write good subject lines. You should always ask yourself: what kind of value am I providing? Usefulness is what makes people keep reading, so make sure that your subject line shows some value.
• The last of the four U’s is a sense of urgency. It convinces the potential client to open your sales email and take action. A powerful and click-worthy subject line must include a deadline that forces the reader to act now. However, urgency can be left out if your subject line includes strong uniqueness, specificity, and usefulness.

Create a Feeling of Exclusivity

People live in communities, and they strive to belong. That’s why you have to create a sense of exclusivity in your sales emails. Make your readers feel that they are special and unique. Use phrases like secrets, insider information, exclusive offer, become an insider, etc. or ask them “to join.” For example, one of your sentences could start “join thousands of real estate professionals who have already doubled their yearly revenue.”

Prove the Value of Your Product

Everyone wants to get a good deal, right?

Show your potential client that your product or service is a great deal. The best way to prove the value of your product is to compare it with the competitors or specify the benefits that your prospect would get from your solution.

Finish it up With a Call-to-Action

Your sales email must end with a call-to-action. Always. You can’t leave your potential client, who just opened and read your email, hanging out there and wondering what to do next. Don’t let them have a choice to click away from your email.

At the end of your email, you have to ask your potential client to do something. It could be a request for a meeting, a question about the right time to call or any other matter (depends on your sales strategy). Tell them to do SOMETHING.

The Right Style

I shouldn’t even include this, but we all make mistakes (me included). It is very important that your sales emails would have proper grammar. Never forget to check your spelling. Also, active voice is better than passive because it sounds stronger, more certain and is easier to understand.

Verbs are better than adjectives because adjectives on their own don’t say a lot. It’s easy to throw them in without any real justification. Active verbs force you to be more precise and more persuasive.

Avoid “weasel words,” like “seems, appears, looks, might, should, etc.” These words weaken your position and say nothing concrete. Instead of the “weasel words” use persuasive words.

Test. Test. Test.

The last thing that I wanted to share with you (if you are still reading this insanely long article) is the importance of testing. You have to test everything. Try writing several different subject lines for the same sales email and send them to separate recipient groups. Change the call to action, include more benefits, use different words to describe the same thing and do it until you find what’s working best for you.