Writing effective sales emails is no small feat, but there are a ton of benefits to reaching out to potential leads via email as opposed to social media or other forms of communication. Let’s get into why sales emails are so important for your business. 

Perks of Writing Perfect Sales Emails

Emails give 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 they follow up. Whether you write sales emails for B2C or B2B leads, you can go in-depth with how you personalize the content to a  specific recipient. 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

Every great email needs a great subject line. 64% of email recipients make their decision to open an email or not based on the subject line and nearly 70% report emails as spam based on the subject line. Your subject lines are the first pieces of content each recipient will see, so you should handle your subject lines carefully to ensure a successful open rate.

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, 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.

Personalization is what will differentiate you from other brands seeking 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 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 what you’re 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.

Writing a P.S. is also great for making your emails more personal and effective. A P.S. can be a way to create a sense of urgency for the recipient, or it can be a way to include some external links they can interact with.

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 to 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 describing 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 will click on the links you’ve included. Less is more when it comes to emails.

There’s nothing more damning for a sales campaign than grammar and proofreading errors in the email copy. No matter what industry you work in, 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. Use dedicated tools for writing and formatting. Here are a few select platforms to check out:

• Grammarly
• Hemingway App
• Evernote
• Readable

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.

Leveraging technology allows salespeople to work smarter, not harder. Sales technology goes way beyond ensuring sales emails are well-written, there are tools to help salespeople in every aspect of their work. Utilizing sales tools will not only make your life easier but will also help you save time and energy to be more productive and close more deals. 

Badger Maps is a sales app designed specifically for outside sales reps. The app is 100% mobile, allowing reps to log all their customer interactions as soon as they take place, making it easy to keep track of valuable information. Not only that, you can easily set up reminders to check in and follow up with customers right in the app, this way you will never miss an opportunity simply because you forgot to contact a prospect. 

Badger Maps is an all-in-one sales tool that allows you to plan your day in seconds, optimize your routes, eliminate busy work by updating your CRM data from the field, find new leads around you, and more.

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 might result in your emails being registered as spam. You can’t ask people to buy anything from you if you are anonymous – trust should be mutual and start from your side.

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. Remember this when creating the visual image with a logo maker and other tools.

However, it can also cause issues for mobile users and people with slow or limited bandwidth. When done right, video emails can help you boost brand awareness, connect with prospects, and nurture them into becoming loyal customers. This is why so many growing businesses are using email video prospecting to complement and improve their sales strategy.

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. 

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.

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. 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.

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Sales Email Writing Mistakes to Keep in Mind

There are certain mistakes you have to avoid when writing sales emails because they can hurt your credibility, affect your brand image, and affect whether people want to convert into customers. While the tips and guidelines above 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
• 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

Pro resource: Discover the 6 deadly email mistakes that can harm your success and how to fix them.

Writing the Perfect Sales Emails for your Customers 

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 sales efforts and try spotting the mistakes you might have made in the past. Embrace them and learn from them in preparation 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.