How To Write a Sales Prospecting Email That Generates Response

“Sometimes there’s these things in life that hit at the right time, and it connects with people in the right way.”
–Gnash

Okay, I admit. That’s a little cheesy for an email marketing article. But lead generation through email is all about doing the right things at the right time that connects with the right people in the right way!

As we know, email marketing is one of the oldest channels to generate leads. According to Chief Marketer research, it is the best channels to produce leads. 

Now, allow me to presume that you’re familiar with the effectiveness of this email marketing, as you’re curious about how to send solid emails that can generate leads.

So let’s jump in. 

We will go through a small introduction of email prospecting, why it’s important, and see how you can craft emails that add value to your revenue system.

Email prospecting is the method of connecting with potential customers via emails with an intention to make a connection and eventually turning them into paying customers.

1. You know your revenue numbers

Email prospecting lets you know your revenue numbers from the channel very easily. Once you set up your email marketing process and figure out the conversion rate from the channel, you can easily predict the revenue numbers. Compared to other lead generation channels, email prospecting helps you forecast effectively.

2. A/B testing is easy

Compared to other lead generation channels like SEO or PPC, you can easily run A/B testing on emails, and figure out which channel works best for you. Plus, cold email marketing is one such channel that open gates to a lot of experiments. You can try out different subject lines, email content, images, links, to discover the best email template that works for your brand.

3. Hit the bull’s eye, almost

No lead generation technique is as easy as email prospecting when it comes to targeting a specific audience. When the email is sent, you can find out how many prospects are actually interested. Based on that, you can take the next steps to convert prospects. 

In other processes like SEO, the search intent is a big factor. Not necessarily the visitors checking your website, coming from search results are interested in your product (because there are tons of search intentions). But if the prospect answers to your email as “interested”, you know that it can be successfully converted.

4. This is not the right time!

Taking the example of cold calling, email prospecting is less annoying for the other end. While cold calling, you never know how sales reps might be disturbing. Imagine selling web designing services on a call when the prospect is at a funeral!

Unsubscribed.

5. High return on investment

Cold emailing can give you a high ROI compared to other channels of lead generation. You can send hundreds of emails every day, and convert clients. One major investment in email prospecting is an email marketing tool or CRM.

Spending bucks on a lightweight CRM always pays off as it can help you manage your contacts and workflows. 

Now that we know how important email prospecting is, we shall move to some techniques that can help you create an email and convert more prospects.

1. Research

Research is an essential part of every lead generation activity. Research is necessary, even if you simply want to collaborate with someone. Understanding your prospects will help you identify if your offerings are right for them or not. 

This can be done by these three simple steps:

1. Identify what kind of problems your products or services can solve.

2. Create an ideal buyer persona.

3. Check if your prospects are matching with your buyer persona.

Research gives you enough reasons to send emails with confidence (gut feeling if you say). In order to research the prospect in the best way possible, you can check out these attributes:

• Company size (things like revenue, employee strength, kind of clients they serve, etc.)
• What the company is offering?
• Industry & prospect’s designation in the niche. 
• Location

When you realize that the prospect is matching with your ideal persona, you just have to find the right person to connect with and shoot an email.

2. Make it more personal

Personalization has always attracted customer, whatever field we talk about. We all know the classic “Share a Coke” campaign. Coca-cola printed 250 most common names of the country and increased sales by 2%. For a giant like Coca-cola, 2% is solid!

The point is, that personalization works!

In email prospecting, there are several ways you make the personalization effective. 

Like:

• First name
• Last name
• Position of the receiver in the company
• Company name

Some companies also go wild and mention the prospect’s needs, but this can go wrong if the research is not thorough. Here’s a good example from Udemy – an online learning platform.

3. The subject line

According to Invesp, 47% of the email recipients open an email based on the subject line, and 69% mark the email as spam for the same reason.

So, what you write in your subject line is important! Hence, here are some useful tips:

• Include the first name in the subject line.
• Keep the subject short and to the point.
• Use humor, but make sure it’s humorous enough to get the email opened. Not humorous enough to open the email and block you. Just don’t sound offensive.
• Avoid using classic spams like “BUY NOW” or “DON’T MISS OUT!”.
• You can ask an interesting question like “Are workplace manners really helpful?”

Here’s something I found really interesting from Product Hunt that made me click & open the email – Intention fulfilled:

4. Keep it cute

By cute, I mean short – to the point – no BS. 

Just say what you want to say in the least words possible, assuming the recipient has no time for you. 

People don’t read long emails unless there is something important in it. So, they will definitely not read if you include an eBook worthy of content in your email.

It’s advised to use 50-125 words. But why to stretch it if you can convey your message in fewer words. This looks like a good example from CloudApp

5. Tell how you can help the prospect, not who you’re.

We’re living in an era where the trend of reading is already going down. I think it’s safe to assume that people don’t want to scroll down a piece where there’s no benefit involved.

Mention clearly how you can help the prospect. Let’s not waste time in introducing your brand, your company goals, vision, mission, or anything that takes more than 3 lines. Because any prospect who thinks your company can help is definitely going to do a little R&D on you.

6. Include what’s necessary

In email prospecting, there are some things we’re supposed to include. I would have happily questioned why do we need these things, but they all make sense. 

These are must include elements:

1. Social media handles

As I said, when a prospect feels your company can help, they will perform an R&D. This research includes visiting your websites and checking out your social accounts. So, it’s a good thing you provide all the gates in the email itself. 

2. Signature 

The recipient should know who you are. Include your short signature mentioning the name, position, company name (hyperlinked), and a phone number (in some cases).

3. It’s hard for you, but the “Unsubscribe Button”

Not all recipients want to receive emails. They will bluntly click on the “Unsubscribe” if there’s one. So, you should provide one. That’s how you don’t waste your energy where there’s no chance of a conversion.

7. Call to actions

If you’re talking about a specific service you provide, add a link to that landing page. That’s how people don’t have to find your services from scratch. 

If you mention CTAs, and the recipient is not interested, there’s no loss. 

But if the CTAs are not included, and the prospect is interested, there’s a definite loss. 

Cold email marketing can giveback $44 for every $1 spent, still, there are misbelieves about this channel. If you do it right cold email marketing has the capability to give 4400% ROI! All we need to do is prepare a clean-targeted draft that fulfills every requirement of prospects. Hope these tips can be useful for your next campaign.

Cheers!