Emails are a well established method of communicating with prospects and customer. Leslie Ye offered the following important tips to help make this process a successful component of your sales activity.
1) Draw a connection between you and your prospect.
Hook your prospect within the first two sentences of your email. An unsolicited email is inherently interruptive, so don’t throw away your shot to connect with a weak intro.
Examples:
- “I see you’ve been consistently reading our blog posts.”
- “You just downloaded our guide to the most popular floral arrangements for summer weddings.”
- “Congratulations on the new position! I see your previous company used to use our software.”
- “You fit the profile of many of our most successful customers.”
P.S. If you can’t think of a single good reason why you’re reaching out, don’t.
2) Provide immediate value.
Follow up on your reason for reaching out and offer guidance or suggestions, establishing yourself as a trusted advisor.
Examples:
- “Have you seen this article addressing Y problem you tweeted about last week?”
- “We’ve seen success in X area with A, B, and C strategies.”
- “Companies like yours who follow X strategy often fall short in the areas you’re researching. Try A, B, or C instead.”
3) Leave them with food for thought.
If you have additional resources or more insight to offer, that’s great! But don’t write your prospect a dissertation. Include one or two links to additional articles or attach a more in-depth resource that digs deeper into the issues you’ve already brought up.
For example, if you’ve offered advice on social media strategy and you see your prospect is strong on Twitter but not LinkedIn or Facebook, you could include a more in-depth guide to getting started on either of those social networks.
4) Include a call-to-action that’s aligned with their buyer stage.
There’s no easier way to appear too salesy than to ask for too much. If your prospect has downloaded research, ask for a preliminary call to talk about their needs and their problems to see if you can help. On the other hand, if they’ve downloaded bottom-of-the-funnel content, feel free to ask for a call to discuss whether you’re a mutual good fit.
Credit to: Leslie Ye | @lesliezye
