How to Write a Sales Email: 4 Steps to Connect With Your Prospects

In a perfect world, sales reps could send an email to a prospect with a list of information about their product, company, and pricing, and receive a yes or no response every time. 

In the real world, billions of emails are sent each year and most are never opened. In fact, the average open rate for an email is 21% and the average click-through rate is only 2.2%.

Writing an effective email that gets a response takes more than just the writing part. Here are four steps on how to write a winning email and connect with your prospects.

How to write a great sales email in 4 steps 

1. Prospecting

Before you start typing, make sure that you have the right list of prospects in front of you. No matter how well-written your email is, if you’re targeting the wrong people, or have out-of-date information, you’re just spinning your wheels. 

Target the right companies

They may be companies of a certain size, industry, or region. You can show more compelling proof of concept to your prospects if they can relate to your existing customers’ pain points. 

For example, if your product is a great fit for enterprise financial firms, don’t cast too wide a net. You’ll waste too much effort if you go after companies with less than one hundred people.  

Target the right people

Now that you’ve narrowed down the companies you want to reach, make sure that you’re talking to the right people. What is their role in the organization? Are they responsible for buying decisions? Are they close to the problem you’re trying to solve? 

Use publicly available information to find out where they’ve worked in the past, what types of roles they’ve had, or  if you share any mutual connections. This will all help you with the next step, personalization. 

2. Personalization

If you send an obvious mass email to a top lead, you’ll never hear from them again. People can pick up on generic templates pretty easily. Examples that will catch you out include: 

• Addressing the email to their full name instead of their preferred nickname (Rick instead of Richard)
• Explaining how you can help them with current problems, but mentioning a past role because your data is old
• Impersonal and vague statements like, “we help companies just like yours…”

Personalization shows your prospect that you understand what’s important to them. Use their first name, company name, and job role plus other public information like: 

• Education background 
• A mutual connection 
• News about their product announcements, industry awards, expansion into a new region, or a recently published case study
• How one of their partners saw success with your product

3. Testing

A/B or split testing your email copy can help you refine your outbound messaging. To do this effectively, you need to test one component of your email at a time, with two different versions. 

Components include: 

• Email subject line 
• Opening sentence/hook
• Length of email body
• Phrasing and tone
• Different pieces of personalization 
• Calls to action (CTA)

For example, batch your leads into two groups, and send mostly identical emails but with two different calls to action. CTA 1 could be “sign up for a customized product demo” with a hyperlink. CTA 2 could say, “are you interested in learning more over a call?”

4. Rewriting 

Run your test for long enough to see any patterns and update your email templates with the more successful option. Rewriting is a continuous process. Your original email may work well in certain economic climates or during a certain time of year but not so much at other times.

What to do and what not to do

Regardless of what you sell and who your prospects are, there are some universal truths to creating a great sales email. 

Follow these important Dos (and avoid the Don’ts) when writing your next sales email. 

Dos:

• Always research your leads before sending an email. If you skip this step you can miss out on important information and look unprepared 
• Personalize the email to the individual you’re contacting. Include a value proposition or question that is relevant to their role in their organization
• Continue to personalize any follow up emails. It may take you five, ten, or even more attempts to get a response. Each follow up email should provide something relevant to your recipient
• Be clear on your CTA. Asking for a phone call, email response, and a webinar registration at once is too much
• Demonstrate that you understand and know how to solve your prospects’ challenges. Reference the problems that your existing customers face, and relate it back to your prospect’s business 

Don’ts: 

• Don’t write a novel. Your cold sales email should be easy to scan. You only have a few seconds to catch your reader’s attention before they move on to the dozens of other new emails in their inbox. Keep it short
• Don’t talk about yourself. Write your email with your prospect as the main focus. Your name, role, and company will be in your email signature so there’s no reason to list out who you are or what your company sells 
• Don’t treat small and large prospects the same. For smaller deals, first name, company, and role can suffice. For larger deals, show you did your research by discussing news, challenges, and goals that are relevant to your prospect.

The perfect email structure

No matter what you sell, outbound sales emails should have four main parts. Each should include relevant information that catches attention and encourages a response. The four parts to an email structure include: 

Subject line

Your subject line is your first impression—make it count. The simpler, the better so only use a few words and no sentences. 

Hook

Your hook is the first sentence, or opening line, in your email body. It’ll show up as a preview in your prospect’s email inbox. Get to the point to catch their attention. 

Value proposition

Connect what you know about the prospect to one of your value propositions. You can reference another customer of yours that saw good results from your product or you can talk about a common challenge in the industry that your company solves. 

CTA

Always let the prospect know what you want from them. Ask them to reply to a question, ask for a phone call, or encourage them to sign up to attend your upcoming conference. 

Practice, practice, practice

It’s near impossible to create a perfect email, but you can create a compelling sales message that will get responses. Hone your cold email skills by continuously adapting to changing markets and competitor landscapes. 

Looking for more help on writing emails? Take a look at our article on how to structure a sales email for a deep dive.