If you’re having trouble crafting a prospecting email, it’s probably because you’re overthinking it. We get it — you want to grab everyone’s attention immediately, secure that spot at the front of their inbox line, and get your point across about why you’re the right solution for your leads’ problems. You also figure that in order to do that, you’ve gotta write a snappy subject line and a message body that knocks the socks off your readers, making them completely forget the other marketing emails they got that day. The reality? These tactics are actually more effective with inbound marketing, whereas your prospecting phase doesn’t have to be as complicated. Here are the types of emails we’ve seen work, why they do, and how to craft them.
Email 1 — Questions that find the right people
It doesn’t do you much good if the recipient of your prospecting email isn’t the best person for a new business discussion. To make sure you’re in the right queue, send a short and sweet navigational style message that asks about your lead’s services, rather than the solutions you want to sell. Don’t ask too many questions — in fact, you’re better off just asking one. For example, if you offer:
- Customer service training, you might ask: I’d like to learn how you develop your customer service training. Can you tell me who manages this?
- ERP software, you might ask: I have some questions about your inventory management. Can you tell who the best person is for this conversation?
- Corporate benefits, you might ask: I’m looking for feedback on your company benefits package. Can you tell me who coordinates it?
The subject line of your prospecting email doesn’t have to be overly elaborate either. Use something simple that sounds like a good conversational message you’d send someone in your own company. These could go with the examples above:
- Customer service training at [company]
- Inventory question
- Help with corporate benefits
When leads do respond, chances are they’ll either tell you they are or aren’t the right person, refer you to someone else, or ask you for more information about why you want to know. You might find it easier to draft email templates you can plug and play with as these answers come back, even if they require some fill-in-the-blank information.
Email 2 – Follow-ups that spur conversation
Not every person who receives your initial question will respond. However, if you can track electronic behavior — email opens, link clicks, webpage visits, and unsubscribe requests — you’ll be able to tell how well that message is received. Those who engage the most are the folks worth following up with.
Follow-up emails should also be brief; roughly 2-3 sentences max. Touch on that same topic you want to discuss with your leads, but vary the information up a little, and possibly throw in a bit more about your company. Again, these aren’t meant to be sales-y. They’re intended to establish relevance and trust with your audience, as it’s likely that these leads have never heard of your business before.
They could go something along the lines of,
I reached out to you recently to learn more about your customer service training. Do you have some time this week to connect?
Or,
Soft skills are in high demand for businesses trying to differentiate their brand. I’d like to learn whether this has been equally important for your team. When’s a good day this week for a call?
Ideally, your first follow-up email should be sent to your leads a few days after your first question, so that they have time to respond and don’t feel pestered. If you still don’t hear back from them, send another follow-up a few days after that. In total, you’ll want to send no more than 4 of these emails before acknowledging to leads who haven’t responded that you understand they aren’t interested now, but still offer to follow-up again in the future.
Email 3 – Content that reengages
Once you’ve “walked away” from those uninterested leads with your last follow-up, put them on a twice-a-month content email blast. These emails are meant to keep your name on their radar, and to try and get those leads to reengage with you by focusing on topics that are relevant to their market: industry trends, pain points, service improvements, etc. Those messages can tie back to what your company offers, and can include a call-to-action. Just be mindful not to push for an immediate sale.
For example,
The shift to remote work has some brands reassessing what requirements should be for their customer service — especially training, says [news source].
A good place to start includes soft skills lessons like these [link to website]. If you’d like to learn more about how to apply them to your business, how about a call this week?
Still struggling with how to write good prospecting emails? We can help. Click the link below for a free lead nurturing discussion to learn about how to craft your outreach, develop a database of active leads, and grow your sales pipeline.
