How To Write Effective Sales Emails

Overview

Email is a powerful sales tool. When done correctly, sales emails can help you raise awareness, build rapport, and convert qualified leads into sales opportunities at scale. There are several best practices you can follow to increase your email conversion rates.

Check out the following sections to write effective sales emails.

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Understand Your Audience

Every 60 seconds, around 197.6 million emails are sent. Before you write a sales email, ask yourself 3 important questions:

What challenges are your ideal customers facing?

How can you help them overcome their biggest challenges?

Why should they care about what you have to say?

You need to speak in your ideal customer's language, focus each email on one of their biggest needs or concerns, and ensure you provide content of value. Make sure you answer relevant questions in the content of your emails. Your readers need to be able to identify the reason for your email right away.

Turn generic terms, such as "better" and "faster" into specific outcomes, such as: "Our company can increase sales by 20%." The more relevant, specific, and quantifiable your statements are, the more impactful your messages will be.

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Make It Personal

It's only when you fully understand the needs and concerns of your ideal customers that you can personalize your emails effectively. Before you write a single message, you first need to segment your customers into smaller groups that share the same key characteristics and challenges.

Follow these recommendations to reach the right audience, with the right message, at the right time:

• Set goals for your campaigns and decide the parameters by which you will segment your ideal customers.
• Use search filters when prospecting to find the specific contacts and accounts that fit your criteria for a certain campaign.
• Create personas to identify key buyers and their defining characteristics, and determine their biggest pain points. This information should frame the content of the emails in every sequence.
• Build prospect lists to segment your target contacts and accounts into the appropriate categories.
• Create sequences with highly targeted messaging that speaks directly to each of your buyer persona's specific needs.
• Use sequence statistics to analyze and refine your segmentation tactics and further personalize your approach.
• Use AI power-ups on Apollo to research your target prospects and companies, and craft highly personalized emails based on your findings.

When you're ready to write your emails, let your audience know that you see and hear them. Speak to their needs by making your messages relatable, personalized, and clear.

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Build Intrigue in the Subject Line

Subject lines hold the key to high open rates. Keep it short, create intrigue, and make it personal.

• Length: Try to capture your message in as few words as possible. Between 10 and 60 characters is ideal.
• Intrigue: Leave your reader wanting more. Relate to their key interests or concerns, offer value, and create a fear of loss.
• Personalization: Avoid generic terms and phrases. Instead, use {{company}} dynamic variables to personalize your approach and give your emails a more human touch.

Here are some examples of effective subject lines:

• Idea for {{company}}
• {{company}} + [Your Company Name]
• How competitive is {{company}}’s sales team?
• 10x {{company}}’s traction in 10 minutes
• Question about Employee Loyalty at {{company}}

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Keep It Simple and Concise

Attention spans are short so be concise and get straight to the point. Your ideal customers aren't interested in your life story. They want to know why your message is beneficial to them. If they don't see value immediately, your email will end up in the trash folder, so keep to one focal point per email and make your message digestible.

Simplicity is also key in sales emails. You need to strike a balance between approachable, casual, and informative. Don't overcomplicate or provide too much detail. Keep your emails clean, concise, and conversational. Avoid bullet points and heavy punctuation, make your point clear, and provide just enough value to spark their interest and leave them wanting more.

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Include a Powerful CTA

A CTA (call-to-action) is a question, link, or button that draws immediate attention to the offer or focus of your email and encourages the reader to take action.

CTAs should be easy to spot, action-oriented, thoughtful, and persuasive.

Are you available for a call on {{now_weekday-plus_1}} or {{now_weekday-plus_2}}?

Can you touch base on a call this week?

Let's talk. How does this {{now_weekday-plus_1}} work for you, {{first_name}}?

Have you given any thought to my last email, {{first_name}}?

Are you still the best person to talk to about [topic]? If not, who would you recommend I speak to?

What are your thoughts about the proposal?

Do you have any questions at all?

Want me to run you through your options?

Does it still make sense for us to sync up?

Can I share a [short video] about [overcoming related pain point], {{first_name}}?

Click here to discover, engage, and convert your ideal 
customers.

Got 15 minutes to talk about [topic]?

Sign up now.

How much time does it currently take your team to do [X task]?

Reply by EOW to receive your discount.

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Add Multiple Touchpoints

Each point of contact that you make in a campaign is a touchpoint, whether you reach out via email, LinkedIn, call, voicemail, or text message. The ideal number of touchpoints that you should make per contact in any given campaign will vary depending on the type of buyer personas, the stage they are in the sales cycle, and the specific industries with which you engage.

No matter the circumstances, don't give up after the first hurdle. Nurture your prospects, provide valuable content, and have confidence in your approach. Remember the reason why you're contacting your ideal customers and the value that your product or services can bring to them.

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Learn How and When to Link

In an outbound campaign, you start as a stranger to those whom you are contacting. You need to build trust and prove that your message is worth the reader's time before you can expect them to click on any content you send.

If you want your readers to open the links you share, provide context and entice them. Use short, action-oriented CTAs, and give them a rough idea of what they'll gain from clicking:

Find out how Cyera booked 75% more meetings with 50% less effort using Apollo.

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Avoid Spam Triggers

To improve delivery rates and avoid email servers flagging your sales emails as spam, there are several content best practices that you can follow:

• Try not to over-promise or sensationalize the information in your emails. Avoid words and phrases such as buy now, cost, payment, earn, buy direct, and make money.
• Remove unnecessary links from the body of your email and your signature. It's especially important to avoid links in a first-touch email.
• Don't include images or attachments in the body of your email unless it's 100% necessary. This is especially important in first-touch emails.
• Keep your paragraphs concise. Long content can activate spam blockers.
• A/B test your messaging to discover which versions of your emails have the lowest bounce rate. What works for others may not work for you and your target audience. The best way to determine the most effective sales messaging for your campaigns is to let the data do the talking. A/B testing allows you to test multiple messages in a sequence step.

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