How to write an executive B2B sales email that works - revisited

If you’re like most executives you probably receive dozens of sales emails every week. The chances are that you don’t even open most of them, you skim those that you do open and you act on very few, if any.

I wrote this article 6 years ago, revised it in 2016 and times have moved on. The basic principles are the same but my thoughts have changed so I've modified the article to reflect my updated thinking and put in an entirely new example to reflect that.

If that's the case , let me ask you a question. Do YOU send out sales emails? If so, how do they fare? What responses are you receiving and would you like to do better?

The question most sales and marketing teams ask is “what kind of results are we getting?” But there’s an even more important question. If you get a 2% response (which is pretty good for a B2B sales email campaign) what impression are you leaving with the 98% of people that don’t respond? Are you positively influencing the people who read but don’t respond - or are you putting them off? After all, if you emailed them they are a potential future customer.

If you’re like most sales and marketing people you love your product or service, you’re totally focused on the benefits and you can’t wait to share information about new features, new contracts, awards you’ve won and customer success stories.

Here’s the problem. Nobody cares.

Nobody cares because they’re all too busy focusing on their own products, services, customers, contracts, awards, employees, superiors, their wives and families and their personal issues to care about you. So how do you cut through all of that?

Here’s how. This article covers the principles of an effective B2B sales email - and there’s a real life example at the end.

Know your audience

Who are you trying to reach? Who needs what you’re selling? If you blast out an email to 50,000 people aiming to reach 5,000, that’s 45,000 people you’ve potentially annoyed.

You need to know which companies you’re trying to reach and which people in each company. Who are your target customers and which positions (CEO, CFO, CMO, CIO, etc.) are you trying to reach?

You also need to write the email in such a way that it doesn’t annoy people who aren’t in your audience, because it will inevitable reach some of them.

Know what you’re trying to achieve

This may sound obvious, but based on the garbage I get most people don’t think about it. You should have at least one specific objective. And you need to tell the reader what it is. For example, my objectives for this article are:

• To help companies that sell B2B to write more effective sales emails
• To build credibility as an Execuitve Sales Coach by providing something of value
• To get you to help me crowndfund my forthcoming book, "How to Sell at 'C' Level" - see the bit at the bottom for details

Get them to open the email

If your subject line doesn’t attract them they won’t open the email. The subject line of an email is the equivalent of a headline in an advertisement or a newspaper – it generates interest and tells people what the content is about.

People use all kinds of subject lines; ones designed to generate curiosity, ones that use your first name, clever ones, cute ones – and IMHO they’re counterproductive for two reasons. One, because people are used to them and they don’t work and two, because if they feel they’ve been tricked into opening an email they will be negatively disposed towards you.

A good subject line should help the reader decide if the email is interesting and relevant to them. The best approach is also the simplest – be honest and tell people what it’s about and what you can do for them. If they are interested in the result they’ll open it. If they aren’t, they won’t.

For example the headline for this article is “How to write B2B emails that sell”. If you’ve chosen to read this far there’s a pretty good chance that you’re interested in the topic.

Make it about them

If you know your audience and you know they’ve opened the email you know at least something about them. So you can talk about them, not yourself, because that’s who they’re interested in – themselves.

They may eventually be interested in you – but only once they’ve decided that you can help them with something they care about.

Write like a human being

Technology is great. You can write a single email and, almost at the touch of a button, send it to 100,000 or more people.

But each one of those people reads it as an individual, not as a group. All written communication is read from the perspective of the reader. It’s from one person to another. So write as if you’re talking to a single individual and write in proper English, not business or corporate speak.

Use short, easy to understand words. Don’t use obscure words or unintelligible jargon. The objective isn’t to show how clever you are, it’s to sell. So speak in their language, not yours.

As short as possible, as long as necessary

I used to be a big fan of long copy advertising but in these days of 140 characters people have less and less time and short attention spans. So keep your emails as short as possible. But not too short.

My belief is that all written communications should be as short as possible, but as long as necessary to meet your objective. I still tend to err on the long side.

Get to the point

Tell them;

• What’s in it for them – describe a problem you can help them with
• Enough about yourself to build credibility, but no more
• What to do – specifically

In my original article I wrote:

A well structured email should describe a problem (or opportunity they have). The objective is to get them nodding, to think “yes, that’s a problem”.

Then it should state you can help them and give them a taste (but just a taste) of how. You need to develop some credibility, but keep it short, no-one likes people who boast or puff themselves up.

Then tell them exactly what you want them to do.

But now I think that, at least when reaching out to a "C" level executive, which is my main focus, that cold emails are a bad idea for all the reasons I mentioned above. But primarily because a "one size fits all" approach doesn't work very well -everyone sees value differently.

So now I prefer an individual approach when selling high value products and services, as follows - if the person you're trying to reach has an Executive Assistant.

1. Call the EA and ask for help. "Hi, This is Steve, I want to organise a five minute discussion with Mary (or whoever the exec is). How do I do that? Do I go through you?"
2. When they ask what it's about, tell them - but not too much. e.g. "In your Annual Report Mary says your key priorities this year include <whatever you can help with>. I have a couple of ideas that might help with that and I'd like to explore them with her."
3. If the EA asks for more details (he/she probably will) say "Would it help if I sent more details in an email?" I've never yet had anyone say no.
4. Send the email within 30 minutes. It needs to be as simple and direct as possible. See example. Use the heading "Meeting with Mary as discussed with you just now" or something else very obviously personal.
5. Call back 30 minutes later and say "Hi, this is Steve. I sent that email, I just wanted to make sure it arrived, I know these things can get lost in the ether or more likey in the spam folder." This makes sure it arrived, brings it to his/her attention, helps build a bit more rapport and makes sure he/she remembers you.
6. Say "I know Mary is probably flat out right now. When do you think you might get a chance to talk to her about it?" Then say, "Look, I know you're busy too, I'll call you back in <whenever> to organise the details."

That's very simple and usually very effective - IF your email intrigues them. But the email has to talk about them and their issues and not about you, your company or your product or service. Here's an example.

Hi Mary,

Great to talk to you just now. As promised, here's what I'd like to explore with Mary. I saw your quarterly analyst call last week and in it Mary said one of her top priorities was to improve customer engagement. I know how important that is to Mary and I have a couple of ideas that could possibly help.

To be honest I can't be certain that they'll work for you, although they have for other companies with the same challenge, but it should only take 5 minutes for Mary to see if there's any potential.

As we discussed I'll call you on <> to organise a brief phone chat.

It's short, it's simple and it isn't asking a lot - 5 minutes in exchange for the possibility that you can genuinely help. It creates curiousity too.

Of course, if your LinkedIn profile says "I sell wodgets and I'm a top sales gun who crushes my quota" that can diminish your credibility. So you need to make sure your online profile is credible and in tune with what you say.

===========================================================I wrote this article 6 years ago and revised it 4 years ago. I'm revisiting it now because a) my thinking has evolved since then and b) I'm in the process of gauging interest in a book I've half finished, "How to Sell at 'C' Level".

If you're interested in helping me crowdfund my book - and getting some cool incentives to do so you can check out the details in this post (10th September 2020)

Post about "How to Sell at C Level" book

You can contacted me on Twitter at @stevehallsydney, on LinkedIn at https://au.linkedin.com/in/stevehallsydney or by phone on +61 410 481 960. 

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