Your prospects have short attention spans and tons of unread messages in their inboxes. That means you have just three seconds to stand out with your sales emails.
How can your sales team get better open and click-through rates in their emails?
Keep reading to learn some tried-and-true methods of grabbing prospect’s attention with your subject line, persuading them to open cold sales emails, and, importantly, make them eager to respond.
If you apply this blueprint for writing amazing hooks in your subject line and follow our method for sales copy, I guarantee that you will boost your reply rate.
Vengreso just shared their blueprint for writing winning #sales emails. 📨 Check it out now in their latest blog post! #prospecting #salesenablement Click To TweetTypes of Sales Emails
Before we jump into the basics of creating content, let’s quickly discuss email types and the sales process. Should you bombard your subscribers with daily news clips and blog post links? Or would a dedicated send with one offer better suit your sales funnel? How about a brand story email?
You can send various marketing and effective sales emails, and you’ll need to make an educated decision when choosing the ideal mail type.
Brand Story Emails
Perhaps your business has a unique story behind it? For example, you’ve been around for decades, or you’ve won an award. Use it to create an emotional response with your prospects by reiterating who you are, what you do, and how you’re able to help them.
Email Newsletters
Although usually created by marketing and not sales, email newsletters are a great way to create a foundation for your sales outreach strategy. Content can include current projects or employee profiles. These newsletters enable you to remain top of mind with your prospects.
By the way, if you are not subscribed to Vengreso’s newsletter yet, just click here. We’ll send you a weekly email with amazing content to help you prospect better and sell more.
Prospecting Emails
Prospecting emails are the most common emails a sales rep sends out. Basically, you are connecting with a potential buyer, seeking to start an online sales conversation that will eventually lead to an offline sale.
If you want to write a better sales prospecting email, I highly recommend that you listen to this interview with Shawn Finder, a former semi-pro tennis player and the founder of Autoklose (acquired by VanillaSoft), an email automation tool. We discussed the best tactics for cold emailing and tricks for making your emails convert.
Dedicated Blasts
Also known as dedicated emails or promotional emails, they contain information about one solitary offer.
Perhaps you’re hosting a webinar? These dedicated sends are often dispatched to your entire database and act as a landing page to introduce a call to action.
Video Emails
Did you know that including a video in your email can improve click rates by 65%? According to Campaign Monitor, including a video in your initial email campaign can boost click rates by 96%.
Sending personalized emails with a gif image or a video (where people can click to watch it off the web) is an effective way to stand out from the crowd. Video for sales is a powerful tool that you, as a salesperson, should learn to use.
Sponsorship Emails
Want to reach a target audience outside of your database? You can pay to include your copy in another vendor’s newsletter or blog post and gain, this is a technique for lead generation.
There are at least 6 types of emails that marketing and sales can send out. 🤔 What are they, and how can each impact your #sales goals? I highly recommend reading this article by @M_3Jr. #prospecting #b2bsales Click To TweetHow to Write Sales Emails
The perfect sales email includes a strong subject line, a strong opening line and a body copy that is relevant (personalized) and helpful (adds a value proposition) to the customer. It should close with a call to action.
The Best Email Subject Lines for Sales
The hook that lures readers in. You’ve got three seconds to entice the reader, so keep subject lines short, and avoid spammy words like ‘sale’, ‘specials’, ‘free’, and ‘tempting’. Your subject line should be personalized and relevant.
Five examples of a good email subject lines for sales:
- A question about [their goal]
- [Mutual connection] said we should get in touch
- Did you find what you were looking for?
- A [benefit] for [their company]
- 5 ideas for [a topic the prospect cares about]
Body Opening Line
The sales email is not about you or even your company. Instead, focus immediately on why you are emailing and how you can help your prospect.
Go for a personalized intro that is relevant to your prospect. For example, imagine there is a market shift in a particular field. You’d want to let your potential customer know that you’ve picked it up and expound on how it can be dealt with (along with your help).
In this case, you might say, “Are you in a position to leverage this new opportunity? Why not try and. . . [insert solution]?”
Or imagine that one of their competitors did something unexpected. This may create a pain point you can exploit. Ask them about their reaction, and offer advice on solutions that could benefit them.
You might write: “We notice that XYZ is using this new [insert product]. Are you planning to keep up with them?
Body Copy
Keep it conversational. Simple language is a powerful language, so avoid silly adjectives and industry jargon.
Don’t confuse your prospect by offering them too many things in your cold email copy. Aim for one very clear goal and write your story around it.
The body copy should be short and the same as your elevator sales pitch because who has time to read a novel?
Call To Action
There’s no point in sending your letter without a solid call to action to up your open rate. This where you pave the way to a close by inserting a question that prompts a response and improves your reply rate.
For example:
- Do you have five minutes to catch up tomorrow?
- Can you let me know how we can take this forward?
- Is [business goal] something we can explore now, or perhaps in the future?
The steps above are easily summarized in our PVC Sales Methodology . PVC stands for Personalization, Value, and Call to Action. Check out this video to learn more about the PVC method for writing sales emails (or any type of sales messaging).
What is the anatomy of a winning #salesemail? ✅Great Subject Line ✅Personalized opening line ✅short yet meaningful body copy ✅ and lastly, ✅an engaging call-to-action. @M_3Jr talks about this in detail in this article. #entrepreneurship Click To TweetFollow Up Sales Emails
Even if you create a sales email that tantalizes your prospects, you still need to follow up with them. In reality, most sales require up to five follow-up emails before a customer commits.
What you want to do is measure your prospects’ engagement. Perhaps they’ve clicked on a link, and you know that they’ve been toying with the idea of responding. Your sales software should flag this activity and allow you to tailor a well-timed email to reach out with a follow-up email.
Best Time to Send Sales Emails
Is there an ideal day when to send sales emails? Turns out there is.
Studies show that Tuesday is the best day to send emails, with 20% more ‘opens’ than average. Monday and Wednesday follow closely with an 18% higher open rate. Thursday comes in at 15%, and don’t even bother sending emails on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.
What about the time of day? The ideal time to send is from 10 am to 12 pm, with 11 am as the sweet spot with the most ‘opens’.
We recently conducted a survey among sellers about the time of the day they do most of their prospecting and below are the results. Although the poll does not specify their prospecting channel, we can see that 65% of sellers are prospecting outside the best times to prospect according to the research. No wonder many sellers do not meet their quota!
Best Practices for Sales Emails
A/B Testing
It’s worth A/B testing your subject line with 100 cold emails to see what works. Create two subject lines (but with the same content in the body) and measure the results. Ideally, you should achieve a minimum open rate of 30%.
Customize email
Adjust the body of your email for a more personalized campaign. Perhaps you have a special connection with one of your prospects? Or maybe you read one of their LinkedIn posts?
Irregular sending frequency
Set your marketing automation software to send out emails at irregular time intervals. This prevents them from being marked as spam emails and ending up in the spam folders.
Sales Email Template
The following template follows the PVC methodology and it is personalized to a specific person. In our social selling training program, we teach sales professionals how to do some quick research of your prospects from their LinkedIn profile to personalize your messages.
Hey PROSPECT’S FIRSTNAME! I recently saw your LinkedIn post where your company and your CTO were acknowledged for fostering a culture of innovation! It must feel great to be part of the team that has received such recognition (REPLACE WITH CUSTOMIZED RESEARCH OF YOUR SPECIFIC BUYER). I’m reaching out because as a INSERT TITLE OF BUYER, I know you are trying to generate more leads, improve the quality of those leads, and decrease the time it takes to create MQL’s (REPLACE BUSINESS PAIN/GOAL OF YOUR BUYER PERSONA). That’s exactly how we helped Mastercard (REPLACE CLIENT NAME). In fact, they were able to increase MQL’s by over 300% and create a 200% increase in sales appointments within a 6-month period (REPLACE ACHIEVEMENT). In this video, INSERT NAME AND TITLE OF BUYER tells you how they did it – INSERT HYPERLINK. I’d like to help you solve a similar set of problems. I am available to host a 30-minute discussion on: Two Weeks Out @ 9 am or Three Weeks Out @ 1 pm or Four Weeks Out @ 4 pm Which date and time work best for you? I look forward to chatting. YOURFIRSTNAME |
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The second sales email template can be used when you don’t have a lot of details about the recipient and you want to personalize to the buyer persona.
Hi PROSPECTFIRSTNAME! The majority of INSERT YOUR BUYER’S FUNCTION (i.e. Sales) leaders we speak to have X common problems they are trying to solve: INSERT PROBLEM 1 AND PROBLEM 2 Attached are two items that have helped other INSERT YOUR BUYER’S FUNCTION (i.e. Sales) leaders address these problems. The first is a BLOG article that answers the question: INSERT QUESTION The second is an X min VIDEO/WEBINAR which addresses INSERT BUSINESS BUYER’S CHALLENGE. May I suggest a 30-minute meeting, where I can share additional insights on how we’re helping other companies solve these problems? I am available on: . List a Date Two Weeks Out @ 9 am or . List a Date Three Weeks Out @ 1 pm or . List a Date Four Weeks Out @ 4 pm Alternatively, if none of those dates work and to avoid email scheduling volleyball, just click here (INSERT LINK) and feel free to find a time that matches your calendar. Does that work for you? I look forward to speaking with you. YOURFIRSTNAME |
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You could also read this blog post from Hunter.io for more cold sales email templates.
Interested in more sales emails templates and speeding up your workday with a writing assistant? Then install our FREE Chrome Extension, FlyMSG, a text expander tool that gives you access to a library of presaved, industry-standard sales messaging templates (FlyPlates) that you can customize and curate for your prospects’ needs.
Are you Ready to Become a Modern Sales Master?
Writing winning sales emails is a skill that sellers can develop with the right sales training program.
At Vengreso, our mission is to help sellers prospect better and sell more, whether through personalized email, social media, phone, or any other channel. That’s why we created the Modern Sales Mastery for Individuals program, with an ever growing number of on-demand sales training courses that will teach you how to book more meetings, grow your sales pipeline, and close more deals.
Curious? Then take a look at our available courses and sign up today, so you can reach the right person in no time! Just click on the image below.
10 thoughts on “15 LinkedIn Profile Optimization Tips to Get Found This 2023”
My LinkedIn account was ranking on the first page for best mommys blog keyword quite a few years back and I didn’t have any idea. While working, I stumbled upon the Analytic section of LinkedIn and saw that most of the visitors are coming from search engine later on I realized that in my profile I’ve used “Mommy’s blog” word a lot of time and that is the reason why it was ranking well on SERP. This is how I came to know about SEO and I was also amazed by the fact that how easy it was to rank for competitive keywords back then. Anyways loved your article and please share more tips on SEO.
Thanks for sharing. The number of times you mention a word or phrase is still a factor for sure.
We love hearing tips as well as questions our reader, so keep them coming!
Should I change keywords overtime based on what’s popular on the internet?
There is a lot of value in this article, especially for those looking to improve their visibility on LinkedIn. My favorite of the fifteen tips shared in this article is number nine. I’ve observed that people with custom profile links, seem to get more attention than those who haven’t customized their LinkedIn profile URL. Interesting article, thank you for taking the time to put it together.
Customizing LinkedIn URLs create more visibility for sure! Thank you, Bret.
I agree with the recommendations, they are a very important part of our strategy on LinkedIn, it can give confidence to potential customers (or leaders when someone is looking for a job).
People shouldn’t underestimate keywords on their LinkedIn profile! This helped potential buyers to find me on LinkedIn more easily when they searched for certain products and/or services. Thanks Viveka!
Thank you for another great blog post. For the alt text and/or naming images, do you mean two to three different keyword phrases as a maximum, like this?
B2B cybersecurity content marketing writer , technical writing cybersecurity content , cybersecurity technical writer , David Geer
Or can you add more keyword phrases than this?
Hey David – I honestly don’t know the efficacy of adding more keywords than that. I would stick with what you have above.
All the information is very helpful which can help us to increase our Profile ranking on LinkedIn. Another big interesting article, this blog is very useful for the Optimization of my LinkedIn profile.
I also get much knowledge from this blog.
thank you keep sharing.