The 5-Sentence Email that Gets Responses

When was the last time you updated your email templates? Would an email written 10 years ago receive the same engagement today?

Professional copywriters know phrasing, punctuation, and length of communications have evolved over the years, and updating your written communication is a necessity in business. You don’t have to be a professional copywriter to know a structure that likely worked 10 years ago will likely not engage the same way today.

The goal of email communication is to get a response as quickly as possible. Let's break down what emails don't work and how to structure all your cold emails to gain the highest response.

Emails that Fail

Too Long = Didn’t Read

The longer the email the less likely it will be for someone to respond to you.?

Boomerang ’s research shows the length of an email directly correlates with the likeliness of a response. Emails of less than 100 words get the greatest response whereas response rates decrease the longer the email.

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

If you want more responses, shorten your message.?

Take action: Read and reread your email. Eliminate words that don’t add to the conversation, such as “that” and “should/could/would”. Place verbs first and use active voice.

No Questions

Want a response? Ask a question.?

Statements that end in period by their nature are the end of a thought. Questions on the other hand require a response.?

For example, compare these two sentences:

Let me know if you would like to explore this further

vs.?

Are you interested in exploring this further?

The first is a statement and puts the onus on the recipient to then reach out with some statement of interest. The latter is a specific closed-ended question which makes it easy for the client to respond with a quick “yes” or “no”.

Unlike asking open-ended questions when you’re in the sales meetings, closed-ended questions are to be used strategically in the outreach process.?

No one will respond back to an initial, unsolicited email with a statement about what they are currently doing in their company. Save the long response requirements for when you are connected live for a 20-minute virtual meeting. For now, we want to make it easy for the recipient to respond to us, and the quickest way they will is by requiring only a brief yes or no.

Take action: Review the statements in your email and challenge yourself to frame them in the form of a question.?

Information kills curiosity

Including brochures or links in your email moves a curious prospect to take the next action without you. The curiosity your message created is immediately crushed when you allow the prospect to self-analyze your solution with whatever issue they were looking to solve.?

More information does more harm than good.

Plus a cold email with a link is more likely to be caught by a spam filter .

If you want your clients to reply, get them to curiosity, without giving them the entire solution.

Take action: Remove all links and documentation from your email. At a minimum require the person to respond back they would like to see more before sending them more.

We’re attracted to positivity

Emails that convey a positive tone are more likely to be responded to. A major part of virtual selling is becoming more attuned to emotional intelligence and using it within every message in the sales cycle in order to have people take action faster.

People buy on emotion and justify with logic

Using adjectives that are optimistic about a future working with you is more effective than choosing to be fearful about the current state.

Take action: Use programs such as Grammerly to provide an emoji on the tone of your writing. Consider adding adjectives that speak to excitement, success, and positivity. Change your phrases to reflect this positive emotion.

The Perfect Email Formula

1. Hook

The first statement in your email should speak to the recipient directly and showcase that this email was intended for that person.?

The hook takes research on the individual’s LinkedIn profile. It ultimately invites the clients to continue to read further. The hook speaks to the person as an individual and avoids generalized statements. If your hook feels impersonal, you’re better to leave it out.

Hooks are not well-wishing statements or broad sweeping statements about the economy, weather, or a sports team (unless that person has indications this is their preferred topic of conversation).?

Problem Statement

Although the problem statement may be less individualized, stronger emails will do their best to keep it specific to the client's particular company, industry, or to readers' personal goals in their department or role. If you are starting with a general statement, ask yourself how this issue would impact you if you were in the reader’s role.

The problem should define what the reader may see as a consequence of not having the issue solved. Alternatively, if the client was to keep doing what they were doing and it was 6 months in the future, what could the client have lost?

For instance, an IT provider who helps a company by uploading documents from a private server to the cloud, may talk about the time saved by outsourcing that service. The problem statement is not “save time” but rather what the prospect could be doing with the time saved.

Save yourself time

Vs

Could you take on more clients when your time is freed from the 3+ hours per week your company is spending on manually uploading server files to the cloud?

In the above example, the problem statement is significantly longer than the original and it’s more specific on what the client is currently doing and what a future could look like without the issue at hand.

Solution Statement

The solution statement doesn’t talk about what your service is, but rather what it does. If your problem talks about the consequences of holding the status quo 6-months in the future, the solution should imagine the client is now working with you 6-months in the future.?

For instance, instead of saying a client will achieve more productivity, what would the client do with more productivity. Of all the statements in your email, this should be the easiest to form in a question. After all, do you honestly know what the client will do with the additional time?

Receive more time

vs.

What product lines could you see more clients investing in to maximize your revenue per client?

Feel free to also pose the question as rhetorical. It may be the first time the client has thought differently about their business, and this challenge should stimulate intrigue.

Call to Action

Your call to action is the final question to the client.?

Out of all the statements, this one is the most aligned to dating. We have given our case as to the two options of the future, now it’s time to ask if they would be interested in exploring a future with you.

Before the first date, we typically ask the person if they would like to go on a date before suggesting a date and time. Ask the person if they are interested in the date before jumping to what the next step would look like. This is confirmed by the Gong.io study .

Let me know if you would like to set up a time to discuss

Vs.

Are you interested in learning more?

Ensure your call to action is consistent, clear, and ultimately elicits a yes or no response.

Subject Lines Determine Open Rates

If an email had the most incredible offer, but the subject line sucked and no one opened the email, does it even matter?

Your subject line is the most important piece of the entire email. Spend time on it. Generate curiosity with words such as “this”. Create more individualism with the person’s first name. Or stay with the tried and true perfect email that opens with a simple “Hey”.

Play around with different subject lines and watch your email open rates to determine which ones are receiving better results than others. Consider also trying some of these subject lines curated by Hubspot .

Build Your Sales Cadence

Emails are only one portion of the contact points you should make with your prospects. Include LinkedIn connection requests, direct messages (DMs), text messaging, phone calls, and videos. All roads can lead to Rome, but each Roman will determine the road that leads fastest to them.

Learn how you can build emails and other techniques into a strong virtual sales process and generate more conversations faster.

Take your emails from Good to Great.

Go from Good

To Great

What tip will you start using in your emails? Any subject lines you default as your best? When reading emails do you agree with this?