Email Critique: Why This Email Would Be Deleted

I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of emails from companies trying to sell their products to me or my team.

Some of the products and services are really good and would make a difference to the way we work.

But the emails are so lousy or self-serving that they:

(a) don’t tell me how I would benefit

or

(b) bore me to death with gratuitous exclamations of how good they are.

Here’s an example of one I received recently. I’ve changed the salesperson and company name to protect the (not-so) innocent:

Subject: Introduction to ABC Ltd

"Hi there,

How are you today?

My name is Alan Salesman from ABC Ltd. We are the leader in providing solutions to help accelerate time-to-market and improve delegate communications on your training programmes.

We help customers such as CDE, FGH and IJK automate their relationships with their delegates who attend their courses.

Recently we were able to help one of your competitors to deliver a robust solution to their communication challenges. Using ABC Ltd will help you:

• Improve communications with delegates
• Increase delegate loyalty for future courses
• Implement a best-practice approach for all delegate communications

To see how our products and services will help you, please call or email me at your earliest convenience.

Best regards

Alan Salesman"

Not only is the email impersonal, lacking in detail, too vague and very self-centered, it doesn’t give me any way to connect with them.

The first few lines give me absolutely no reason to read on!

Here’s what I would have written if it was me approaching me!

Subject: How To Reduce Your Delegate Communication Costs by 14%

Hi Mr McPheat

How do CDE, FGH and IJK maintain near-perfect delegate relationships?

ABC Ltd has helped them automate and streamline all aspects of their delegate communications .

For example, CDE distributes hundreds of messages to its delegate base on a monthly basis, timed to perfection and bespoke to the individual needs of those important people. CDE have reduced their communication costs and increased delegate loyalty by over 18% in the nine months they have been using our products. As a result, communication costs have decreased by over 14%.

I would be delighted to show how this could also apply to MTD through a free, no obligation trial.

To help you see how we could do this, do you have 10 minutes this week to discuss?

Thank you

Alan Salesman

[email protected]

01234 567891

This second email makes it apparent why I should give Alan some of my time in the coming week, and I would at least read it to the end.

There is no perfect email that will guarantee success, as most buyers don’t accept cold calls and won’t read unsolicited emails no matter where they are from. 

But if you create a message that grabs attention from the first second, builds interest by talking their language, creates desire to know more and elicits some form of action, you have devised something that would be eagerly read and responded to.

Thanks again

Sean

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