How Do I Use Email to Prospect?

How effective are your emails? You want to think that the email you just wrote is perfect and sending it out to 100 prospects will result in at least 90 meetings. If this is you, there's no need for you to read any further; however, I suspect this is not your case, so let me share my techniques for using email to prospect.

Watch my video to learn how to use email to prospect:

Use email as simply one of your contacting tools. Email works best when it's used alongside the telephone and other methods of communication. Just because email is easy to use and you can send out a lot of emails quickly does not mean it is the only method you should rely on. Remember that email must be of value to the prospect; it’s not all about you! Your prospect did not wake up this morning thinking about how much they want to hear from you. No, they have their own problems to worry about; your objective is to help them.

Write the email so it reads best from a smartphone. Most prospecting emails are written on a laptop or desktop, yet they’re read on a smartphone. When in doubt, send the email to yourself and see how it looks on your smartphone. Your email must have a call to action; this is something many salespeople miss. Let’s not kid ourselves, the percentage of prospects that don't respond will be few, but that's not a reason to leave out a call to action.

The subject line must be compelling and of interest to the prospect. It's not about you. Don't think for a moment that you can use a “bait and switch” subject line. After the subject line, the first 75 characters is what I like to call, “golden real estate.” When viewing an email on a smartphone, the prospect will only see the first few words of your email, so don’t waste those words introducing yourself. Use the first few words to build on what you wrote in the subject line.

Limit the entire email length to less than 6- 8 sentences / 3 paragraphs total. Long emails get deleted, especially when they’re viewed on a smartphone. The shorter it is, the more probability the prospect will read it. Introduce yourself in the second paragraph. It's adequate to state your name and company, but going so far to say how long you’ve been in business and how great you are will turn the prospect off.

Prospecting emails are not “capability presentations.” That's why including attachments, brochures, etc. are always a bad move. The objective of the prospecting email is to gain just enough interest to generate a next step. Don’t think for a moment that you can keep sending the same prospect an email each day or even each week until they succumb to the pressure and respond to you. If you send more than 3 or 4 emails to a person in a short period of time and they don’t respond, the chances are their spam / junk filter is going to pick you up. Yes, everyone’s email system is different, but the fact remains that spam filters are designed to do their job. A spam filter's job is not for you but for your prospect.

Download my new ebook, 50 Prospecting Truths that's full of ideas and strategies to help you prospect more effectively.

Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result