How to Write a Prospecting Email That Will Generate a Response11 min read

It’s clear that things won’t go back to normal, at least to so quickly, which is why remote prospecting is our future. And even when social distancing is over, email prospecting will remain a helpful addition to every salesperson and marketer’s arsenal. 

Sales and prospecting email outreach is convenient, and it’s effective, especially when it comes to filling your sales funnel as quickly as possible and keep it full to the brim. 

Here are some tips that will help you create a prospecting email that will resonate with your audience and allow you to build a relationship with them.

What Your Prospecting Email Should Contain? 

Before we go into details and explain the most important elements of a successful prospecting email, we should mention what an absolute no-no is. 

Being too focused on yourself and providing no value to your recipients is a surefire way to catapult your email straight to the spam folder.  Instead of that, implement a WIIFM approach and show your recipients that you’re acting in their best interest.

Another sin that your recipients won’t forgive is the copy that’s too long and elaborate – remember that people you reach out to are busy and that already have to read and respond to a number of emails, so respecting their time is a sign that you care. 

And many sales reps and marketers make these mistakes, so no wonder that recipients open less than 24% of sales emails. 

There are 3 key elements of every effective prospecting email. Here’s what it should contain:

• A reason for reaching out. This is something that you should establish before you send your prospecting email. Is this person the right fit for your offer, and will they find your offer compelling enough? Check whether this potential recipient is in line with your ideal customer profile and buyer persona, as well as whether they’re similar to your existing customers in a certain regard. 
• An explanation as to why you’re reaching out now. Apart from the reason for reaching out, you need to create a sense of urgency. Identify whether your recipient has a particular pressing pain point, is there a trigger event, or anything else that will justify your plan to get in touch with them at this point. 
• A prominently placed, irresistible call-to-action button. In order to move your recipients further and push them into your marketing and sales funnel, you need to add a clear and high-converting CTA. Its main purpose should be to convince your recipients to take action and tell them what they expect if they click on it. It’s crucial that your every email should have a call to action because if it doesn’t, your recipients will be confused and they won’t understand what you want them to do and why you reached out in the first place. 

How to Properly Structure Your Prospecting Email? 

You won’t have much success if you take a random approach and compose your prospecting email without prior planning. 

Your every email should follow the same structure, as this formula will make sure that your sales pitch provides value and gives your recipients a reason to open your email and continue reading it. 

1. A catchy subject line 

Getting your recipients to open your email means that you’re halfway there, and you can achieve this only by coming up with a clever and relevant subject line. 

Using caps lock or upper case doesn’t seem like something that your friends would send you. Be as natural as possible in reaching out to your prospects, and don’t let pushing your own agenda and hitting sales targets get the better of you and turn you into a merciless spammer.

I know that this isn’t the easiest task, especially if you’re not a copywriter, which is why Autoklose has a number of different email template sequences together with high-converting subject lines that you can customize and use. 

2. An efficient opening line 

After your recipients clicked on your email, it’s time to grab their attention with your opening line. 

First of all, make sure to personalize it and let your prospect know that you know who they are and understand their issues and needs. After that, mention why you’re reaching out, and talk about them and their pain points, and not about you and your product/service/business. 

That’s the best way to make them interested in your narrative. 

3. A tailored offer line  

Your prospects can have different issues and pain points, which is why you need to personalize your offer, so that resonates with every recipient on a personal level. 

You can do this by highlighting their respective pain points and explaining how your product or service can be an effective solution. 

It’s a good idea to add social proof or customer reviews to this section as they will provide an air of authenticity and credibility. 

4. A persuasive closing line

After a conspicuous and clear CTA, wrap up your message with a cordial closing line. Don’t be too informal and say something along the lines of “Looking forward to doing business with you.” 

5. A well-thought-out signature

Many sales reps and marketers fail to use the full potential of their email signature. 

Namely, apart from your full name, image, title, and contact info, you can use this tiny real estate to showcase social proof, promote your latest webinar or blog post, as well as to present your latest awards and badges. 

Generally speaking, you can add anything that will help you show that you’re credible and trustworthy, or that will add value to your prospects. 

Avoid Sending Unsolicited Emails

Many companies take advantage of the opt-in checkbox, and once they get a recipient to say yes to their emails, they start sending several emails a week, and sometimes even more than once a day.

The thing is not to try to lead your audience on and tell them straight away what they can expect. The fact that they opted-in doesn’t mean that you should start bombarding them with tons of irrelevant emails.

GDPR in Europe and CASL in Canada make it difficult for email marketers to reach their target audience, but on the other hand, if you manage to obtain a recipient’s consent to send them emails, you can be sure that this particular recipient is interested in your company and that you can nurture them into becoming your customer.

So, by being fair and transparent about what your recipients can expect from you (and how often!) you’ll set the record straight and start building loyalty with your audience. 

Clean Your List, Declutter It, and Disqualify Leads

Yes, your list will shrink, but your engagement will go up (the more people open and genuinely engage with your emails, the algorithm will take notice, and the less likely your emails will end up in the promotions folder in the future).

The same applies to your open and click-through rates which will definitely increase. 

“Delete” is one of the most unpopular words in marketers’ vocabulary, but you need to get rid of the excessive and unnecessary baggage if you want to grow your business.

Get rid of all those hard bounces, incomplete contacts, or those who have never ever responded to your email or taken an action. This way you’ll remove all these stale contacts that were of no use anyway, and make room for fresh and interested prospects.  

Be Careful When Including Multimedia in Your Emails

Gmail can scan your emails and spot if you’ve put tons of images and videos. And that’s the red flag for ads and commercial emails. In that case, off your emails go to the promotions folder.

Just think how the emails that you send to your friends and members of your family look like. You’re not swamping your friends with images, videos, or links. Do the same when you’re emailing your prospects.

It’s OK to include one image or video, and not more than three links.

Besides, don’t forget that not all your recipients enjoy the benefits of broadband internet connection and that it takes ages to load all those images that you put in your email body. 

So, be considerate and use multimedia in moderation.

Add Value to Your Recipients

Yes, this is something that everyone’s talking about, but many marketers still take this piece of advice for granted and only try to sugarcoat their offer by wrapping it into a thin disguise of outward value which is of little or no use to their recipients. 

And, people see through this and opt-out.

Create a customer-focused mindset and really get to know your audience and their issues.

Everything you do should be directed at delivering relevant content and solutions that your recipients can benefit from.

Prospecting Email Examples 

Now that we’ve discussed theory, it’s time to show how to create a prospecting email in practice. 

You can use different “triggers” to reach out to your prospects and build a connection with them. 

Here are a couple of them.

1. Asking for permission 

The reason why this approach works lies in the fact that people are always curious and intrigued to find out how they can improve their life and business. As this is a prospect-centered approach, it’s very likely that your recipients will be interested to hear what you have to suggest as a solution. 

2. I need your help 

Believe it or not, but people are very helpful, and they will usually do their best to lend you a hand. In this case, apart from giving you directions, they might also provide you with some kind of internal referral that will crack the door open for you.  

3. Your website is awesome

This is an example of providing immediate value to your prospect, as you’ve taken time to see what they could improve and reached out to offer your expertise.

Just make sure you break the ice with a compliment because that way it will be easier for them to accept your criticism and understand that you want to help.
As you can see, crafting a prospecting email that will generate a response takes time, but if you implement these tactics and tricks, your open and response rates will soar.