Email Marketing Optimization: Prospecting Emails

BY Rachel Cagle
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Fewer Americans are answering phone calls from unknown numbers, and voicemails identifying yourself as a salesperson aren’t the best way to inspire a prospect to return your sales call. That’s part of the reason why email marketing optimization has become so important and why prospecting emails are surging in popularity. When prospects see an email is short and concise, they’ll be more inclined to read the entire thing, giving you the perfect opportunity to both introduce yourself and provide an elevator pitch of value before the prospect loses interest.

But what content will inspire them to write back to you? Pete Caputa, writing for HubSpot, offers some suggestions for prospecting email templates that will work better than most of your previous attempts.

The Keys to Email Marketing Optimization

Offer Value Immediately

This doesn’t mean pitch a product you want to sell to prospective customers. During your research on the prospect, see if you can identify an immediate need. Send them a white paper, podcast link, or other content on a relevant industry update they may have missed. Or if you see a mistake they’ve made and are feeling brave, Caputa recommends breaking the ice with a compliment and then offering your services to fix a flaw you’ve discovered, such as an SEO mistake. Either way, offering something useful for free in a prospecting email is the quickest way to establish that your main focus is helping people, not making money. This will increase your email marketing optimization.

Utilize Common Interests

One of the easiest ways to establish a connection with prospective customers is by pointing out a common interest. However, this is much trickier to pull off since you won’t physically be in their office to point out something you see. DO NOT stalk their personal social media profiles to make up for this! It’s creepy and invasive and will make the prospect want to keep as much distance between the two of you as possible. Instead, stick with adding things you find on LinkedIn or their business’ website’s leadership page in your prospecting emails.

Target Your Prospect’s Underlings

There are some decision-​makers that are difficult to get responses from based on general internet research. When that happens, you can increase your email marketing optimization by reaching out to the prospective customers' lower-​level employees on intel gathering missions. Caputa recommends, if possible, reaching out to salespeople. “They will probably answer their phone and as peers, they know and may empathize with your struggle,” says Caputa. “They might also have a vested interest in their company investing in your solution.” Not only will reaching out to these employees give you vital information for future prospecting emails, they could also be your foot in the decision-maker’s door by providing the recommendation or introduction you need.

Reach Out to the Prospect’s Customers

Most companies post positive recommendations or comments from their loyal customers directly on their website. Or you can check out the review section of their social media pages. Either way, it’s exceedingly easy to find customers your prospects value and ways to reach them. Use this information. Focus on the reviews that have a connection to the products or services you offer and reach out to the customer for more specific information, if necessary. In your prospecting email, spotlight in the information you’ve gathered. Then offer ways to help fix the problems mentioned in negative reviews or address a possibility of improvement that you can provide.

Use Your Connections

The longer you’ve been in the sales profession, the more connections you’ve made with prospects, clients, people at networking events, etc. These connections are one of the keys to increasing your email marketing optimization. If you’re having trouble getting your foot in the door with a prospective client, take a look at your social media pages to see if any of your connections happens to know your prospect. Then reach out to those connections and ask if they’d be willing to talk you up to the prospect/​recommend a meeting. That way, you know for sure that your prospecting email to this client is sure to be a success.

Include Them in Your Research

When you lack critical information on a prospect, it can be difficult to come up with content for your prospecting emails. If your company is sending out surveys to collect data for an upcoming white paper or other original research project, that can be your ice breaker. Send your prospect a link to take your company’s survey, along with an explanation of how the results could benefit them. If they end up taking your survey, you’ll have first-​hand insight into the problems, needs, and wants of their company. Once the survey is completed, send a prospecting email with a thank you message, the results, and how you believe your product or service could be of use to them personally based on the research your company conducted.

Ask for Their Opinion

Social media has made it easier than ever for Americans to have their voices heard. Many share their opinions on public posts without giving it a second thought since voicing their opinions is important to them. Tie that into your prospecting emails. Start your outreach with a question related to your product or service that you feel the prospect will have a strong opinion on. Then, see where the conversation goes from there since the prospect now knows you value their opinion and are open to listening.


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