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Ouch! There’s nothing like the sting of running an unsuccessful sales email campaign. Been there? Most salespeople (and marketers extraordinaire) have been.
In this post we’ll talk about how to avoid this disappointment and seamlessly guide potential customers through the sales process. We’ll share best practices, see some sales email examples, and even check out some sales email templates. Sound good?
What makes a perfect sales email?
Even if you’re an experienced sales professional, marketer, or copywriter, it’s helpful to review best practices periodically. Here are five proven ones for writing sales email copy that makes you money.
1. Write enticing subject lines
Since your subject lines will be the first thing people see, it has to grab attention immediately. Otherwise, your open rates will suffer. And, if ideal customers don’t open your emails, how can they take action on what you're offering?
So test out or even combine subject lines with:
- Questions
- Second-person pronouns like “you”
- Urgency or scarcity
- Descriptive or emotional words
- An air of mystery
Timberland’s subject line “Don’t mess with an icon,” which promotes its iconic yellow boots, is a good example. It uses mystery without being so vague that recipients are confused or just not interested enough to open the email.
But no matter whether you use a similar technique or something else, run A/B tests to learn the subject line types that work best for your audience. And not just as far as open rates but also in terms of clicks, direct conversions, and response rates.
For example, what if a certain type gets many opens but consistently low click and conversion rates? It could be a sign that your email copy doesn’t deliver on the expectations set in the subject lines. So think about the overall results your sales team is driving via email and optimize accordingly.
2. Grab attention with the opening line
The opening line and intro of a sales email need to immediately:
- Pique curiosity
- Generate excitement
- Introduce and agitate a pain point that your product or service solves
You literally have only a few seconds to get readers’ attention and make them want to read more. So try to put yourself in a recipient’s shoes. Think honestly about what opening lines would bore you to death and what kind would reel you in.
3. Write to one person
You could send out an impersonal email blast. But think about it. You’re trying to help each subscriber on your email list understand why they should spend their money on your offer. So, to be most effective, your emails need to feel as if you’re speaking to each subscriber personally.
That includes using each prospect’s name. And using “you,” “your,” and even “we” over referring to your audience as a whole. Not to mention writing your copy based on what they care about, what they want, and what they need. One of Vimeo’s sales emails is a good example of this.
It makes the value proposition personal by using second-person pronouns throughout. And it helps subscribers mentally fast-forward to the benefits they’ll get from upgrading from their current plan.
4. Make your call-to-action (CTA) clear
The goal of a sales email is, of course, to make sales and close deals. So your main CTA (e.g. “Shop now”) shouldn’t be:
- Buried within a ton of copy
- Unclear about the action you want people to take or where the CTA leads (that means no vague “Click here” buttons)
- Competing with other less important calls-to-action (e.g. “Read our latest blog post”)
It doesn’t matter whether you’re asking for a quick call with a decision-maker to close the deal or encouraging potential customers to buy now. Use a clear call-to-action to lead subscribers to the next step, perhaps even mentioning the benefit of taking action.
And make your CTAs stand out visually as much as possible. They’re your reason for sending emails in the first place so make sure they’re highlighted front and center. (Without being too sales-y, of course, since no one likes pushy sales reps.)
Bonus: Send follow up emails
Another hallmark of a good sales email is that it’s usually part of an email sequence. There are a million reasons why some subscribers don’t convert upon receiving your first email. Maybe they needed to check their finances first. Maybe they wanted to do more research before buying. Heck, maybe they didn’t even get a chance to open your initial email.
So it’s good form to send at least one or two reminders for time-sensitive offers, and periodic emails for long-term offers. But what should those emails contain? We made a list of 15 sales follow up email templates that you can plug your info into and send within minutes!
Why use artificial intelligence to write your sales emails?
Now, you could write your own sales emails using the best practices above. Or…you could leverage the power of artificial intelligence (AI).
Why should you consider taking the AI route? There are two main benefits of using an AI email generator like Jasper.
1. AI improves efficiency
With AI, you can write copy for your sales emails (or even sales pages) way faster than if you work solo. This is because you only need to provide brief descriptions of what to write about. The AI handles a lot of the actual writing, which means a lot less typing and time spent for you.
2. AI contributes to effective copy
The best AI writing tools are trained not just on natural language but on how humans write content and copy.
For example, Jasper has studied thousands of pieces of marketing content from across 10% of the published internet. As a result, he’s able to use patterns from those studies to help you write effective copy. This is especially helpful if you don’t feel like writing sales pitches is your strength. You don’t need to be a world-renowned copywriter; you just need to know what your sales message is.
How to write great sales emails using AI
Want to see how easy it can be to write your best sales email yet using Jasper? Here are a couple of methods you can use to whip up compelling email copy that drives sales in under 15 minutes each.
First, there’s the AIDA Framework Template. (It’s multipurpose but works great as a sales email template.) Just enter a brief description of what you want the email to include, fill in your product or company name, and put in the tone of voice you’re going for. As you can see below, Jasper will write engaging sales email copy based on that info.
If you also need a hand coming up with enticing subject lines, you can use the Email Subject Lines Template. We recommend filling in the same info you used for the AIDA template and seeing what Jasper comes up with. For example, here are a handful of the options he gave us for the example email above.
These are two of many templates that can help you write effective sales emails. Even the Cold Email Template can get you started with an email to CRM contacts that you already have a relationship with. But you can also use a recipe to write a longer, more detailed email.
In a long-form document, give Jasper the information you want him to use, along with instructions on what to write.
In this example, we gave the name of a fictional product, wrote about the problem it solves and how it works, and gave the details of the offer. Here’s the blank recipe. Take a look at the sample info we filled in.
From there, we asked Jasper to execute the command by hitting CTRL (or CMD) + Shift + Enter. This was the result.
Ultimately, whether you use templates or recipes, Jasper is a more efficient way to create sales emails than writing them on your own. Especially since you can it in Gmail or other email clients thanks to Jasper Everywhere—a leading Chrome extension for email and other content types. And it’s not just faster. The copy Jasper generates is unique, engaging, and uses proven best practices to get you the results you’re after.
Want to try writing your next sales email with Jasper like we showed you? Sign up today.
