By Wendy Weiss, The Queen of prospecting®
- Prospecting emails vs. marketing emails. There is a huge difference between marketing emails and prospecting emails. Marketing emails are emails that are sent out to large email lists—that is, one communication going to many. Prospecting emails are sent out individually—one communication from a human being going to another individual human being. Make sure that your prospecting email sounds like you wrote it and not that it was written by your marketing department.
- Be clear. The rule, in a cold call and in a cold email is that you must be crystal clear. If your prospect does not understand what you are talking about, that prospect will simply delete your email. On the phone, your prospect will say, “I’m not interested” and hang up.
- Craft your message. It is far too easy to type something quickly and then hit ‘send.’ Take time to craft your email and focus it on how you help your customers, challenges you resolve for customers and/or outcomes you’re able to achieve for customers. You won’t be able to get that email back for a rewrite so take the time upfront to make sure that you’re communicating exactly what you want to be communicating.
- Keep your email short and to-the-point. The goal is not to tell your prospect every last detail about your offering. Your goal instead is to get the prospect to respond so that you can begin a conversation. In addition, remember that your prospect may be reading your email on their phone. If it is too long, they will simply delete.
- Don’t send them stuff. No attachments. Do not send your prospect your new marketing brochure or anything else. Do not send them multiple links to check things out on your website. Attachments and multiple links can get caught in spam filters. In addition, most people will not open an email from a stranger that includes an attachment because it might also include a virus.
While these rules will not guarantee a response from a prospect, following these rules will increase the possibility that your prospect will see you as someone who is credible with something interesting to say and thus they will be more likely to respond.
