Tricking Your Prospects
No one likes to open an email under the impression it’s been sent from someone they know or that the email is urgent only to discover that it’s a cold prospecting email from someone they’ve never heard of. When your prospects encounter emails like these, and we’ve all gotten them, they’re immediately angry, and rightfully so.
Not only is it unprofessional and shady, do you really want to begin a relationship with a potential customer by deception? What kind of business relationship will that lead to?
Not Giving Your Prospects the Freedom to Choose
Inserting lines like “I’ll be giving you a call in the next few days”, make your prospects feel trapped. Why warn them if you’re not going to give them a choice in the matter? Instead use language that asks the prospect to take an action in order to schedule some time for a phone call if that’s your goal.
You not only remove the psychological effect of feeling forced into this situation, you also will make sure that your prospect is expecting your call and has the time to devote to it.
Starting with a Call to Action
Every prospecting email needs a call to action. There needs to be some phrasing in the email that gives the prospect some direction as far as how to proceed if they’re interested in hearing more about you. The mistake many prospectors make, however, is to begin the email with a call to action, such as asking for time for a call or demonstration, before establishing the value that they can provide to the prospect.
While keeping it as short and concise as possible, give the prospect an idea of why they would want to pursue that next step with your organization before you ask them to actually do so. When you begin with phrasing like “I’m reaching out to introduce myself and see if we can schedule a 15-minute conversation”, your prospects will immediately tune out and likely not read the rest of your message. After all, why would they want to have a call with you without knowing why?
Focusing on More Than One Value-Add
In the same vein as keeping your emails as short and concise as possible, you want to try to focus on one benefit you provide to your customers per email. You know your company is great and you have all kinds of things to offer, but your prospects don’t want to hear about it all at once. They won’t read it all, and therefore they won’t reach the end of the email and the call to action. At that point you’ve lost them.
Keep your message straightforward and focus on what’s important to the prospect. Avoid wasting lines bragging about things about your company that, while good, are not important to the prospect’s immediate needs.
We utilize all these principals on a daily basis when crafting messages for our customers, and it works. Let’s talk about how we can craft concise, straightforward, professional communications for you.