Selling Skills

5 ways you can use email to sell more

Just about every sales person, when I ask what they want their email to accomplish, says they want their email to make the sale.  Yeah… and I’d like Hagen Daz peanut butter ice cream to be a diet aide. 

But email can be a wonderful sales tool as long as you follow some rules:

1. Know what you want your email to achieve. Use email to create curiosity. Do this by getting them excited about how they can benefit from what you have to offer. Read that again! It’s not about what you have to offer; it’s about getting them excited about how they can benefit from what you provide. Most often, you want your email to persuade, motivate and influence your prospect to click a link so they can learn more. 

2. Use an intriguing subject line. Why did you read this post? Because the headline was intriguing to you. It spoke to something you want to be able to do. What do your prospects want to do? Do they want to increase attendance at their next meeting, drive revenue with training, energize attendees to be positioned for success? Those are subject lines that I might use to invite prospects to read my email messages. Think about what your buyers need. Start with a verb and a promise, and then fulfill that promise quickly in your email.

3. Keep it short and sweet. Brief is good; blunt isn’t. Remember the point isn’t to tell them everything; it’s to excite them about their potential, so they’ll want to click to learn more.

4. Use the 20/80 selling rule: Your message should be 80% valuable content and clear benefit to the prospect. Up to 20% of your message can provide features. They’ll fast forward through your commercials anyway. 

5. Use it to follow-up: You can follow-up through all sorts of channels. Email is one of them. Keep your name in front of buyers and when they need what you have (and need the benefits of what you offer), you’ll be the go-to. Follow-up to position yourself for tomorrow.

Business relationships have never been easier to cultivate. Email is the perfect first step to successful selling today. Use it to engage your customers and move them to other channels that provide the information they need to buy from you.

Your comments? Want more info? Email me: Sue@SpeakerSue.com or post your comment here.

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