How to Write Emails that Get Replies

Updated June 7, 2024

Writing a sales email is often an agonizing process involving numerous drafts, rewrites, and then a wince as you hit the send button and then remember something you should have added. So when you’re creating the next email you want to send out your sales leads, take a look at this checklist of things to do to write sales emails that get replies.

Grab Their Attention and Keep It

Social proof – Social proof is when you reference another company or person in a similar space who has also purchased your product. This gives the idea of the fear of loss (FOMO) to the lead. The idea is that the lead will think “If my competition is doing this, then should I be doing it too?”

Create a sense of urgency – Billions of emails are sent daily. Some important, some not. You need to make sure that your email doesn’t just get filed on the “I’ll deal with that later” pile. If you have a compelling offer in your email, but there’s no real time constraint then there isn’t a pressure for the lead to respond now. Which means the chances of it being forgotten are high.

Lighten up – In an almost direct correlation with the rise of email automation, we have seen a decrease in personality in emails. Your emails just like your blog or Facebook posts should have a sense of your personality in them. Don’t be afraid to add in a little joke, or some humor, to lighten up the email.

[X] reasons that Clickbait email subjects are great – Clickbait style titles are not as fashionable as they used to be. Audiences have matured a little and don’t like the feeling of being tricked into clicking, or worse finding out that the title was misleading, or just a flat out lie. However, some aspects of clickbait titles are effective such as adding a number to your subject line. Numbers can help draw the eye in a sea of text. While we don’t advocate clickbait, catchy subject lines will help your open rate.

KISS – Keep it simple, stupid. Ideally, an email should only contain one question. If you’re asking more than one question of your recipient, it can confuse or overload your lead. They don’t know which one to respond to first or how to format their response. Try and make the request action as simple as possible.

Use their name or their company name – Sales tactic 101s taken from every single book that’s been ever written on selling. Use the person’s name. There’s a fine line here. Obviously, you don’t want to overuse it. Hopefully, you can get the person or company name into the subject line as well as into the body text. It creates the impression that the email is specifically tailored to them.

Be specific – If you want a meeting, say when and where you want it. Or suggest three different time/ date combinations. Don’t leave it open to the lead; help them complete your desired action by giving them something to choose. This can also be achieved by having a scheduling assistant like Assistant.to or ScheduleOnce.com, which allows users to directly schedule appointments on your calendar.

Listen to what they say – This might be an obvious tactic, but pay attention to what your lead/ customer has said to you. If they said “catch up with me next month”, do that. Don’t email them a week after. Sure a part of the sales process is a game and often you’ll get a good response after asking a question you might not have otherwise asked, but typically if a lead feels they’re being ignored, or not listened to, they won’t be happy.

The same goes for more automated sales emails. Now there are various different spam laws in place to stop you emailing people information they don’t want, but you should never get that far anyway. Only email a customer about things they’ve let you know they’re interested in.

Who Makes Emails Get Replies

If you follow the seven steps above you should see an increase in replies to your sales emails. What tricks do you use to get a lead to respond to your email?

Photo credit – Top: Joe the Goat Farmer
Photo credit – Bottom: Nogran SRO