Email etiquette rules to remember while writing sales emails

The age of the internet gifted businesses with many things, email being one of them. It is not a hidden fact that sales professionals keenly avoid telephonic conversation with prospects or clients. That is where email gives its contribution. In the modern age, most sales professionals are clicking “reply” for typing a quick response to their prospects and clients.

Nearly 105 billion emails are sent each day; this number is expected to reach 246 billion before 2020. Wordstream

In the rush of typing a response, these sales professionals don’t give much thought to the structure and grammatical values of the email content. Bad email etiquettes have the potential to sabotage the professional image of every sales professional and even the businesses.

Sales representatives need to make conversions, and for that, they must create conversations with their contacts. However, if their email conversations have some discrepancies, the audience will deem them as unprofessional, and this will severely hamper the businesses’ reputation.

In this article, we will be sharing the do’s and don’ts of writing sales emails with the readers so that they don’t end up writing sloppy emails. Before sharing the details of email etiquette rules to remember while writing sales emails, below are some exciting sales email statistics.

Some interesting general email statistics

• The usage of email will top three billion users worldwide by 2020, and 2.9 billion users worldwide in 2019
• Around 20.9% of people check their email more than five times a day!
• 58% of adults check their emails the moment they wake up.
• 49% of businesses use email automation.
• For a $1 spent on email marketing, an insane $44 is made in return.
• An average person spends around four hours a week opening, reading, and responding to their emails.
• According to 89% of marketers, email is their primary channel of lead generation.
• 4300% is the average ROI for email marketing.
• Email is nearly 40x more effective than either Facebook or Twitter for acquiring new customers.
• 8 out of 10 prospects prefer talking to sales reps via email over any other medium.

Some interesting email subject line statistics

• 56% of brands that use emojis in their email subject lines have a higher open rate.
• If the subject lines have six to nine words, the average open rate becomes 21%.
• Demo, connect, cancellation, apply, opportunity, conference, and payments are the most effective words to put in your email subject.
• Assistance, speaker, press, social, invite, join, and confirm are the most ineffective words to put in your email subject line
• Adding the word “New” inside the subject line increases open rate by 23%
• Use of the word “Donate” in subject line reduces open rates by 50% or more
• An all-caps subject line is bad for your email response rates. All-caps subject line reduces the response rate by approximately 30%

Some interesting email click-through rate statistics

• Welcome emails have 4x the open rate and 5x the click through rate of a standard email marketing campaign
• Having videos inside your email may increase click-through rates by 300%
• Personalized emails successfully improve click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%
• Use of a CTA button instead of a link increases click-through rates by 28%
• In one study it was found that when the number of CTAs in an email decreased from four to one, CTR increased by 42%

Some interesting email response statistics

• Getting response from prospects is getting harder with passing time, according to 38% of salespeople
• Personalizing email messages with custom snippets  double email reply rate
• 70% of salespeople give up on their prospects after not receiving reply to their first email
• Sending systematic follow-up emails will triple your reply rate
• Follow-up emails have a better response rate than the first email; an 18% response rate to the first email, 13% to the fourth, and 27% to the sixth
• A 25-word email is about as effective as a 2000-word one. The best length for an email to get a reply between is 50 and 125 words
• Emails including one to three questions have 50% more chance to get a reply
• For the average cold email campaign, there is less than a 1% response rate

Some interesting email open rate statistics

• Sales emails have eight times more opens and clicks. These emails can even produce six times more money than other types of email
• Only 24% of sales emails are opened
• The average email open rates vary from 15.22% to 28.46% depending on the industry
• As per MailChimp emails from businesses that are related to hobbies receive more open rates
• Deals and e-coupons have the lowest open rate
• Developing a highly targeted list with personalization and the right subject lines will significantly increase open email rate
• 63% of all emails are opened within the first hour of delivery
• 40% of emails are opened on mobile

A few B2B email statistics

• The third most influential source of information for B2B audiences is email
• For 59% of B2B marketers, email is the most effective channel in terms of revenue generation

A few B2C email statistics

• Consumers who make purchase through email spend 138% more
• 70% of email readers open emails from a brand to find a deal, discount, or coupon
• A minimum of one purchase that was made last year based on a promotional email was made by 44% of email recipients
• 28% of consumers  prefer to receive promotional emails more than once a week
• 74% of consumers expect a welcome email once they subscribe to an email list
• 26% of SMBs use email marketing for sales and 7% use email for brand development
• Around 30% of U.S. retail email list subscribers have actually made a purchase from their subscriptions list
• 80% of retail professionals indicate email marketing is their greatest driver of customer retention
• 77% of email recipients prefer to get permission-based promotional messages via email rather than text, phone, or social media

Interesting email device and demographic statistics

• 73% of millennials reveal email is their preferred means of business communication
• Men and women are equally likely to convert from an email opened that is opened on a desktop computer. However, women are more likely to convert on a tablet, and men are more likely to convert on a phone
• 72.9% of 18-24-year olds prefer phones to check email
• If a prospect or customer opens an email on a mobile device is they 65% more likely to click through to a site
• 49% of the entire email gets opened on mobile devices

Interesting statistics for sending sales emails

• Tuesday is the best day to send email
• If businesses send out two emails a week, the second email must be sent on a Thursday

Email etiquette rules to remember

I am sure these statistics have fired you up for the rest of the article. So, without further ado here are the email etiquette rules to remember while writing sales emails.

1. Give a compelling introduction to yourself

In  U.S.A, when the sender introduces themselves by first and last name with relevant background information in the opening lines, it has a different impact on the recipient. When you are establishing the first contact with potential customers, it is essential to provide them with details that will allow them to trust you. They would want to know how you got their information.

A few email etiquette examples

• “Dear Ms. Stern. My name is James Parker, founder of 10xSalesCulture. I was referred to you by XYZ.”
• “My name is William Defoe, and I am a Sales Expert writing to you about XYZ.”

2. Stay professional

Staying professional while drafting your emails plays a significant part. Good grammar and proper capitalization are pivotal here.

Don’t write an email to your contacts like this

“My name is James Walker. i have been following your business for some time now & i think my company should help you out”

3. Respond in a timely fashion

With the development of technology and the various tools today, patience is one thing that is majorly missing from the customer base. Depending on the nature of the e-mail and the sender, the response time should be the first 24 hours.

4. Write a clear and precise subject line

Recipients email inbox keep getting bombarded with hundreds of emails in a day. This fact makes it really important that you write a subject line that’s to the point. Your email subject line must be reasonably descriptive and straightforward about what you have written about. Any email that has some cute, vague, or obscure subject line will either go to spam or will get trashed.

5. Smartly choose “Reply All”

This is our favorite email etiquette tip. Be very judicious while you decide to hit “Reply All.”

People generally don’t give much thought to this simple point. They just copy all and reply all on every email creating a cluttered inbox for everyone. Being selective in your reply allows you to save yourself from wasting time and productivity.

6. Avoid Email Blasts

Sending out hundreds of sales emails may seem the best option for engaging with potential leads quickly, however, sometimes all a sales email requires is a bit of personal touch. Business owners and their team of salespeople are becoming tech-savvier. This makes it easy for them to design a sequential email campaign that doesn’t blast the inbox of recipients and keeps salespeople in their good books.

7. Embracing email templates

Today, software allows users to create and save templates inside a central database that can be reused and easily edited to suit various other subject lines. Writing original email messages every time a new email campaign is planned becomes very time-consuming. A user can draft their email templates and use them as per the various situations. The performance of each outbound email message is tracked helping users to curate the current template repository.

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8. Use of attachments and links

While having a modern email message exchange, it is important to mention that you are including attachment inside the email so that the recipient doesn’t overlook anything important. Remember to re-attach any files when you add someone new to the conversation, or they might not see them.

Example: Hi, Marge. I am attaching last months sales figures for the west region your company achieved.

Many sales professionals include links in their emails. Naturally, the links are lengthy and give a wrong view to your entire email message. Sales professionals must shorten the links they intend to attach to the emails. This way, the link will take less space and the purpose of CTA will also get covered.

Tracking emails and responding quickly using a CRM

Modern CRM vendors have utilized technology to their favor. Some systems automate your entire sales process with minimum human labor.

Your website visitor filled up the online form. The contact information was automatically compiled and made into a contact. With the rule set via automation, a welcome email is also sent out to the contact.

The CRM creates a follow-up task and assigns it to the sales rep. CRM helps in tracking many other information about a prospect, including every email sent and received and where they are in your sales process. CRM allows users to track and organize all the email conversations related to each deal and customer.

Salesmate CRM sends out instant notifications whenever recipients open and read email. It also tracks if the recipient has clicked on any attached links. All these statistics help sales reps follow-up faster and move the prospects quickly up the sales stages.

Making a more professional email signature

Business emails must always contain professional email signatures. A professional business email signature generally includes the users’ name and position, contact information, headshot or company’s logo, a link to specific website page and social media icons.

Sales professionals must keep their email signature minimalistic and straightforward. They should only include information that matters most for both business and communication purposes. You can also try this free email signature generator tool from Salesmate.

To conclude

Professionalism and courtesy are the two primary characteristics that your emails must show. To outperform the competition, businesses must establish a long-lasting customer relationship.

Such relationships will not just strengthen your bond with the customer base; it will also help push a new customer into your circle. Drafting that clear, concise email with a subject line that provides a perfect brief of the body of the email content coupled with clear CTA and attachment makes a better impression on the recipient. Ensure you double check your emails before hitting send.

Salesmate CRM is a sales intelligence tool that enables its users to track all their outbound email messages. The data collected by the system can allow sales professionals to decide which email template or email message type is doing better with the recipient and which ones need some work. If you want to experience this intuitive tool in action, then you can start a 15-day free trial too. For further assistance on the various other features Salesmate provides, you can get in touch with us.