How to Pitch via Email: 5 Tips to Send Better, Faster Emails to Prospects

A huge thank you to our guest contributor, CEO of Close Steli Efti for sharing insights into email prospecting—dive in to learn more:

The math is simple: If you want to close more deals, you need to get in contact with more prospects.

But delivering a sales pitch via email comes with its own unique challenges.

How do you know whether the prospect will read your email? How can you get them to respond? And how can you send personalized emails at scale, that are actually relevant to the recipient?

If you want to send more emails that get real, valuable responses from prospects, keep reading: We’re going to dive into 5 tips to deliver your sales pitch effectively via email.

1. Choose a Subject Line that Captures “Inbox Attention”

Your subject line is the first thing that prospects will see, probably while sorting through a bunch of unopened emails flooding their inbox.

In a split second, they’ll have to decide whether to open your email or delete it, all based on the subject line and whether or not it resonates with them. How can you make sure it does?

First, your subject line should be catchy without being clickbait-y. If your subject line promises something, make sure the body of your email delivers on that promise.

Next, use what you know about your customers to put the focus on them. Instead of a subject line that says “Our product does X, Y, Z,” try a subject line that identifies key benefits your solution provides, such as:

“Imagine what it would be like it [problem] was solved”

“Low quota attainment? Let us help you out”

Most importantly, speak your prospect’s language. If your buyers are formal, use formal language. If your buyers are informal, being overly formal can actually be a major detriment—matching their tone goes a long way in communicating “I understand you”.

Finally, if you have a mutual connection, use that name in the subject line. This is an easy introduction that will prove your email is for them, not for everyone.

2. Focus on Helping the Prospect

Sometimes salespeople get so focused on closing deals or hitting quota that they forget about the people involved in their work.

Never let this happen to you. That’s how salespeople get a reputation for being pushy and annoying.

Instead, think about the customer and their needs. Think about how your solution will actually help them. If you’re having trouble getting into their shoes, spend some time talking to current customers. Learn about their pain points, challenges, and how your offering has helped them solve those problems.

When you go into your sales pitch email with a helpful attitude, it will be reflected in your tone and will attract prospects to you.

3. Sell the Next Step

The goal of your sales pitch email is not to sell your product, especially if it’s a cold email.

First, you need to sell the next step.

There are very few products that can actually be sold via email without any other communication. So, don’t attempt to persuade your prospect to purchase right from your first email. (This = proposing on the first date. Basically a recipe for total disaster.)

So, choose one specific goal for this email. Do you want them to fill out a form? Respond to you directly? Book a time on your online calendar to chat?

Whatever the goal of this email, sell the prospect on the value of taking the next step. Then, use your closing words to provide one clear, specific call to action.

4. Use Templates to Pitch Better and Faster Than Ever

The more (good) email pitches you send, the more meetings you’ll have, and the more deals you’ll close.

To do this, you’ll need to make good use of proven email pitch templates. When pitching via email, use a template that’s been proven to work for your team, and simply customize a few lines to add specific personalization to this prospect.

That way, your emails can be personal and effective without forcing you to type out each letter of every email. If you’re looking for some great email templates and examples, check out our Ultimate Sales Pitch Guide, with examples and templates for sales pitches via email, phone, and more.

5. Go Beyond Generic Personalization

Hello [firstname],

A few years ago, seeing your name in the subject line or opening words of an email was enough to get your attention. Now, it’s water off a ducks back.

Personalization is so much more than adding the person’s first name or the name of their company. Now, personalization means you actually have to make your message relevant to the person you’re emailing.

The key here: understanding your target persona. For very high-value prospects, individually researching the person, looking at what they share on their social profiles can be a treasure trove of information to help you personalize your outreach. For a more scalable approach, creating lead lists based on specific criteria and then tailoring your outreach to those criteria allows you to still be relevant, without having to spend time researching individual prospects.

With a CRM like Close, you can add custom fields to each lead to help segment your leads for scalable personalization.

To then take it even one level further and personalize your emails even more, you can use a tool like TextExpander to put your high-performing email templates on steroids. Insert pre-written text snippets into your email templates that further personalize your outreach on attributes most relevant to your sales process, whether that’s industry-specific, tied to a particular event, a specific problem they’re facing, a particular software tool they use, or any other attribute.

For example, let’s say you’re sending an email pitch to offer your solution to a SaaS business. Choose the template you want to use, then add a snippet you created in TextExpander to include a case study that’s relevant to this particular prospect, or industry data that highlights the common need to solve the problem your solution addresses.

A combination of tech and templates allows you to save time while still going above and beyond with hyper-relevant personalization.

Ready to create your own email sales pitch? Start with the high-performing email templates listed here, then use TextExpander to build your own personalization.