I thought it would be fun to give you a quick peek into my email inbox. Exciting, right?
Prior to Covid, my inbox would see a steady stream of emails coming from people I’ve never spoke with, never met and have no idea about their products and services multiple times per hour. Since Covid, that steady stream has turned into a torrent rapids filled with good and (mostly) bad examples of email salesmanship.
In that avalanche of email, I’ve noticed an interesting trend of late with sales people and their approach to gain my attention and ultimately my business. The quality of correspondence has dropped, and I think a lot of that is because the person sending them isn’t necessarily writing them. They are certainly not writing it personally to me, rather it is a part of a bulk email campaign set up by the CRM that is being employed by their company.
There are plenty of examples I receive that I could share, but won’t out of respect. But I will share thoughts in general without giving specifics. Here are a few of the types of emails that I’m getting on a regular basis. And if I’m getting these a lot, surely I can’t be alone right?
I get emails with every conceivable promotion and idea for me to buy with no context. I call these types of emails Carpet Bombers. Imagine every Monday morning, a sales manager loads up his crew with promotions, products and research for the week, and tells them to “go out and tell your customers and sell these.” By mid-morning Monday, the sales person trying to do exactly what his boss wants has emailed his entire list all the fliers, all the promotions and research. Then they sit back and wait for the phone to ring. In my case, it’s a long wait, like forever. But on their call report, they announce that they’ve told all their customers about the latest offerings, which I guess is technically true. Worst of all, if you’re the sales manager, is that the sales person never follows up. This happens at an alarming rate. Now I’ve just called this person a ‘sales person’ but in reality, they are an email processing specialist. There was no sales involved, just sending out emails sort of like a living-breathing Mail Chimp service.
Then there is the deceptive emails that I receive. The subject line implies that we’ve already had conversations, currently do business or they try to play tricks on me to get me to read the content. I personally read all my emails. Instead of spending time creating a subject line that might trick me into reading your email, my recommendation is to put good content in your email and make me want to learn more. Trying to deceive me only brings negative feelings into the equation. Creating a subject line that gets someone’s attention is an art form in some respects. Several years ago, I sat in on a training session by Ryan Dohrn on this very subject. While Dohrn specializes in media training, a lot of what he shares is universal to sales. His approach has changed how and sometimes when I email people, for sales and just regular communication. Dohrn’s training on email subject lines is available at: https://360adsales.com/sales-emails-10-tips-for-huge-sales-success/.
I also get a lot of what I call lazy emails. In this world of automation, sales are not exempt. There are plenty of CRMs out there that generates an over abundance of emails going into my inbox, or more likely my spam folder. I really do believe that there is a time and place for automated emails from CRMs. It is a way to keep touching customers without spending too much time during the sales days for the salesperson. However, the person behind those automated emails should take a few minutes to make those communications their own. If sales is about relationships, and I truly believe it really still is, then personalize the email to the person receiving it and their business.
Without sounding too much like an infomercial for Ryan Dohrn, he has some training available online on how to improve sales success through email marketing. I still think that in-person is best, but in this age of Covid the face to face meeting is more rare and may never come back to what it was before. That makes written communication more important than ever and why sales managers need to spend a few minutes on honing those skills. If a sales manager does roll play training for face to face interactions, then training on email writing is equally important, maybe more so. Dohrn’s website includes a variety of training opportunities, including more on the subject of email at https://360adsales.com/sales-emails-10-tips-for-huge-sales-success/.
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