Make Your E-Mails Stand Out From a Cluttered Inbox

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E-mails don’t have to be a shot in the dark. With these tips you’ll not only get your e-mails read, but they could lead to some business, too.

Sending e-mails is an integral part of selling in today’s world. But at a time when your prospects are receiving hundreds of e-mails every single day, it is easy for yours to get lost in the crowd.

What’s even more frustrating is, because this technique is relatively new in the realm of sales prospecting, up until now there has been very little data to show which prospecting e-mail techniques actually work.

But now, thanks to data pulled from HubSpot Signals e-mail tracking software, we can get a rare glimpse into what actually works most effectively for getting our e-mails read.

HubSpot has produced a report that contains information from 6.4 million one-to-one e-mails that identifies the kinds of e-mails that are actually being opened and the ones being ignored.

Here are tips based on this data that will help you send e-mails that lead to closed sales:

Send E-Mails During Off-Peak Hours

Many salespeople send the majority of their prospecting e-mails during the middle of the week to give their prospects a break from e-mails on the weekend. However, open rates for e-mails sent on Saturday and Sunday are actually higher than those for e-mails sent during the week.

An e-mail sent on Tuesday has a 58 percent chance of being opened, whereas an e-mail sent on Saturday has a 65 percent chance of being opened. This means that you might want to rethink when you are sending your prospecting e-mails. Try sending them out on the weekends and see if you find similar increases in your open rates.

Choose Your Words Wisely

Typically, the first part of an e-mail you will read is the subject. That’s why what goes into your prospecting e-mail’s subject will often determine whether the rest of the message ever gets read.

HubSpot found that e-mails with the words “you,” “quick,” “meeting,” and “fw:” were less likely to be opened by a prospect. On the other hand, e-mails with the words “free” and “tomorrow” or e-mails with no subject whatsoever had higher open rates.

So test crafting your e-mails with and without some of these words in order to see which e-mails have higher open rates.

Show You’ve Done Your Homework

Think about your own process of sorting through e-mails. After you’ve looked at the subject of an e-mail, the first sentence of the message will be critical in your decision to continue reading. This hook is even more important when you consider the prevalence of smartphones today: A phone will often display the subject of an e-mail and a preview that includes the first few words of the message.

Because of this feature, your first sentence must be highly personalized to show that you know something about your prospect and her company. If the e-mail appears boilerplate, the prospect will immediately delete it.

Engage the Prospect With an Easy Question

Oftentimes we forget what the purpose of a prospecting e-mail is in the first place. The goal of an e-mail is not to close a sale, but rather to engage the prospect in a conversation that can lead to a phone conversation or face-to-face meeting. Therefore, be sure that your prospecting e-mails inspire prospects to respond to you. End every e-mail with an easy-to-answer question. Try something simple and quick like, “Is this a challenge that you face in your business?”; “What’s the best address to send this report to?”; or “What’s your biggest marketing-related priority right now?”

By closing your e-mails with a question, prospects will be more likely to respond because you’ve 1) engaged them directly, and 2) removed the guesswork surrounding what kind of information you need from them to move forward.

Use E-Mail Tracking Software to Collect Data on When Someone Opens Your E-Mail

Until now, salespeople have been left in the dark as to when a prospect actually opens their e-mail. However, thanks to some pretty amazing technological breakthroughs from products, such as HubSpot Signals and Yesware, we can now know exactly when a prospect opens our personal e-mails. Since both companies offer free trials for these great plugins, be sure to download one and watch your world of e-mail prospecting change forever.

Also, now that you know when a prospect has opened your e-mail, you can follow up with a call and increase the likelihood of getting through. And now that you have the ability to track which e-mails get opened, you can test different combinations of subject lines and first sentences to see which trigger prospects to click through most often.

By applying these tips to your prospecting e-mails, you will see a significant increase in open rates, responses, and, most importantly, closed sales.