The 3 Keys To Writing A Prospecting Email With Sounding Like Spam

All right, guys, here's what we're going to talk about today. I'm actually going to change up my webinars a little bit. Like I said, we had about 40 register. We'll see how many show up. We know what time of year it is. So I think what's happening is people know I send out the recordings, so they think they can be lazy and just register and not show up. We're going to change that here soon.

I want to make these more collaborative versus me just teaching at you for 30 minutes. So especially if we have a smaller group today. What we're talking about today is three keys you can use, three things you can do to get more replies from emails. I think email is something a lot of people struggle with.

And.

One of the biggest reasons I think we all struggle with emails, and I'm going to be very blunt about it, it's how we were taught, is that we hope we write one email and it gets a reply.

And if we don't get a reply, we feel defeated, dejected, and we don't do anything else.

And so what I want to go through is some things that we actually do. If anybody, if you guys aren't aware of this, I'll share this with you. We actually have a program at Complete Game Consulting where we do some email content for agencies and clients and things like that. And so we've noticed a trend, and when we write email emails for our clients, what's really getting opens, what's getting replies? And so I wanted to share some of those thoughts with you guys today because I know that's something everybody struggles with. So in an effort to make this more collaborative, when you guys think about emails, and I'm going to let anybody chime in here who wants to chime in.

What are some of the areas or things you're struggling with? With an email.

Getting a very short message.

Okay.

That gives enough information to.

To get some sort of response.

So I want to share as much as I can, but I don't want it to be an epilogue of words here.

I don't want to share as much as I can. I just want to share the right information.

Okay. But you feel like sometimes in sharing that the email gets really long.

Yeah.

Because you don't really know at that point what their. Where their interests are. So you could go a lot of different directions.

It's just great. One, Cindy. What else, guys? What? Hesitations, challenges with emails?

Well, sorry, whoever that was. Shannon. Yeah. Subject lines. Subject lines. Boom. We're going to talk about that today.

Andrew, man, full transparency. I tend to write my emails like.

I talk, which is actually good.

As a Southern guy, sometimes I think my reference might get lost.

One, are you using y'? All? And things like that?

Sometimes. But sincerely, grammar actually comes into play. And I actually installed Grammarly on my cell phone, on Outlook, on everything this week because I just wanted to make sure that didn't, you know, that could not look good if you.

I'm going to challenge you a little bit on your fear of, like, I don't want to sound like myself. I'll talk about that. So that's a good one. Anybody else?

This might be what Shannon meant. Mod by subject line. But you know what? Whatever it takes in the first 10 words for someone to read it and say, I want to, I want to read more.

Okay, perfect. Craig, anybody ever have the concern that as you're writing an email, I'm sounding like sp?

Yeah, because you are. Yeah. One little mental note, guys. If you feel like you're spamming, you're spamming.

So let me go into some, some, some strategies for you and I'm, I'll leave the floor open for questions. Here's what I want you guys to do today. If you have a question as I talk, I don't want you to feel like you have to wait, put it in the chat box. Either raise your hand with the raise hand feature or put it in the chat box and I'll answer them as we go.

So let's talk about emails. And I'm going to talk about emails almost from top to bottom, literally physically top to bottom, subject line, down to the bottom. So, Shannon, Craig, you guys brought up subject lines. So let's start with key number one, because that was actually key number one, subject lines.

The number one tip I'm going to share with you guys with subject lines is do not click bait.

Meaning what can I write in the subject line that is like the perfect script to get somebody to open it? Because where you lose all credibility is if your subject line does not match the actual email.

People do that because they want that open. Right? This is where I'm going to tell you guys too, that where I'm going with all of this. By the way, if anybody here uses an email platform where you can, you can look at metrics, open rate, click rates, don't play to the metrics because if you play to the metrics, that means you're going to try to do clickbaity type of subject lines that get people to open. But if the subject line has really nothing to do with your email. You've lost all credibility.

With the, with the reader.

So my point, my answer to you on subject line Shannon is just be honest about what the email is about, make sure it matches and do it in as few words as possible.

In fact, when we use our software that we use to help write emails and write our own emails as a company, the platform warns me that when I get close to 50 characters, that subject line is getting pretty long.

50 characters being. Each letter represents a character, a space represents a character. So keep it short and sweet.

And just make the subject line align exactly to directly with what you're saying in the.

Now, Craig, you got a question? No, not on. Okay. Now here is something you can do with an email that does help open rates if you're interested. Subject line excuse me, that does help with open rates. Let's imagine you're sending an email.

With.

A.

A strategy that one of your prospects could use this renewal season. Okay, so let's imagine you're. You're in the email in the body. You're going to share a strategy and it's something that can help them with the renewal. Your subject line could say something like this.

This is the one strategy you need this renewal.

You notice the anticipation there. I said this is the one strat. Well, what strategy you got to open the email. This is the one strategy where some people might go like this. Andrew, I'm going to use you as an example. Let's imagine that strategy is pharmacy cost.

Somebody will put in the subject line the topic of pharmacy cost for that same email.

If I already know what the, what it is like, I may not be interested in open, but the subject line is this one strategy could help you this renewal. I'm more apt to open it.

And I'm not clickbaiting because my email is about this one strategy.

Would you use a, would you use a descriptor like what I would consider, Andy, a powerful word and that may be saying help you win whatever you.

Want to say, as long as it's honest and aligned with what the email is about. That's, that's the key. As short and sweet as you can make it, make sure the subject line is aligned. If you want to leave a little suspense by saying this one strategy that does help in the help the potential they open it.

If I said subject line.

Pharmacy is the best strategy you can deploy this renewal. I've already given everything away in a way in my subject line, haven't I? You've made it easy for that prospect to determine whether or not they're going to open. They want to open it. But if I said this one strategy will help you, I still don't know what this said strategy is. So maybe I'm more intrigued to open everybody. Does that make sense for everybody?

Now let's talk about the body, the email itself. Cindy, you brought up a lot of great points. How many people here have opened an email and the first thing you see is a paragraph this thick?

Every time, what do you do? What do you want to do every time you see that?

Delete.

Oh shit, I'll just save this for later. And then you never open it again, right?

One of the best things. There's two things I want to talk about with the body, guys. So the, the three keys are the head, which is a subject line. The body, which is the. The email itself. And then we'll call the last key the bottom, which I'll get to in the body. You want to do two things. Number one.

Short paragraphs. Cindy, I think you and I talked about this on a strategy session. When you write an email, guys, if you go look at, go look at my LinkedIn post, for example, if you want an example of this.

I will never write a paragraph that is more than two sentences.

Because when you open an email and all you see is like one line statements, you're like, cool, I can read this fast.

So when you write an email to somebody.

The shorter the paragraphs, the better. Even if you have to turn one paragraph into two and each one is a sentence long, it the better it is. I actually don't care how long the email is like this.

Because if it's all 12 sentence paragraphs, I can still read it fast.

If you gave me less words in an email, but it was all clumped into one big paragraph, I'm not reading it.

I used to challenge, by the way, if you want to give a tip to your account execs when they've got to write emails to their clients at renewal season, quit writing those five paragraph emails.

If you got to shoot a video.

But don't write these bibles of information, nobody's reading them.

Which brings me to point number two in the body, Cindy, this is where you were going. I want to say what I need to say, but I want to say it fast, short and sweet. I'm going to challenge you guys, and I don't have any secret advice for this, but you got to say what you're trying to say in as few words as possible.

And here's a way to help you do that.

When you send an email to a prospect and you're really trying to get a reply, you're trying to do it in one email, which I don't recommend, but if you are.

Keep it to one goal, one problem.

So whatever it is you're sending, what I want you to stop and think about first is what is the topic I'm emailing about? Okay, I've got to come up. What is the goal of the email and what is the problem this email is going to help solve?

And just keep it to that one thing. What we all want to do when we write an email, especially if we want to, we want it to create a reaction, is we throw as much stuff in there as we can, right? Think about like a follow up email after a meeting. You're so excited, you just want to share everything with the prospect. But if you throw the whole kit, you know, the whole boat in there, it's too much. There's too many goals, too many problems, too many solutions. It's too, too, too much. One goal, one problem, one solution for the problem. So when we write our emails for our clients, like we write nurture emails, newsletter type emails, every email talks about one goal, one problem. That's it.

So Andrew, if you want to talk about prescription costs, just pick one goal and what's the problem it solves. And here's how you write the emails, guys. If it's one goal, one problem, you start out with, what is the problem? What do you want, reader? But what's the problem keeping you from it?

And as a result of that problem, what's your life look like today? AKA what is the failure you're dealing with?

I'm emailing you because I have a solution. Even if it's like one strategy, that's the solution.

And here's what that solution will do for you. AKA the result.

If you just write your emails in that format.

You will get a much higher return open rate and a return rate.

So it's in the body, short, sweet paragraphs. I want to see a lot of white space.

And one goal, one problem with every email. And then when you write the email, it's what is it you want? What's the problem keeping you from it? What's the failure because of the problem. So your life looks like this today and you might be guessing, but I'm emailing you because I've got this one solution, this one tip that is going to help create this result.

Does that make sense for everybody? Okay.

And Again, in as few words as you possibly can.

Now I said the bottom. Let's get to the bottom quick. Couple things you can do at the bottom right before the email signature and after the email signature. Can anybody guess what part of an email people read often? Read first.

Signature. Yes, the PS. If you add PS's, people read PS.

So two things. Whenever you want to create a call to action in your emails and I'm not telling you there, I'm not getting this from Book. This is Andy Neary's opinion. But it's what's worked for us. If I want to get a call to action, if I want to get a result of this email, what's. How easy is it to get somebody to reply?

Not really these days. Right.

Not right now.

But for most of you, what is the reaction you're actually trying to get out of a prospect? What's the. What's the result? You're trying to get an appointment.

Okay.

So I have two choices. I could try to get an appointment scheduled from an email by getting the prospect to reply, or I could get an appointment out of this email by letting the prospect schedule the meeting on their own.

Here's what I mean. If you are not using a calendar service these days, you need to be using a calendar service.

Even a platform like Callan Lee gives you one free link.

Here's why. If your call to action that you are trying to create out of this email is an appointment, I have found it and we have found it much easier for our clients to embed their calendar. Say, hey, would love to connect if you've got 15 minutes to make it easy for you, here's my calendar. Click click here. Find a time that works for you.

You now have just avoided the ping pong back and forth to try to get them to reply and find a time.

And they can do it on their own terms. And all of a sudden you're like, huh, I've got an appointment next week.

We have found that to be so much more successful. In fact, we have a couple industry partners we're writing emails for that do a lot of demos. Just adding their calendar into that way is getting them more than one demo a week with our emails because you're making it easy for the end user to schedule time with you.

And here's a lift. Here's the ninja move that I would. I'd call it a ninja move in adding the ps.

If I ended an email like this before my signature. Would love to grab 15 minutes with you. If you have time to make it easy. I've included my link to my calendar. Find a time that works for you. Sincerely, Andy Neary. P.S.

I know you're busy right now. This will. I'll keep it short and sweet. Like I said, no more than 15 minutes. Here's my calendar. You put it in there again.

Because remember, a lot of people go to the PS first.

I can't guarantee that person's going to actually read stuff right before my signature.

There's a chance they'll go to the P.S. though.

Andy, Andy, show me that. Like, I'm not tracking with you, where you're putting that. So bottom of the email, you're saying.

If I write an email, okay, right before I get to my signature line, which is your name, job, job title, whatever you put in there.

I'm going to tell you, hey, would love to connect for 15 minutes if you got time. Here's my calendar to make it easy for you to schedule a call, right? Sincerely, Andrew McNerland. Under all of that, Andrew McNerlin script, sourcing, phone number, whatever you got. PS. PS goes at the bottom after anything that's in your signature.

Hey, I know you're busy. I'll keep it short and sweet. Just 15 minutes. Here's my calendar. You put that link in again.

All right, I'm tracking.

Yep. The purpose of that gang is, again, a lot of people read pss. They may not read the whole email, and you don't want to miss the chance to give them a chance to put themselves on your calendar.

So if you think about this, we start with a subject line, the head.

Make sure it aligns with your email, the topic, keep it as short and sweet as you want or as you possibly can.

And.

If you want to add a little intrigue versus just blatantly telling them what the email is about, you could use the philosophy I shared with it. Hey, this one strategy. Hey, thought you'd want to see this. Hey, this video will help whatever it is, add a little intrigue. So they want to open it.

The body. Short, sweet paragraphs, white space is good. One problem, one goal per email.

When you write it, you start with the goal. What is it you want? The problem. Here's what life looks like today. Now, I'm coming in with my solution, my tip, my strategy, whatever it is. And my tip, my strategy creates this result.

Now, that's a form of a sales email, right? Because my goal is to try to get an appointment out of that one email.

The other tip, I want to share with everybody on this call that has Nothing to do with the three keys that I was going to go over.

Is you also want to be writing what's known as nurture emails.

You see, not every email that you send to a prospect can be a direct call to action that gets old after a while. But have you thought about sending them emails on a frequent basis? Whether it's once a month, every other week, where you are nurturing them with good content, valuable content, ideas that could help them? We're not every email has a call to action, but you're staying top of mind in their world because remember, they may not be ready to buy tomorrow, but when they're ready to buy in six months, you got to make sure they're thinking of you. And I'll tell you, just seeing your name in there in the inbox, even if they're not opening the email, that's good thing, they're seeing your name.

And nurture emails are written the same way, gang. Good subject line, lots of white space and just pick the topic, what are you teaching them? But every time you write an email, even in a nurture email, it starts with what's the goal? What's the problem keeping you from it? My topic today is the solution. And this solution creates this kind of result for you. You, everybody follow with that, that timeline. If you write emails like that in as few words as you possibly can, write them in with a lot of white space they will get.

When we started doing that over a year ago, when we got hyper focused on that, on few words, white space, our open rates for our emails went up to 33%, 34%.

Didn'T matter what the topic was.

So that's my advice to you guys. Emails. Email is not an easy thing and if you do feel like you're spamming, you're probably spamming. So just take these little tips today. These are just small little things, right? There's, there's no silver bullet here, but just make your subject lines a little better, a little shorter.

Write the email the way I just taught you, add some P.S. put your calendar, make it easy for them to schedule on their time and I promise your emails will create more results.

But make sure you're sprinkling in a mix of direct sales email.

And a nurture which this one, I'm not even asking for anything, I'm just giving you value.

It's a lot more fun writing that and a lot more effective writing that than hey, just checking in to see how things are going. Any, any decision yet or hey, would you love to get Together, I'm going to be in your neighborhood next week.

So with that being said, gang questions, let's fire away.

Thoughts on emojis and emails.

Aaron, unmute yourself.

I'm laughing as I say that.

Are you an emoji person?

She totally is.

Okay, guys, as much as we want to be annoyed by emojis, they are how we communicate today. Because thanks to text, if you want to add emojis because that's who you are, I'm telling you, go ahead. Okay.

I find that I put the smile emoji a lot because I'm smiling when I'm writing the email, and I want it to come across.

Yes. Now, that brings up another good point, Andrew. I wanted to address something that you had asked about y'. All guys. The number one thing, the last thing I'll share with you, and these are a lot more than three tips. You gotta write emails like you talk like, make. Make it sound like it's coming from you. That's one of our biggest challenges when we write emails for our clients. I've got to know my client. We've got to make sure we're writing like it's coming from our client.

And so when you write.

You want to make sure if it looks, if it sounds similar to the language you use. Andrew, that's actually a good thing. Don't worry about. Am I going to offend somebody? You use the words. You use words like y' all in language. You're from Arkansas, dude.

Don't judge me, okay?

Let it. Let it come through your communication. Email is another form of your verbal communication just on paper. That's all it is.

The other thing I'm going to tell you to do, guys, as well. When you write emails.

You always write it. I'm forgetting my English here. Is it first person? No, second person. Write it like you're writing it to one person.

We often write an email to one person, but then we. The language we use makes it sound like we're speaking to a lot of people. Do you guys know what I mean? You know, companies today want this, and they're struggling to have to control their health insurance costs because of this, and their employees are frustrated. Do I speak like I'm there? I'm speaking in general terms, right?

Write the email like you're talking to one prospect. You are struggling with health insurance costs and your employees. You gotta write it. And is that second person? Am I saying that right? Third person, Second person. I can't remember, but write it like you're. Even if you're sending out. By the way, even if you're sending out a blast email to 200Prospects, still write it like you're writing it to one.

Craig.

So I'm sure we all have several different solutions that we feel we can answer certain problems. So if I'm writing a prospect and I'm focused on pharmacy cost.

Yep.

When do I, when do I shift over to employee retention? When do I?

Don't judge that. Don't judge it. Literally, if you wanted to. Here's the, here's the reality. If you said, I'm going to send an email every two weeks to my prospects for the next six months. So that's what, 12 topics. Who cares what the topic is? If, if this week it's pharmacy, in two weeks it's employee open enrollment and then two weeks after that it's turnover. Doesn't matter. Just write the email in the format I shared, okay? Do not judge the topic. If you think the topic is going to help your prospects, talk about it.

And I will say, guys, another tip on those nurture emails again where you're not trying to call them to action, you're just trying to bring them value. Trying to stay in top of mind. You're gonna have to share more than you're comfortable sharing. Bring good stuff. I heard a phrase from a guy named Rory Vaden. They do brands, they run the brand for some very well known people. He talks about saving the best for first.

You gotta share some good stuff these days, guys, if you want to get attention.

So your emails bring the value and you'll be rewarded for it, I promise you.

I like the way you've worked with Chris hamilton on his LinkedIn stuff. I mean it's some pretty good content. But he wraps it up by saying, if it interests you, I can send you my benefits Insider playbook.

Yep.

So I mean, you hear good education, but then there's a playbook I can access.

Yep. If this, if this hesitation comes in your head as you're posting something on LinkedIn or sharing an email, ooh, that's a little too much. They could just give this to their broker. That's a good thing because that's what your prospect actually wants right now. They're not going to buy from you until they get value. So be it. Be okay sharing. And the good news is, guys, if they were going to give it to their broker anyways, they're probably not somebody you want to do business with. So just share away, guys, bring the value in the emails and I promise you it'll work.

So I know I went probably way wider than the three keys, but go back to the subject lines, writing the body, adding the PS and then sprinkling in some sales direct calls, as well as some nurture where you're not asking for anything except bring in value. You do those things, guys, your emails will be more effective. And then last, just stay consistent with it. You can't send one email and expect it to create miracles. You got to do this over and over and over again.

Any other questions before I let you go?

This has been super helpful.

Amen.

Emails are. Emails aren't easy, guys. They're not easy. But just. Just take your time. Short and sweet, white space. One. One goal, one problem, and it's all. It'll. It'll be a hell of a lot more effective. Trust me.

Andy. Let that. Let that main flow, brother. I agree with Cindy. Yeah, you let it. Let it flow. You be you be you.

And you went way wider than your hair on that.

Yeah, with that. I'll let you guys go.

I'll talk to you later, Andy, if you want to talk, I'm available.

Yeah. All right, guys. Thank you. Have a good day, guys. Bye.

Bye.