E-mail outreach is critical to a business, especially if you are just beginning and attempting to get your name out there. The reason why this is such a great way to begin business is because it simply gets the ball rolling. Furthermore, purchasing a personalized e-mail and domain only costs about $20-$30. So the cost to entry is very small.
With that being said, the e-mail marketing sector of the industry is very saturated. For this reason, it is necessary to have a proper outreach plan and technique in order to increase the response rate from your e-mails.
E-mail Outreach: Bad vs. Good E-mails
If one were to write an absolutely terrible email to a business decision maker or potential customer, these are some of the attributes that would be included:
- Me-Focused: Terrible outreach e-mails tend be full of self-promotion and self-advertisement. Here’s an example: “My name is ___, and my company has been in business for 7 years. We have delivered the best service to over 30 businesses, etc.” Let’s be honest. Nobody truly cares what your business does. They want to know how they can increase their wealth or solve their problem. Me-focused e-mails get thrown in the garbage with a possible side effect of instant anger and hatred for your business. You should introduce yourself, your company, and what you do. But as far as self-advertisement, this should be saved for the website.
- No Clear Call to Action: When a decision maker opens up their e-mail, you want them to confront a clear call to action. Otherwise, they’ll get confused and put it to the side – why would they sit there and try to figure out an e-mail?
- Lack of Contact Information: Having a business address, phone number, and social media profile after the closing statements of the e-mail increases trust. This seems minor, but can lead to an incredible increase in response rate.
Here are some traits of excellent e-mails when trying to reach out to other business owners.
- Them-Focused: Excellent e-mails focus on the business and their potential needs. These e-mails are usually brief, to the point, and in as few words as possible, tells the business owner what your business does, how it can benefit them, and when they can expect the business to benefit them.
- Descriptive Call to Action: Obviously, a great e-mail is going to have a great call to action that tells the business owner the next step in the process. Remember, the goal of the first e-mail is to get a response, not to close a deal, so a call to action should be something small to get the business owner to bite.
- Honest: If you want to do business with the person, simply be upfront with your intentions – people are more intelligent and can sense slimy sales scheme from a mile away, for this reason, be clear with your intentions. If you are trying to sell them something, eloquently let them know.
- Unique Value Proposition: You want to use the UVP after you introduce yourself; you’re your company. This is where you mention the end benefit in how you are serving the business, meant to attract the attention of the person you are e-mailing, an explanation of why your service is useful, and some key features of your services – 3 bullet points is good enough. To offer an example of a unique value proposition via e-mail, let’s use restaurant owners as example. Let’s pretend that they want to start taking orders online – our unique value proposition over e-mail will look like this:
“Begin taking orders online and increase your restaurant’s revenue in 6 months. Our online order service can be integrated with your current cashier system free of charge:
- We will come by and install the solution within 2 hours completely free of charge to you, the only money that is earned is when someone orders online.
- Our solution works seamlessly with most point of sales systems in the restaurant industry.
- We offer mobile and web design solutions to increase online ordering sales. Most business owners report a 150% R.O.I after using our services.
If it makes sense to talk, what does your calendar look like?”
By focusing on the business owner and their needs, your e-mail outreach program will be more successful in both the short term and long term.
Here are some companies that can help with your email outreach programs:
Mandrill (owned by Mailchimp)
