Copywriting sales follow up emails

For a B2B sales team it’s really important to judge correctly the mind of the recipient when sending follow up sales emails.

The path to a sales contract is tortuous and certainly not linear. There are many places where a poorly written sales email can foul your pitch. Marketing and sales need to collaborate with strong Account Based Marketing and Customer Relationship Management strategies to overcome this.  Here’s an example from today.

Well written direct sales copy

If you have a clear understanding of the prospect’s stage in the sales funnel, your emails can be written to align with the precise needs of the prospect at that exact time. Otherwise you are guessing – like throwing darts in the dark…. all misses.

I went to a conference recently and the sponsor has been hounding me ever since about his software.

Yes I did give them permission to contact me.

Yes I did take a look at the lead magnet they offered.

BUT I’m not taking their sales call. Because I’m not going to be buying…. and they could have found that out earlier in the day and so saved their sales team a lot of effort.

Who is this prospect?

Just because I attended their talk and said they could contact me…. does not mean I’ll become a customer.

• First thing wrong – the lead magnet was plain vanilla – same for everyone.
• Second thing wrong – the landing page was a cornucopia of articles, undifferentiated and left me with too much choice. So I read none of them.  I am interested in the topic… but with a bit more care, this campaign could have been so much better.

A cheeky sales email

I replied to his third message (repeating a link to the landing page and asking to do a demo) to explain my reasons.

And so I sent him this reply.

4 Reasons your sales email failed

Here are the reasons I am not an appropriate prospect