Gearing up to sell your digital product but looking for ways that you can promote your offers? Sales emails is a great, beginner-friendly channel to start with!
It’s low cost, super accessible, and easy to build sales emails that get responses that eventually lead to more revenue. Follow this short guide to learn what makes for a compelling sales email, including a few examples of successful templates that generate responses and conversions from both new and old contacts.
Already know what you’re looking for specifically? Jump to it here:
- What is a sales email?
- The 4 “E’s” of sales emails
- What is A/B testing?
- Examples of successful sales emails
- Start earning through email marketing
What is a sales email?
Sales emails are a type of outreach to either current or future customers, with the goal of helping you earn more revenue. There are several different types of sales emails:
- Cold outreach which includes emails sent to contacts that are not currently paying customers and have not yet expressed interest in your product. It is very difficult (but definitely possible) to find and successfully convert completely cold contacts.
- Nurture emails that send messaging to an audience who has already expressed some level of interest in your products but have not converted yet. Most nurture contacts come from people you met at events or website form submissions that didn’t end up purchasing. Nurture emails can also be used to invite back customers who have churned.
- Customer nurture emails which talk to your existing paying customers and convince them to upsell, purchase another product, extend their subscription, refer a friend, or another action that helps you generate more revenue out of your relationship with them.
The 4 “E’s” of sales emails that generate responses
To create a sales email that drives conversions, you need to think about the entire experience from when you press “send” to when the potential customer follows through on the call-to-action (CTA). Remember that the time it takes to receive, open, read, and respond to an email is very, very short. So each element needs to be super punchy, interesting, and motivating.
Ensuring deliverability
The first step is to ensure that your sales email actually lands in the inbox of your intended recipient. Email deliverability tools will measure how likely your email is to be flagged as spam, get blocked, or bounce from the recipient’s inbox. Always prioritize following email best practices to keep your deliverability rate as high as possible, including:
- Avoid sending emails to more than 300 contacts per day
- Break up outreach to large distribution lists so that you have multiple smaller sends throughout the day instead of one bulk send
- Maintain a high level of security on your domain
- Send from a safe IP address location
- Subscribe and unsubscribe recipients based on local anti-spam and data privacy legislation
Eye-catching subject line
Next, you need to get your recipients to even open your email. How else are they going to see your great pitch inside?
Here are some great ideas to try in your email subject lines that may improve open rates:
- Keep it short & sweet, ideally under 48 characters so that it’s easy to read on mobile
- Include tangible information like discounts, dates, or special offers
- Use action words, such as “Register,” “See,” “Start,” or “Access” for example
- Keep a positive & engaging tone
- Add personalization tokens like their first name or company name
It’s easy for an email to get caught and stopped by spam filters. To prevent this, avoid these common mistakes when writing your email subject line:
- Don’t write in all capital letters
- Avoid overuse of emojis or punctuation marks
- Try not to be overly pushy and avoid words like “ASAP” or “Immediately”
- Don’t write it in another language that’s not relevant to your recipient
- Exclude profanity or commonly banned keywords
Engaging pitch
The body of your email is your pitch. Like the subject line, it should be short and sweet. It’s easy to add a lot of information to your email body but this is something you actually want to avoid. As a best practice, structure your sales email like this:
[Greeting], [First name}
[1-2 sentences explaining what you do and why you’re reaching out]
[Max 3 short bullet points with the most important information]
[Conclusion sentence with the call-to-action]
[Signature]
If you find you’re needing to add more information than what this structure allows, there are two solutions:
- Prioritize your points. Decide which ones are really make or break and leave the rest out. Focus on points that cover the same theme or positioning, align strongly to your ideal customer persona (ICP), and will convert them to the next step of the sales funnel.
- Create a sales email sequence. This can be an automated workflow that sends a series of sales emails set on a specific cadence such as weekly or bi-weekly. Each email can focus on a specific topic that is relevant to your target audience.
Effective call to action
Don’t forget to send your email without a call to action. Sure, it’s great to inform your recipient about how wonderful and amazing your digital product is for them. But if you don’t tell them what to do next or how to do it, you won’t get any action. Here are some suggested examples of CTAs to use:
- Book a coaching session with me using this link
- Call me at [phone number] to get set-up
- Download the template here
- Listen to the most recent episode here
- Compare plans on our website using this link
What is A/B testing?
Before getting into examples of great sales emails that get responses, it’s important to cover the topic of A/B testing. While the example emails in the section below may work well for some creators, they may not work for all. To find a template that suits your audience and drives the really high conversions that you’re looking for, you’ll need to do some experimentation. This is what A/B testing is all about.
- Start by taking one of the examples below. This can be your “Version A.”
- Then, tweak just one element of the email. For instance, you could change the subject line or the call-to-action. This adjusted version now becomes your “Version B.”
- Launch both at the same time to equal splits of your distribution list.
- Compare open and click through rates 48 hours after the email has launched to see which one was the top performer.
- You can use the top contender as the new benchmark and continue to A/B test every future iteration as well.
It’s important to note that when conducting A/B tests, you should only do one adjustment in each iteration. Avoid changing both the body and subject line at the same time in the same experiment. This helps you clearly identify which tweak made the difference.
Pro tip: when choosing an email marketing tool, make sure you choose one that has A/B testing built-in!
5 Examples of successful sales emails that get responses
Try one of these examples below, and don’t forget to run some A/B tests to find the messaging that resonates best with your target audience. Of course, you’ll also want to cater these to your own offerings and brand tonality.
Example 1
Subject line: Start marketing for just $100
Body:
Hey [First Name],
I’m a big fan of your business, [Company Name]. I was there the other day and I thought how great it would be if more people could know about your business!
I host an online marketing course called “Intro to Small Business Marketing” that would give you beginner-friendly how-to’s to start promoting [Company Name] to a wider audience.
Since I’m a fan, I’d love to offer you the intro price of just $100 for the full course package, which includes a few downloadable templates.
Use this link to sign up before the intro price expires on Friday!
[Signature]
What makes this great?
- Active word “Start” used in the subject line
- Tangible $100 cost sounds intriguing
- Pitch is personalized and super relevant to the recipient
- Includes a CTA to sign up for the course with a due date, creating urgency
Example 2
Subject line: Are you the right person?
Body:
Hey [First Name],
I’m looking for someone at [Company] who runs the training sessions for new hires. Would that be you?
Can you please put me in contact with the right person?
Thanks!
[Signature]
What makes this great?
- Sounds casual, like a co-worker reaching out rather than an obvious sales email
- Works best with cold outreach when you’re unsure if you’re about to sell to the right contact
- Has a direct “Yes/No” style question, which makes getting responses easier
- Super short and direct so the ask is clear
Example 3
Subject line: Sign up for your free trial of 123 Cooking!
Body:
Hi [First Name],
We saw that you downloaded a cookbook from our website last week and we wanted to offer you a free trial of the course that the cookbook is part of!
You’ll learn:
- Cooking techniques for the recipes in the cookbook
- How to pair wines with each recipe
- Kitchen efficiency tips for maintaining a safe & clean kitchen
Your free trial lasts 7 days, starting when you sign up at this link here. This offer is only valid for the next 48 hours!
Let me know if you have any questions,
[Signature]
What makes this great?
- Builds off of existing relationship with the recipient
- Offers three succinct points about the benefits of converting
- Provides a clear offer that has a deadline to create urgency
- The free trial promotion is risk-free to the customer as they don’t need to invest any money into their learning experience
Example 4
Subject line: Free compatibility testing for you & your partner
Hey [First Name],
We met through the webinar on Tips for Longevity in New Couples last week. How did you find it?
My relationship coaching business is here to help you continue the conversation. I’d like to start with offering a free compatibility testing session for you & your partner.
Do you have availability next week?
[Signature]
What makes this great?
- Builds off existing relationship at a recent event
- Warm, personable approach that doesn’t sound cold or salesy
- Offers a free opportunity to build the next step which doesn’t require a lot of time or money from the potential customer
- Asks a clear “Yes/No” question at the end which is easy for the recipient to respond to
Example 5
Subject line: See how this YouTuber grew their audience 500% this year
Body:
Hey [First Name],
I saw that you have an active YouTube channel sharing tips for travel photographers. That’s really cool!
I’m with [Company], and we’ve helped YouTubers just like you scale their channel by up to 500%. Last year, [Customer] used our downloadable content mapping tool to hone in on his niche and generate new content ideas that appealed to his target audience.
How do you get in on this?
- Go to [your website] at this link here.
- Download the content mapping tool for just $20.
- Fill in your ideas.
- Execute & watch that growth!
We’re here if you have any questions.
[Signature]
What makes this great?
- Provides an example of another customer’s success story to show proof that your offer works
- Builds trust to show how another customer in the same niche worked with you
- Step-by-step guidance on how to join on the CTA
- Tonality matches with your branding and the target audience
Start earning through email marketing
Now that you have the inside scoop on how to write effective sales emails that are likely to convert, you can start putting your knowledge to work. The first step? Finding a tool that can meet the demands of a sales outreach campaign while still making planning & execution as easy as possible.
Through Thinkific’s email marketing tool, it’s easy to start sending cold and nurture sales emails to earn more revenue from your existing email lists. You can even leverage AI to help you ideate new templates or create new versions for your A/B tests in minutes. Start a free 14-day trial here!