What kind of a role does email play in your agency’s marketing arsenal? Chances are you’re making use of email in some marketing capacity, even if it’s just to keep your name in front of customers and build loyalty.

But have you taken the step of integrating email as a tool for new commercial business development? If not, you could be overlooking a great resource.

Here are four quick tips for creating potent and effective prospecting emails. And it all starts with the subject line.

Subject Line First

Like the outside of an envelope, your subject line is the key to getting people to notice and open the messages you send.  It needs to grab their attention and make them to want to find out what you have to say by promising some relevant news, information, tips, or ideas they will find useful.

If you can pique people’s curiosity enough so they to want to dedicate a few moments reading your message, you’ve written a successful subject line. But be careful not to confuse cleverness with spam.

Marketing emails can backfire if they don’t live up to the promise of the subject line, or if they talk down to people, or smack of trickery. Your emails need to be relevant, meaningful, and strike a genuine chord with the people and businesses you’re targeting.

Keep it Simple & Clean

Needless to say, people are busy and don’t have the time to read long emails. You’ve got to make your point in only a few sentences, otherwise your recipients will take a quick look at the density of the message and abruptly delete the eloquent appeal you’ve spend hours crafting.

Just as showing up for a business meeting dressed sloppily is guaranteed to give people a negative impression, the look and feel of your emails colors peoples’ attitudes towards the message itself.  The visual fluency of your emails is important. Avoid cluttered layouts and unusual fonts, sized too big or too small. They are unhelpful distractions.

Focus on Their Business Concerns

It’s not about how wonderfully competent you are, but what you can do for the prospective client. Tell the person you’re writing to how you can help them achieve or streamline their relevant business objectives. In terms of service and support, risk management and cost issues, what challenges have you solved for similar businesses in their industry? What advantages have you been able to deliver? If you can mention specific clients with ‘marquee’ name recognition as examples – all the better.

Make it Personal 

Don’t forget, you’re not simply selling to a company. You’re talking to a real person and the better you can connect with that individual, the more likely they’ll be to engage with your message.  A little online research of their company website, LinkedIn and other social media can provide details about their hobbies, attitudes, heroes, and more that you can incorporate to personalize your message.

Any thoughts or questions you’d like to share about using email in your prospecting activities? Let us know in the comments below. We’d love to know what you think.