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How writing sales prospecting emails and negotiation emails is different

Guest post by: Kendra Lee

Article Overview: Have you noticed that suddenly you’re negotiating with your customers and prospects through email? They don’t have time for face-to-face or phone meetings. Instead, they’d just like “a few quick questions” answered through email so they can make a decision. As this occurs, it’s critical that sales reps adjust their easy-going sales prospecting email approach to a more formal and professional business writing style to successfully negotiate in this new manner.

How writing sales prospecting emails and negotiation emails is different

Have you noticed that suddenly you're negotiating with your customers and prospects through email? They don't have time for face-to-face or phone meetings. Instead, they'd just like "a few quick questions" answered through email so they can make a decision.

As this occurs, it's critical that sales reps adjust their easy-going sales prospecting email approach to a more formal and professional business writing style to successfully negotiate in this new manner.

Here are a few ways in which sales prospecting emails and negotiation emails are different so you know what to change.

Subject lines - In prospecting emails you want to draw prospects in. You write email subject lines that feel very personal to them such as "Can we talk Tuesday at 2pm?"

In negotiation emails your subject should directly relate to the topic of the most current email. For example, "Training for the HR team."

Format - Prospecting emails must look easy to read. Your crazy-busy prospects who don't know you yet don't have time for long emails highlighting your customers' favorite features in your solutions. Keep emails short and to the point.

Negotiation emails, on the other hand, may be quite long. If you're answering a customer's question on how to best train the human resources team on the new software application you're recommending, you want to provide detailed information. The ideal, of course, would be to discuss it on the phone, but that isn't always an option.

Forwarding - In prospecting you limit the number of emails you forward as you continue to follow up to break through the email gatekeeper. At most you'll forward only three emails.

In an email negotiation you forward the entire negotiation string of emails. This keeps all the discussions together so any new people who are added to the distribution list throughout the negotiation can easily follow the conversation. When an email negotiation is complete, there may be 8-10 pages of emails, but that's okay.

Content - Prospecting emails focus on one trigger event or business issue you anticipate the prospect is experiencing. Your purpose is to let the prospect know you are an expert in that issue and have some ideas to share. Just as in cold calling, your goal is to set an appointment.

In a negotiation email your goal is to fully answer the contact's question while avoiding giving up anything valuable to you. Ultimately you want to close the sale. You ask questions to better understand what's important to the prospect. You may make a counter offer, or a trade off, but you do so knowingly.

Negotiation emails look very formal compared to prospecting emails, but they have to. Your negotiation email will be saved as part of the contract documentation long after the prospecting email has been deleted. Be careful how you write your emails and you'll find yourself not only breaking into new prospects, but also closing more sales opportunities.

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Article Tags: email negotiation, negotiation email, negotiation emails, prospecting email, prospecting emails, sales prospecting, sales prospecting emails



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Re: When is your interest peaked by unsolicited mail? - The worth spammers are like the one I got today. They have no shame, they will subscribe to your newsletter and use it to reply and spam you. The subject line is usually "RE:your subject", I recognize my emails, and this just make me so angry, because I am opening these emails, maybe one of my readers need my help, and this "lady" today, saying thank you for a valuable info, and then writing more and more and some more on her business, and how she made money, when we know she didn't, otherwise why is she sending me spam? 4 emails like this, the same text, from the same person, replying to 4 emails sent by my autoresponder. I have other things to do with my time, like sleeping!
Re: Email marketing lists - Hi All, The Sendblaster software seems to work quite well and has given me a starting point for creating sales emails. So far have not found any list that carries any weight. I now have two seperate forms on my site to harvest emails. Look forward to seeing the video, thanks Evan
Re: Do emails count? - [quote="BuzzAroundBooks.com":3ov3pks3] Hi litekepr, What about working with someone based on a verbal contract with emails/private messages to outline the working conditions and prove that there was some sort of agreement made? Can emails or private messages constitute as legally binding agreements or do all "written agreements" require signatures from both parties?[/quote:3ov3pks3] I just went through this with a psycho client. He said many things in emails that proved my side of the case and when I forwarded these messages to his attorney, she dropped him. I kept all his emails so that I can send them as a whole document instead of copying and pasting the info into another file. I kept telling him that it was critical to be careful what you put in writing. It protected me and ended his dreams of suing me without justification. His messages also proved that I was right to be concerned for my safety. Many of my contracts are in emails and I keep a print copy of each one in my client contract folders. Shri
Re: What i hate... - [quote="Trent Brownrigg":3srgv506]It does suck when people don't reply to emails. However, you need to take into consideration that some of them probably get hundreds of emails per day that they would have to reply to if they replied to them all. And with all the spam these days it's easy for a legitimate email to get overlooked or lost. I'm sure more often than not they are just not replying because they don't want to but there are some good reasons that might be the case.[/quote:3srgv506] I agree with Trent on this point. Also I think a lot of emails are sent from auto responders and they are general ones that go out to everyone one on the list, so many of these don't require answers. It's true that I also don't open emails if they come from someone I don't know. Who know what kind of virus can be in there. MichelleJ
Re: Email autoresponder messages: what delivery intervals? - Depending on the campaign, but I do either daily or I make sure every 7 days people receive emails from me. Reason for this is if you opt-in on Monday, you might be more likely to open email again on Mondays. Also, if there are sales taking place, it's good to send out on the 1st and the 15th. Friday is a payday for many so that works out well. I haven't tested what time to send, but two friends who send more emails than I know send 11AM CST and 4AM CST.


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