This morning, I opened my mailbox to 85 spam emails. Some of them were the standard approaches about a better website or improved SEO. Others were entertaining or just weird: adverts for Viagra, offers of available brides and a demand for money from the White House. I’m guessing Donald may be struggling for cash.
Whilst the terrible grammar is an obvious clue to hit the Delete button, I know that everyone struggles with a barrage of regular emails every day. How many have you overlooked or forgotten to reply to, just because you’re busy? When email is your main channel for reaching out to corporate prospects, you’ll need to get smarter to win their attention.
Here’s how.
A common failure of both spam and regular business emails is that they’re not tailored to the recipients. They’re ROUGH:
Ready-made – they look like a template that could have been sent to hundreds of people. No-one gets excited about an [insert name] email that isn’t relevant and takes no account of the prospect’s particular business or ambitions. It’s lazy and unappealing.
One sided – it’s all about you. You simply list all the ways that lucky corporate can give you money. You’ve spent paragraphs talking about your own needs, funding gaps, events or giving day and ask them to choose one. It’s like a kidnappers’ demand list, but with testimonials from the hostage.
Undemanding – there’s no call to action. ‘Hope to hear from you’ does not scream out that you’re keen and committed to follow up.
Goes on forever. You’ve got pages of text as you painstakingly explain your theory of change, 100 year history and list of programs. Do you really expect your prospect to keep scrolling?
Heavy-handed – there’s lots of guilt but no solutions. It’s fine to highlight the burning platform for action, but no one gives because they feel guilty. A corporate wants to be inspired by the impact it can achieve. Weight Watchers enticed customers with the dream of being a leaner and better version of themselves, not because they fat-shamed their prospects.
Ditch the ROUGH emails and take a REFINED approach to an introductory email:
Remember not to sell. You’re trying to get a meeting where you can ask lots of great questions and find out their pain points and ambitions. Don’t be tempted to ‘sell’ a partnership in the introduction. No-one agrees to a wedding on the first date.
Entice them with a hook – WIIFM is a corporate’s most popular radio station: what’s in it for them. Corporate partners need to know there’s commercial value in working with you. Give them a little teaser and show you understand there has to be an ROI for their investment.
Fifteen seconds to read it. That’s the average attention span of our corporate clients. Remember that busy email inbox? They take no more than 15 seconds to decide whether to read your email, forward it on to someone more relevant or simply delete it. Keep it short, succinct and to the point.
It’s all about them. Flip the script and stop talking about your own organisation. Make sure the email approach is personalise and tailored to the corporate prospect. Show you’ve bothered to do your own homework.
Name drop (if you can) of someone you both know. The recipient is more likely to respond because they have an existing relationship with Sally in marketing. Put the name right up front, even in the email header. They are less likely to just hit delete because they won’t want to offend a colleague or friend.
Expect a response – be direct and let them know when you want to meet. “I’m in town next Tuesday and Wednesday, would either of those work for you?” Of course you’ll be flexible when they reply but make it clear you’ll be following up and you really want that meeting. No call to action or seeming indifference means no motivation to respond.
Don’t sell your crusade. We know you’ve got a lot to say about your cause, whether it’s animal rescue, human rights or environmental action. But the intro mail is not the place to win converts to the cause. You’re simply trying to get a meeting and start the process of building a relationship. Get to know them first and don’t put them off with righteous indignation.
If you want more on getting past the front door of a business, we go deeper on this in Partnerships Reimagined. It includes first contact templates, outreach do’s and don’ts, and the neuroscience of why most emails get ignored.
It takes time to craft a compelling email approach. As George Bernard Shaw said, ‘I’ve written you a long letter because I didn’t have time to write you a short one’. Brevity is a skill that needs to be nurtured and weaponised for prospecting. Ditch the tone deaf emails that talk about yourself. You’ll get much better results with a REFINED approach that gives your prospect a strong reason to respond.
And the follow up emails? Watch this space next week for some more tips.