Need Help Perfecting My Email Pitch

Looks pretty good, I would change the title to something with social in it.

Hey, (I hope this doesn't post twice...site was down when I was doing it)

If I am being 1000% honest it's too salesy. I haven't exactly sent out millions of emails so I won't sit here and say "that won't work" but I can tell you that in MY personal experience,...letters like that did NOT work.


I don't have my numbers and I am certainly not saying that if you sent that exact email out to 100,000 contacts that you wouldn't get a sale or two, but I personally wouldn't bank on it.


I know to you it sounds like you are offering to help, but to me (and to a LOT of businesses owners) it kind of sounds like a pitch.

Most of these guys (the guys you are going to email) get a lot of those each day.


Not that pitching is wrong, and again...I'm hardly the expert here, but I think there is a time and place for the pitch, and that time/place isn't on the first email.


Do you have anything you can do to flat out offer them value with no strings up front? If you look at a lot of threads here at WF you'll find some people had some good success doing some really simple and easy (free and more importantly helpful) things in emails off the bat.


Like checking Google places and finding businesses not optimized and sending them a quick note about how you could show them how to optimize their listing (for free) and to contact you.


That shows value up front, and of course they know you probably have something to sell them, but they won't be hit with it right at first.


That's my opinion...others may not agree. I am not trying to be the voice of authority, I just know that emails with ANY type of pitch/offer/call to action/favor either don't get opened, or don't get read or don't get any action taken in regard.


Again....MY experience.


Be helpful and mean it first. Build a relationship, then ask for money is my advice.


But don't do too much free stuff.....people take advantage of that...just something helpful that they would never ever figure out on their own...and that is dead simple for you.


Cheers.

You are talking about yourself a lot, in my opinion. Also, if I were a business owner, I would delete that email without a second though because I wouldn't see the benefit. There needs to be more focus on them, and what your services do for their business. They don't want to know what their social media marketing is lacking (hell, some of them probably don't know what social media is--they probably had their son/daughter tell them they needed a Facebook page and they just said "whatever go do it"); they want to know that you can have more people calling in on the phone, have more people walking in the door so they can generate more clients/customers/covers/patients for them which ultimately gets them more money. Focus on the benefits that they are going to get before you throw the service out there, in my opinion.

As for the title you need to take the "I" out of it again. The email should be about them and how they are going to benefit; not about you. Keep your subject to 10 words max and put the most important words first. You're just trying to get them to open the email...don't try to sell them your service in your headline. You could try something like:
"What the Most Successful [Plumbers/Dentists/Blahblah] Are Doing"
"Why are you throwing away money?"
"Business owners can finally say "no" to expensive advertising."


I know it's different than the standard email that people send for B2B, but here's one I've been trying out with decent results.

Subj: "Your July report is ready".

Body: "James Shaw here. It's great to see you are interested in increasing the number of customers you get walking through your door every day; what's even better is that you are taking action to bring more money into your business and you're ready to dominate your competition with new techniques.

Your free Online Marketing Evaluation (OME) report is complete but I see that no delivery method was chosen. Do you want me to email this over, send it in the mail, or just talk about what we've found in a quick 15 minute call?

Let us know how you want your OME delivered as soon as possible; there are a lot of other businesses wanting this type of report but, as you know, we only deal with a few handpicked clients at a time.

Shoot me back an email or give me a call at 555-123-4567 so we can go over what I've found."

Yes, the business didn't actually order any "OME" report. A lot will reply, though, because they think they've "won" something. It's like seeing a $5 bill on the ground; even though it isn't theirs, most people are going to pick it up and put it in their pocket. The same goes for this. The business owner is going to think they are getting something for free on accident and they'll just "go with the flow".

I was imagining myself to be the business owner where you sent that sale pitch you have and personal I won't buy it either.

Here's what I think:
All you are saying is your business and what it can do, without clearly saying and giving out examples and proofs of what am I going to receive or expect from your service. It is not even clear how much traffic my site would get if I hire you. Numbers are important to online businesses and I think your letter lacks that.

And your "I hope to hear back from you..." is not really encouraging. It like there's no attitude, no fearlessness in it. Try changing your Call to Action phrase, like "Call us now and we will give blah blah blah..."

I hold no expertise on this topic, but the way I see it in your clients' view, you will not really get a client sooner.

Hope this helps.

In my regular gig (selling ERP software), I've had a LOT of success with this email. And by "success", I mean I send this directly to C-Level people as well as Presidents, and VP's and typically get a 15%-20% return email from them. Some are interested, some are not, but at least it gets a response.

I'm sure you could put on your thinking cap and tweak it to fit your needs.

Subject Line: Hi {first name} - quick question...

I would like to see if it would be possible to schedule a quick 20-30 minute call to discuss helping your company better align business and technology strategies. By that, I mean helping you leverage and capitalize on recent developments in cloud computing, virtualization, and Software as a Service.

At a high-level, the agenda for the call would be focused on:
• Learning more about your company structure
• Current applications that are being utilized
• Current and upcoming projects related to technology
• Explain how our firm and how we can be a useful asset to your team

Do you have a specific day/time that works best for you during the next 2 weeks for a quick chat?

Regards,
Me

As you can probably guess, I do research to get the name of the person I'm trying to contact. I think that in itself is a significant factor in getting them to open the email in the first place. Secondly, "quick question" does two things:

1. Implies it's a short and to the point email.
2. Makes them curious...."question?...hmmmm....what question?".

The problem I see is that you will have a problem getting noticed, getting read because business owners receive dozens of these emails every week. It's a sales pitch point blank.
You need to invoke curiosity and the best way if through the fear of loss.

Is this your facebook page?...(Website? Yellow page ad?)
I see a serious flaw on your page and this is costing you money. Luckily, this is what I do fix these types of problems. Call me ASAP and we can discuss the issue and resolve this today.

Looks good but there's one CRUCIAL thing you need to do:

Before you send out these e-mails, delete or edit this post. Warrior Forum is indexed by search engines all the time. If a person decides to google even 1 sentence of your pitch the first result will lead them to this very page.

Hope that tip assists you a bit. Otherwise, best of luck. Looks good and it's nice to see all these contributions in the replies.

-- Alanis