Why Are People Ignoring Your Emails?
Telephone conversation will never be as influential as an in-person conversation. And email follow-up cannot replace the phone. Sometimes though, your best or only option to reach a prospect is email, and in those cases you want that communication to be as effective as it can be.
The most common feedback I hear from salespeople about communicating with prospects via email? “They never respond.”
There’s a huge list of possible reasons someone doesn’t respond to an email you sent them. What if they never get the email? Maybe their computer crashed, or they forgot to pay their Internet service bill, or maybe that new spam filter they just installed blocks everything. Those are all things we cannot control, so forget about them.
When prospects do receive your email (and trust me, most of them do), but they don’t respond, there can be a number of reasons. One of the most common? They never opened your email.
No matter how compelling and personal the content of your email, your prospect will never get to see it if they never open it. Next to having your prospect recognize your name or email address, the subject line is your best opportunity to get your email opened.
Nothing says, “this is an email I don’t want to open,” like a subject line that reads “Thank you for your visit,” “The information you requested,” or something similarly generic and bland. And no, including your community name isn’t sufficiently unique either.
Consider the noise and clutter that is likely found in your prospects’ inbox. If they’ve been doing a lot home shopping, your email is not only going to be one of 100’s of emails begging for attention, but one of many from new home salespeople begging for attention. What makes your email standout?
The subject line of your emails needs to be personal in a way that sets off bells for them and/or intriguing enough to spark their curiosity. How exactly do you do this? The answer is not the same for every prospect, of course
Let’s say you’ve met John on Thursday in your model. You spent only about 15 minutes with John, as he was on a rare midday work break. You were able to learn a bit about him during that time. You know he has kids that like to swim. You know his significant other and he only share Wednesday as a day off (you learned this when asking about when he might have time for a more thorough demonstration of the community). Among other things, you also learned this would be a new commuting route for him, as his current home takes him a different direction to work. Knowing John’s limited time, you secured his agreement and your reasons for following-up. You did not get a phone number on the registration card, as John says, “the best way to reach me is email.”
Now that its time to draft your follow up email, you could use the “Thank you for your visit” or “It was a pleasure meeting you” subject lines, but they’re not likely to get much of a look. Think different, and get John’s attention. Consider some of the following subject lines more likely to get clicked:
“Swimming pool, Wednesdays, and your commute”
– Together with your name, this should be enough for John to know this is no form-letter email. This was drafted just for him. Also, the unusual structure of subject lines like this can sometimes be enough to get the click.
“You’re going to love this answer…”
– This is a more interesting way of saying “The information you requested.” You’ve got the answer to John’s question, and its good. Show some enthusiasm.
“Exactly 15.6 miles to your office.”
– You know John’s commute will change when he moves to your community. Not only can you help his research, but you can share some of what you learned in the subject line. It has the element of unusual to spark some curiosity and its certainly lets John know right away that the email is going to have information relevant to him.
Certainly, if John was ever going to open a “Thanks for your visit” email, he’d open one of these. This means your chances of a response can only improve.
There are limitless possibilities here. These are just a few samples .
You’re a sales professional. This means the responsibility to be a better communicator rests on your shoulders, and that includes email communication. Use all that you know to make your communication more impactful and more memorable.
Dennis O’Neil is president of
O’Neil Interactive.
www.oneilinteractive.com
