182+ billion business emails are sent everyday. But which ones are effective?
The 182+ billion business emails sent every day show that email is clearly an important channel for communication. Email connects us not only to our co-workers, but also to key customers. Whether you’re in sales, customer service, product development, or marketing, you’ll likely need to interface with your customers on a regular basis. These users are the bread and butter of your business, so it’s important to communicate well with them. Our platform has processed millions of emails, so we know what types of emails are successful. Below are some tips we’ve come up with for writing effective customer emails.
Should you CC people?
Do CC the people on your team who are going to be working with your customers, as well as anyone on their end who should take part in the conversation. It is important for everyone to be on the same page.
Hi, Dear, Ello, Greetings...
How do you introduce yourself to new customers? Internally we use “hey” because that is part of our voice with users. We make it a point to be informal and accessible to our users. However, it’s up to to find your voice with your customers. Keep in mind that formal is effective, yet boring.
Be concise and to the point
Do not try and make your email longer than it needs to be. It is important the the first few lines convey the key message and anything after that is just supporting information. Do not create heavy content. Long and dense content often backfires because the purpose of the email gets lost. Minimize any non essential content when sending your emails.
Keep it simple, stupid
Communicate simply. Not only do you want to send a personalized email, but you’ll want to use user-friendly language. At ToutApp, we talk a lot as a team about email deliverability, workflow, and servers. In the end, our users want to know that their emails are going out - period. Don’t get too bogged down with internal terms or abbreviations. Your users likely aren’t familiar with them, and your message won’t resonate.
You is kind, you is smart, you is important
Know that you are dealing with actual human beings. You should have a basic background about this person or their company. Figure out and visualize what it would be like if you were actually talking to them person. Be cognisant of the language they are using and relay that into the content you are sending back to them. Show that you have a pulse, that your care about what you are sending and who you are sending it to and show that you aren’t just sending an email en masse. Don't even think about making your emails generic.
Don’t leave them hanging
Don’t be vague. When you send someone an email, you need to ask yourself what it is you would like them to do. Do you want them to reply to your email? Do you want them to join your service? If you need information from customers, make sure to list it out very clearly. Let them know how to get back in touch with you - whether that be via email, your phone, or setting up time for a meeting.
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ToutApp Tip: Create Sales Email Campaigns
This best practice on how to use ToutApp is brought to you by one of our awesome users, Levi McClendon from Mobivity. Check out more best practices for how to use Tout here, or you can submit your own tip.
I've created a customized email follow-up sequence using the 'Using this Template in this Category' feature. I love this option because I can drip on a prospect for as long as I need to without logging back in and sending emails out manually. I'm able to market and prospect to hundreds of clients at a time with very little effort.
Being able to then look at the average views and clicks with these templates helps me tweak my other messages to be more successful with open and click rates.
Our campaigns feature lets you set up a series of emails to go out, one after the other. We'll automatically send each email and include tracking so that you can see who's engaging in your live email activity feed.
To to create your own email campaigns, log into ToutApp and click "Edit" next to the email template of your choice. When scrolling down, you'll see the "Whenever I use this template" dialog box, and you can choose a series of sales email templates to be linked together.
Should you bother sending your Sales Emails on Cyber Monday?
After successfully avoiding Black Friday, my next challenge is Cyber Monday. There is no dodging this day as my email inbox is full with subject lines, “Tara we have a deal for you” and “Cyber Monday 50% off.”
If you’re a fan of email marketing and jump-for-joy deals today is your day. Inboxes are bound to fill to the brim and traffic on the email freeway is likely to get a little backed up.
On Friday I stayed inside, eating Thanksgiving leftovers shielding myself from the aggressive crowds at the local shopping centers. Even sad to say I did not part take in Small Business Saturday. Well, I obviously cannot boycott checking my inbox or sending emails today and so face-to face with Cyber Monday here I am.
Tips for Sending your Sales Emails Today
1) Schedule a follow up. Even if your subject line is incredible today, some emails are destined to get lost under a pile of others. Use Tout to schedule an automatic follow up email. After creating your template select:
2) Keep your eye on the Live Feed. The good news is your recipients will be glued to their email today. If you see someone going click happy engaging with your email jump on the opportunity to pick up the phone to call.
3) Use Tout to send your emails later. Avoid the Cyber Monday traffic hours. Don’t send emails between 12:00-2:00pm. Schedule your emails to be sent before or after the traffic.
Maximize your Sales Responses with Reply Tracking
ToutApp just got a little smarter
It's always been our goal to give you real-time insight into your daily emails so that you can be more productive. We'll tell you when someone views your email, clicks on a link, and most recently when a recipient visits your website.
Replies matter
But real conversations aren't just about tracking. For lack of a better word, they're about... conversing, the give-and-take of replying back and forth. Having to wait around for your dream customer to respond to your email is frustrating.
That's why we recently rolled out reply tracking for the vast majority of our users. Now, if a prospect responds to your email, we'll display this in the Live Feed along with all of our other tracking information.
Here's a video that shows reply tracking in action:
Right now, reply tracking works for our Gmail and Google Apps users. We'll be extending this to our other integrations soon. We're also looking to roll out some cool new features with this technology soon, such as alerting you if an important email does or doesn't recieve a reply after x days.
Custom Mail Merge for Outlook and Gmail Users
Generic Emails Blow
The average person receives tons of newsletters and email marketing every day addressed to “Dear Sir or Madam.” These generic emails are far from effective at generating a good amount of user replies. The best way that we’ve seen to get your messages read is with custom tailored text.
We introduced dynamic fields like {{first_name}} and {{company}} to ToutApp over a year ago so that you could personalize your group emails. Being able to use mail merge fields saved all of our users a ton of time. They still restricted personalization to a number of preset options, though.
Introducing a new level of personalization for your emails.
We’re giving you more: you can upload and email groups in Tout and reference whichever mail merge fields you’ve created. For those in Gmail and Outlook, you’ll need to use our web app at www.toutapp.com to send group emails. You’ll be able to reply and have your follow-up tracked right from with your email client, though.
Here’s how to get started with custom fields:
1) Create a CSV file with all of the contacts you’d like to email at once. Put any information you want in your columns.
2) Create your group in Tout, click “Import CSV,” and upload your file.
3) Map your fields to the ones we currently offer in ToutApp. For all your custom fields, click “Add a new custom field.” Create a name for your field.
4) Click add to group.
5) Now you can send everyone a really personalized email that may look something like this:
Alexander, Hannah, Charlie, and anyone else being emailed here will get a unique email delivered to their inbox. Sending group emails like these doesn’t mean you don’t care about the people you’re emailing. It means you care about the time you’re saving.
ToutApp: Managing your Email, saving your time, allowing you to get back to doing what you love. Start your free trial today.