More and more people prefer email correspondence to a phone call conversation. Why? Because they are not being interrupted and distracted while doing their business and living their personal life.
Companies know about it and usually, an inbox of a potential decision-maker is full of emails that are coming in the number of hundreds of items day by day. Of course, in this situation, a lot of emails end up in a trash/spam folder and are left without an answer.
So how to stay out of this portion of non-readable emails and get a reply? I have been writing emails professionally to clients and leads for about 9 years already. Here are my main tips for getting emails opened and answered.
7 ways to encourage your client to write back to you:
1. Know clients’ priorities
What are their goals and needs? What do they worry about? Take into consideration the issues they have at the moment, questions they are trying to solve, etc. This gives you the additional necessary information that can influence a time you write to a client, tone of a message, etc.
2. Put yourself in your customers’ position
Would you need additional time to think about an offer or any advice/approval from someone else? Sometimes clients cannot answer you without discussing it with their colleagues or a boss that is also time-consuming and requests from them patience, time management skills, etc.
3. Write a good subject line
Keep your subject lines simple and straight to the point. A subject line should sum up what your email is about. For example:
- Your talk at the meetup was useful for me because…
- It was lovely speaking with you at the conference
- Question about our next meeting
- Useful feedback on your software
As subject lines are usually cut off on a cell phone, try to keep them short, interesting and to the point. Starting with a compliment or personal experience makes a reader more involved, interested and of course, more willing to answer.
Also, do A/B testing of your subject lines in order to improve your approach of writing them constantly.
4. Make your email short and easy to read
Nobody wants to waste time reading useless content so make it useful, short and readable.
If any action from a recipient is required, let them know. Add a call-to-action, give them a direction on what you need exactly, for instance, a rundown of a project, an answer by a certain time and date.
5. Follow up
Very often people do not answer in due time because they are too busy with their daily working routine.
Perhaps, they had begun to read your email but suddenly someone interrupted them or asked about something, so they forgot about your message. Or they have an important project that should be finished today or tomorrow.
Assume all of these reasons, and only in 3 or 5 days follow them up. To that time, it is a big likelihood that you get an answer from them without any reminder about your query.
6. Be patient enough
Don’t let your negative thinking influence your opinion about a person or situation. That’s a common mistake when a sales manager without enough information starts thinking that they’re ignored because of their personality, or because their offer is not good enough, etc. As it turns out frequently, there is nothing common between lack of response and an attitude to a conversation starter.
Be patient and wise. You’re not the center of the universe. People are just busy with their lives and work.
7. Don’t give up and don’t be too pushy
A balance is everything. Don’t give up: remind them of yourself and your company by clicking like/share/add a comment; congratulate them on working anniversary, companies and their own achievements, etc. Nowadays, when even automobile service representatives send requests to be in our friends list on facebook and in a list of contacts on Linkedin, being under clients’ radar is as easy as ABC.
Last but not least, use all these tips all together because separately they won’t give you the results you’re looking for.
Controversially, don’t be too pushy as you may lose them at all. For example, nobody likes when in a clothes store a salesperson follows them step by step and asks the same question like “Will you take anything?” or “How can I help you?”. Here is the same thing. Give your customers more freedom and be ready to satisfy their buying needs and answer the questions.
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How do you encourage your customers to write you back? Do you have any tactics or tricks? Please share them in the comments below.