How To Write A Sales Email In 2023 (5-Step Process)

All B2B sales professionals should know how to write an effective sales email.

If you are sending sales emails to your leads, and you aren’t receiving responses, then this article is for you.

I founded an email outreach software company (Emailchaser) and have also sent thousands of sales emails over the last decade, so I know a thing or two about writing the perfect sales email.

In this article, I will share my 5-step process for writing the perfect sales email:

Below is my 5-step process:

1. Tell the prospect how you heard about them
2. Say who you are, what you do, and your reason for reaching out
3. Give a relevant case study with a measurable result
4. CTA - Ask if they are open to the idea of having a call
5. P.s. line

Step 1: Tell the prospect how you heard about them

It is important to start your sales email by explaining to the prospect how you heard about them.

If you email someone with no prior connection, and you don’t explain how you know them, then the likelihood of receiving a response is significantly lower.

This is also a great opportunity to show that you are a real person and have done your research. Prospects only respond to sales emails if they think that the person sending the email is real, and isn’t sending a generic email template.

Below is a good example of step 1 in action:

“Hi John,

I recently read on TechCrunch that your company Veed raised its Series A from Sequoia. Congrats on this amazing milestone!”

Step 2: Say who you are, what you do, and your reason for reaching out

The next part of your sales email should tell the recipient who you are, what you do, and your reason for emailing them.

This provides crucial context to the prospect, and will help them decide whether they should respond to you.

It’s important to keep this section relatively short. If you write too much, then the recipient may decide to not read your email. Most people are busy and don’t have time to read unnecessarily long emails.

Below is an example of step 2 in action:

“I am the founder of Emailchaser, which is a company that helps sales teams find leads, send cold emails and manage their entire sales cycle in an easy to use Sales CRM. I wanted to reach out to you because I know that your company Veed recently raised its Series A, and I think we might be able to help your sales team scale its outreach.”

Step 3: Give a relevant case study with a measurable result

This step is all about providing evidence that you can deliver measurable results for the prospect.

If the recipient doesn’t believe that you are capable of delivering results, then they won’t respond.

And can you blame them? They don’t know who you are, so you need to build credibility by mentioning a previous case study.

Make sure that the case study you mention is both relevant to the prospect, and also includes a measurable positive result that you achieved.

Below is an example of step 3 in action:

“We recently helped Gusto (leading HR software company) and their enterprise sales team grow their monthly recurring revenue from $200,000.00 USD to $600,000.00 USD over the course of 6 months.”

Step 4: CTA - Ask if they are open to the idea of having a call

It is important to have a very clear call to action in your sales email.

This allows the recipient to give a simple “yes” or “no” type answer. If the prospect doesn’t know how to move the conversation forward, then you won’t get many responses.

Below is an example of step 4 in action:

“Let me know if you are open to the idea of a quick call to discuss whether Veed’s sales team could benefit from using Emailchaser and I'll send over some times to chat.

Thanks,
George”

Another effective call-to-action is to ask the prospect if you can send over more information. You can write something like: "Would it be ok if I send over more details?"

I also recommend that you include a line that says something like: "If you're not the right person to contact about this, I'd appreciate it if you could please forward this email to the right person."

Step 5: P.s. line

The final step in this sales email is to include a “P.s.” line.

This establishes that you are a real person, and also builds trust as you are showing that you didn’t send a generic email template to thousands of people.

I’ve seen response rates increase by more than 20% in some outreach campaigns simply by including this P.s. line in my sales emails.

Below is an example of step 5 in action:

“P.s. Sorry if this is out of the blue. Here's my LinkedIn profile so you can see I'm a real person.”

How to add a signature to your email

It is important to add a professional signature to your email account.

This will build trust with the recipient, and allow them to do basic research on you and your company.

Your email signature should include the following information:

First line: First name, last name, title
Second line: Company name
Third line: Office address
Fourth line: Personal and office phone numbers
Fifth line: Email and domain

Below is an example of how I would set up my email signature for [email protected] (remember that emailchaserpro.com redirects to emailchaser.com):

George Wauchope | Founder
Emailchaser
13423 Streetname, Dallas, TX 28377
P: (832) 555 6453 O: (832) 532 6458
[email protected] | emailchaserpro.com

Below is a video that shows you how to add an email signature in Gmail:

What is the structure of a good sales email?

Every good sales email should follow the following 5-step structure:

1. Tell the prospect how you heard about them
2. Say who you are, what you do, and your reason for reaching out
3. Give a relevant case study with a measurable result
4. CTA - Ask if they are open to the idea of having a call
5. P.s. line

What do you write in an email for sales?

When you write a sales email, it is important to make it clear how you can provide value to the recipient.

You also should include a relevant case study to build trust.

Finally, you should make the call to action very clear, so that the recipient can say yes or no.

How do you start a formal sales email?

Some popular ways to start a formal sales email include:
“Dear Firstname,”
“Hi Firstname,”
“Firstname,”

I prefer to use “Hi Firstname,” as it is more casual and makes your email seem more real. Overly formal sales emails are often disregarded as spam since most people don’t talk like that.

Frequently asked questions

Final thoughts

Every sales email should follow the following 5-step structure:

1. Tell the prospect how you heard about them
2. Say who you are, what you do, and your reason for reaching out
3. Give a relevant case study with a measurable result
4. CTA - Ask if they are open to the idea of having a call
5. P.s. line

If you follow these steps, then you will receive more responses and book more meetings in your outbound campaigns.

I also recommend that you read my other article How To Send Cold Emails Without Landing In Spam to maximize your results.

And finally, if you need help finding peoples’ email addresses, then you can try our free Email Finder tool.