After many years of writing pain, Hannah has started to enjoy writing.
She loves sharing her ideas. She loves inspiring her readers. She loves blogging.
But there’s one writing task she hates.
And that’s writing sales emails.
Writing sales emails makes her feel pushy and brash. As if she’s not herself. As if she’s betraying her readers.
But Hannah has written a new ebook, so she has to write a sales email.
After tidying up her desk, doing her bookkeeping, and cleaning her kitchen windows, she sits down. No more excuses, she tells herself. Write! Just write! Just do it!
But how can she write her email without feeling so icky?
Step #1: Be yourself
Don’t change your voice because you need to sell something.
Your readers have come to trust and like your voice, so be yourself.
Whether your voice is friendly or authoritative, fun or serious, write like you always write.
AppSumo, for instance, consistently uses a chummy and jokey voice:
(If you said standing on the street corner, twirling a sign in your tighty-whities, you are right, but that’s not the answer we are looking for.)
And:
But like pimpin’, making animations ain’t easy.
And:
A fun and irreverent tone doesn’t suit everyone and can alienate your users, as user testing by Nielsen Norman suggests. So don’t feel you need to be as fun as AppSumo. Instead, find your own voice and stay true to it.
Step #2: Start with a problem
Which problem does your book, workshop, course, or product solve?
To write a persuasive sales email, highlight this problem and explain how your product helps solve it. Copywriterscall this the “Problem – Agitate – Solution” (PAS) formula, and it’s probably the most useful copywriting formula you’ll ever learn:
- Describe a problem
- Agitate by highlighting the emotions going with the problem
- Offer your solution
PAS is powerful because problems can attract even more attention than benefits. People want to avoid pain, hassle, risks, glitches, and problems.
AppSumo uses the PAS formula, for example, to sell a smart app which helps create invoices, file expenses, track time, and manage projects. Here’s how the email begins:
Where most freelancers get bogged down, is the tedious paperwork – invoicing, chasing payments, expense tracking, sorting tax deductions, etc. (Ain’t nobody got time for that!)
So we decided to get you something that will save you time and money and let you concentrate and what you do best.
And below you see the same formula applied to an app for creating wireframes:
That’s because you missed our WireframeApp deal and don’t have the tools you need to easily get you and your developer on the same page.
Luckily for you, we are giving you one more chance to grab WireframeApp before it disappears.
Applying the PAS formula helps you write your emails way faster because you know you can start with highlighting the problem your product solves. Plus sales success is almost guaranteed—as long as you highlight a problem that’s a real issue for your readers.
Step #3: Bat away hesitations
Which objections might derail your reader’s intention to buy?
Being seductive requires more than offering solutions to problems. You also have to bat away reader objections.
For instance, in a sales email for creating a business plan, AppSumo doesn’t pussyfoot around the objection that business plans are a waste of time:
And for the most part, you’d be right. Old school biz plans can suck up months of time better spent creating awesome businesses.
But as the ancient Hawaiians say, “You can’t hit what you don’t aim for”.
To sell, you need to explain why people would care about your offer, and then take away their hesitations to buy. In an honest way.
Step #4: Provide proof
Are your readers ready to buy once you’ve dealt with their objections?
Perhaps not quite yet.
To nudge them towards the buy button, prove why they can trust you.
Every AppSumo email includes social proof—usually reviews from two or three AppSumo email subscribers (called Sumo-lings):
[two screenshots with 5-star reviews]
(Sumo-lings aren’t the only ones. There are over 300,000 people using SitePoint!)
Another way to show proof is to use a testimonial story—like in the email below for a freelancing course:
She tried various strategies to increase her financial situation, including having her work promoted by influential people, but nothing worked.
She knew she had to revamp the way she was doing business.
It was then that she decided to take the Monthly1K course.
After taking the course, her career and financial situation skyrocketed.
The testimonial above would have been more persuasive if it included specifics on how much her career and financial situation had skyrocketed, but it’s still pretty persuasive as it is.
Don’t have testimonials yet? Ask a few beta readers or set up a trial.
Step #5: Sum up in style
You know bullet points are a great way to communicate information at a glance, don’t you?
This is why AppSumo summarizes its offer at the end of each email with a series of bullet points. For instance, these bullet points sum up an offer on DataDeck:
- Code-free, one-click connections to any real-time data source
- Unlimited dashboards with widgets from separate Google Analytics accounts
- Data integrations with Mailchimp, Stripe, Salesforce, MySQL, Google Analytics, Google Sheets, Google AdWords and Ptengine
- No limits on data sources, dashboards, and folders
- Create folders per clients and share each dashboard to an email address and protect with a password
The “secret” to writing persuasive sales emails
Want to write a persuasive email without feeling icky?
Stop thinking you have to sell.
Simply highlight a problem, offer a solution, bat away objections, prove you can be trusted, and then nudge readers to make up their mind with a persuasive offer.
Selling doesn’t require pushiness.
Because readers would love to know how your product can help solve their problems.
So be honest. Be clear. And be yourself.
Recommended reading on writing emails:
How to write persuasive business emails
How to craft blog newsletters
How to create an email sequence
Henneke, awesome info, Thank You. Could you give an example for Real Estate biz applying PAS.
To use the PAS formula, you must know the problem you solve for your clients. This may require segmenting of your list as not everyone trying to sell or buy a house (or office) will struggle with the same problem, and sometimes it may be better to focus on what people win rather than the problem you solve.
Henneke, once again you arrived into my mailbox at the exact right time! I wrote a 5 x part email sequence as I read your post. And I used the PAS method.
Ok, they might need tweaking but I found the post so inspirational, ideas just popped! Thanks for being you, and expecting nothing less for the rest of us.
That makes me happy! Thank you, Joan 🙂
Your PAS Formula in this post is very good, Henneke. It reminds me of the sales methodology I learnt a long time ago in the financial services industry – primarily life insurance. It’s called RDRC. This equates to:
Relax
Disturb
Relieve
Close
This system is the most effective formula I’ve come across in 40 years of professional selling. PAS is more concise, otherwise pretty much identical.
Thanks for your informative post, as always.
Paul Herring
Queensland Australia
RDRC does sound similar to PAS. I guess PAS is used when people are already aware of a problem, while in life insurance potential buyers tend to think less about why they need an insurance as they’re not experiencing a problem right now, so you need to make them aware (disturb) them a little.
Thank you for sharing the RDRC formula, Paul. I appreciate your comment.
This is not a blog post. It’s a mini-course! Thanks so much, Henneke.
Thank you, Maria. I appreciate your compliment 🙂
Great piece of advice! Very great timing for this article. I was about sending my first set of sales emails as a copywriter and I decided to search your blog for help, I ended up being at the right place at the right time!
Thanks Henneke.
That’s great 🙂
Happy writing, Temitope!
Phenomenal post here, Henneke.
I know that for myself sales emails are tough. I don’t want to sound too pushy or oversell too much. But I love some of the points you raised here. Specifically the PAS formula and especially batting away hesitation. Great example you used here and I can really see how that can be effective.
Looks like I have a lot of practicing to do before I write another sales email.
– Andrew
Yes, exactly – so many of us are afraid to be pushy. But with the PAS formula, there’s no need to be pushy at all.
Happy selling, Andrew!
It’s just time for me to start email marketing, and I absolutely d’not know where to start. I want to do this qualitatively, so that my letters are not considered spam.
The best point to start is your reader: What would he like to achieve? How can you help him?
When you share helpful information, readers will welcome your messages.
‘Simply highlight a problem, offer a solution, bat away objections, prove you can be trusted, and then nudge readers to make up their mind with a persuasive offer.’
Haha! And you don’t call that er.. writing sales emails? 😉
Uhm … yes, it is. We’re fooling ourselves, but it helps. Use any trick to take away a mental block 😉
Henneke,
Excellent as always. I loved the lesson on verbs. My suggestion to your readers. e-mail a copy of that post to every english teacher in your community. That is how “verbs” are taught.
You continue to amaze me. You are able to separate basic and necessary information from the husk of abstractions and communicate clearly. What a discipline.
Thank you so much, Curtis. The post about the strong verbs is my personal favorite of this year so far, and it gave me much joy to write it 🙂
Thank you for your kind words and for taking the time to stop by!
Hi, Henneke,
You probably already know I’m one of those who don’t get it.
I almost think I do, from time to time, but then understanding evaporates.
I know what I offer is gold, and have testimonials to go with that statement, yet I wonder who would want to pay for this?
I’m more likely simply to stick a text widget type of offer in the sidebar and hope. When will I ever get over this doubt?! 😀
I agree that it can be really difficult to understand why people would pay for our services. We tend to think … everyone can do this.
But how many hours have you practiced to improve your writing skills? And how many books have you read?
And from a client’s perspective: how much time can you save people by helping them out? And how much better will their content be? This is all valuable!
Henneke:
Sales emails also take a less direct form, such as offering free resources to B2B contacts from a trade show. Would you codify some tips for these types of emails as well?
I always look forward to your practical tips that you deliver with such pizzazz (do they say that in England?).
Debbie
Pizzazz is one of my favorite words 🙂
Whether it’s a free download or a paid book doesn’t matter too much for the way you write the email. I’ve seen the exact same formula used in B2B emails to encourage people to download a paper: explain what problem the paper solves, give some details on how the paper helps solve that problem, include a review or endorsement, encourage people to download the paper.
And even if it’s free, people may still have objections – like “if it’s free, it’s probably not useful” or “I don’t have the time to read a whole book.” You can address these objections in your email, too.
What if your business is only for fun, music tickets, festivals, what your opinion of saying the purchase of advance tickets helps us gage how many people we will need to prepare for as well as saving $ By early ticket purchase discount. My thought is something like that you want to sell the sizzle
Yes, sure, early ticket discounts are a great way to nudge people to make up their mind and to commit to a purchase; and also gives the opportunity to send an extra email or two. One when the early bird tickets go on sale, and one 24 hours (or 12 hours) before the early bird discount expires.
Not every product solves a problem. In your case, I’d stress the positive aspects of a fun day or night out. If email subscribers already know the performers, you don’t even have to explain that much.
Hi Henneke,
Thank you for the tips. I think that the first one – being yourself – is the most important one.
In sales emails, when you want to be authoritative, you may end up sounding sleazy or pushy. On the other hand, when you try too hard to be casual, you may sound insecure or awkward. So, the best solution is to relax and be yourself. But that’s easier said than done.
One strategy I find helpful is to “think of yourself as an assistant buyer,” as Zig Ziglar says. Imagining that you aren’t selling, but helping someone choose what’s best for them, helps you take the stress out of the sales pitch, and, as you say, “stop thinking you have to sell and be yourself.”
Thank you for the post!
Veronika
Hi Veronika
I love the idea of the assistant buyer. It’s like doing a product demonstration – if it’s a product that can be demonstrated or otherwise explaining in clear words what it does and how it helps you. That’s a great way to take the stress and pushiness out of the sales pitch and let buyers make up their own mind. In the end, it’s up to the buyer to make that decision.
Great suggestion!
I think the main problem with writing sales copy is your attitude when you are writing it.
If you do it with “I have to sell this” attitude, you automatically strike a sleazy tone. Which of course feels icky to your customers.
My most hated thing about sales copy is also that it’s too “I” focused. “We just launched!” “It’s finally here!”. “Don’t miss it!” It basically screams “look what I’ve made”.
Or this ridiculous need to emphasize the “amazing discount” you are getting “only today”. I don’t know if it’s really a discount. For what I know, you might have made that first big number up. This is not what matters.
But if you change your approach and think, “Well, I have a great product I stand 100% behind. I know it will improve lives of my customers” – just honestly tell them (using the strategy you describe in this post) why you think it’s a good idea if they get it. In “normal” words without exclamation marks, capitalization and paragraphs of bold text.
I don’t get it why people don’t get it 🙂 I hope more of them will read this post.
#rantover 😀
Yes, so true… the self-indulgent “we” statements!
I didn’t get “it” for a long time. Even when I was okay with writing sales copy, I was still nervous about sales emails because it felt like I was interrupting my usual blog updates with salesy emails.
I messed up the first launch of my blogging course because I struggled with the sales emails (it also didn’t help that AWeber suffered a massive DDoS attack and I had spent way too much energy developing my course so I had little energy left for promoting it, but still… )
And yes, no to exclamation marks and text in ALL CAPS!!!
Thank you for your rant 🙂
Perfect timing for me! I never realized before how much I have this little voice in my head saying that writing that email is “selling”… and to avoid it I go through all the procrastination behaviours you describe. 🙂 The idea of readers looking for solutions is a great image, because then I feel helpful rather than ‘pushy’.
Hi Kathy
Your point about “I feel helpful” reminds me of something… I have a friend who is an incredible sales woman and has always worked in sales. I asked her once how she does her selling, and she says “I don’t think of it as selling. I’m helping. They have a need and I can meet it. So I tell them about what I can offer and invite them to take me up on it”.
‘Helping’ all the way :D.
The penny dropped with me a couple of years ago when I realized that some people might even be upset if I didn’t tell them clearly how my book or course could help solve their problems. What if they had that problem? And I could help solve it? It was almost as if I denied them the opportunity to solve a problem or get a job done.
Crazy, eh?
Crazy, eh?
Crazy, indeed!
Isn’t it funny how the things we know just go out of our head when we need to write a sales email? |sigh|
For that reason, I have copied and pasted your summary (along with this url) into my Evernote sales page notebook.
“Stop thinking you have to sell.
Simply highlight a problem, offer a solution, bat away objections, prove you can be trusted, and then nudge readers to make up their mind with a persuasive offer.”
—
Other most helpful advice I have had around this (from Sean d’Souza of Brain Audit fame) is to interview an client (or potential client off your subscriber base) and use their actual words to describe the problem and also the emotions associated with it.
Real clients’ words encapsulate all the agitation, and take the pain out of second-guessing whether you are maintaining your usual tone, or going all ‘sales-y!
Thanks, Henneke!
Yes, that’s an excellent point.
I find it actually useful to call people even before creating a product. I skyped with several blog readers (somehow I don’t like the term email subscribers) before I started writing my two Kindle books, then wrote draft sales pages, and I started writing the books after I had the draft sales pages (they acted as outlines).
Later on, I started picking up a lot from blog comments and questions/suggestions by email, so I skipped the calls. I’ve also “stolen” a lot of ideas from my testimonials and reviews, too 🙂
I like your point that real clients’ word encapsulate all the agitation. So true!
Hi Henneke,
What a great post. I agree on each point you wrote and it’s useful to see it as a list. Personally I did some of these without knowing so I will come back to the post to see if I did all when sending sales emails.
However, I would also add a section on Images “An image is worth a thousand words” (maybe a part II of this post?). It obviously depends on your industry and user persona but social media has proved that in most cases we buy based on images. Our skills to produce beautiful images on those sale emails can strongly influence purchases. What’s your opinion on it?
Warm wishes,
Virginia
Yes, that’s a great point. Definitely for physical products. E-businesses selling physical products often have a slightly different approach than the above. They’ll be featuring more products per email and the pictures do most of the work. The text may highlight just one benefit and encourage people to click through to browse.
With non-physical products, images can do a great job, too. It depends a little on the brand. I have kept the design of my emails minimal, so they feel more like an email from a friend or a person you know rather than a company. This is why I don’t include images – not in my emails with blog updates, but also not in my sales emails.
It might actually be quite interesting to experiment with including my drawings in my email? Food for thought … Thank you!
I thought that images were only for physical products but when I started working in a massive corporation and the products I had to design were “boring” I used images in the emails and. It was surprising how effective they were. An image of a calm happy person using our software in a computer or even abstract images on Virtual Reality or Blockchain would be quicker to understand with an image. Concepts are easier to be understood with an image than words and they are strong persuasive triggers for anything you want to sale.
On the other hand, I like your email approach for your blog. It feels more like a tip from a friend. However, for your courses it could be useful including images – also as a way to differentiate them from your normal post emails. (Just a thought).
I am forever surprised on how images affect our behavior. Truth is that the biggest sales come from brands and people that use amazingly beautiful images.
Yes, I agree with you on using images for non-physical products (as long as they’re not boring stock photography like the ubiquitous call center girls 😉 )
I use images on the sales pages for my books and courses, I just haven’t used them in my sales emails. But this may be something I might need to review.
(Unlike AppSumo, I don’t put all sales information in my emails. I try to put enough information in the email to entice people to click through so they’ll get to the images then.)
Thank you for raising this and making me think!