12 Types of sales emails to increase customer engagement

Keeping your email subscribers engaged is not an easy feat; you need fresh ideas and perspectives to craft effective sales emails. But, how many types of sales emails are you actually using in your company?  

You’d be surprised to know that there are numerous types of sales emails for every step of your sales process. Yes, if you want to send an email at the early stage of the sales process, you can easily do that. 

Well, there are two sides to every situation, and this is no different. You need to figure out which types of sales emails can work perfectly for your email subscribers based on your company’s offerings. 

I have compiled a list of 12 types of sales emails that a company should start using, however, whether it’s suited to your brand or not is your call. 

So, in order to find the best email strategy for your business, you can go through each type of sales email and decide which ones work best for you. 

12 types of sales emails

1. Cold outreach emails 

Cold emails are sent to a set of targeted individuals or companies with whom there has been no contact previously. 

Do you often receive promotional emails from unknown contacts? Yes, those are cold emails targeted to capture the attention. 

When it comes to cold outreach emails, our first thought is to ignore it – unless – the subject line spikes your interest. You need to give your prospect a reason to open that email, and then start with focusing on their pain points. 

An effective cold outreach email directly talks about the challenges of the prospect and provides solutions to help overcome them, resulting in an increased response rate. 

Advantages of cold outreach emails 

• Cold outreach emails are personal and persisting, which helps you capture the interest of the prospect. 
• It reaches directly into the receiver’s inbox, making it a direct and effective way of prospecting. 
• Cold emails provide scalability so you can expand your targeted list.
• They help you spread awareness of your brand to a new demographic. 

Disadvantages of cold outreach emails 

• Cold emails could be perceived as spam even when they’re not. 
• Sending cold emails in bulk might not convey the company’s value proposition to the recipients. 
• The recipient already has 100s of similar emails in their inbox – that’s why you need to stand out. 

2. Prospecting emails 

Prospecting emails are those types of sales emails in which the salesperson reaches out to a potential customer and introduces the company to capture their interest. The main aim of prospecting emails is to get a meeting secured with the prospect to get them closer to the sales pipeline. 

Now, these emails might sound familiar to cold emails, but they’re not. Prospecting emails are usually sent to prospects that are aware of your company or has interacted in the past; It could be through a social media channel or referral. 

Advantages of prospecting emails 

• You can build a strong connection with potential customers.
• Higher chances of getting a reply with relevant prospecting email. 
• Better brand recognition and building credibility. 
• Providing personalized solutions. 

Disadvantages of prospecting emails 

• Irrelevant prospecting emails might get ignored by the prospect. 
• Not mentioning the pain points of the prospects results in ineffective prospecting email. 
• Sending same types of prospecting emails to different prospects reduces the response rate. 

Read our blog, Sales email tips for effective prospecting and increase your conversion rate. 

Here is a sales email template of an effective prospecting email –

Hello [First Name], Are you still trying to achieve [their business goal]? I have heard that it’s one of the biggest concerns for scaling the business. Our team has helped many companies overcome similar challenges that resulted in [benefits to prospect’s company]. Benefit #1 Benefit #2 So, let’s schedule a call and discuss it further. Are you available Tuesday or Thursday next week? Kindly let me know the right time to connect. Cheers, Your signature.

3. Pitch emails 

In this type of sales email, you need to draft a compelling email body to evoke your prospect’s interest. 

Sales pitch emails are one-to-one emails targeted to a specific prospect based on their preferences and behavior. 

So, when you’re into B2B marketing, you can utilize sales pitch emails to share your company’s value proposition and make a strong connection with the prospect. 

Sales pitch emails are usually short and succinct, it includes the value company is offering and how it can benefit the prospect. The sales pitch must be relevant to the prospect’s company in order to be effective. 

Advantages of sales pitch emails 

• Enables you to improve engagement with high-end prospects.  
• A direct method of presenting a sales pitch that improves conversion rates. 
• Providing solutions to the specific pain points help you connect with the prospect. 
• Helps increase brand awareness.  

Disadvantages of sales pitch emails 

• You may not be able to convey the expressions via email, resulting in miscommunication. 
• The prospect’s requirements may change from time to time, so not staying updated may result in an effective sales pitch. 

4. Introduction emails 

The main purpose of introduction emails lies in the title only. It’s an email sent when you introduce your company and services to a prospect to get a response. 

The sole purpose of sending introduction emails is to build a conversation and increase your network. 

Now, it’s important to not get confused between introduction emails and cold emails. Yes, both are sent to contacts that you’ve never interacted with before. But, the motive of both these emails is entirely different. 

While a cold email is used to capture leads, the introduction email is simply a practice of sharing the information about your company with the prospect and getting the conversation going. You’re in no way trying to persuade them to purchase your product or service. 

Advantages of introduction emails 

• Helps you build a lasting connection with potential customers. 
• Introduction emails are best to build a solid network of prospects. 
• The subtle tone in the emails works best with prospects as there are no expectations. 

Disadvantages of introduction emails 

• Doesn’t focus on the value proposition. 
• Only provides basic company information to the prospect, not sufficient for making a decision. 

5. Appointment request emails 

An appointment request email is basically an approach to set up a meeting with the prospect. 

Nowadays, everyone is busy with their tasks, so without a prior appointment, it’s almost difficult to reach out to a prospect. 

And that’s where this type of sales email comes into the picture. You are reaching out to your prospect with the purpose of scheduling an appointment with them as per their availability. 

Advantages of appointment request emails 

• Helps you stay on the same page as your customer. 
• You can easily fix an appointment using various tools. 
• There’s very less scope of errors.  
• Enables you to keep the record of the prospect’s response via emails. 

6. Follow up emails 

Follow-up emails are highly recommended for getting a response from the prospect and guiding them further in the sales pipeline. 

Follow-up emails typically get a better response rate than the first email; the study saw an 18% response rate to the first email, 13% to the fourth, and 27% to the sixth. 

So, it’s fair to say that follow-up emails are highly effective for every organization. In this strategy, you’re following up on the main email you sent to your prospect. 

Remember that your prospect’s inbox may be filled with hundreds of such emails, so it’s imperative to follow up in a different manner to capture their attention and improve the response rate. 

Advantages of follow up emails 

• Enables you to generate a response from a prospect.
• Keeps the conversation going. 
• Provides you a chance to offer additional value to your prospect. 

Disadvantages of follow up emails 

• May be perceived as spam. 
• Some follow-up emails may seem too pushy.
• Uninterested prospects will keep ignoring the follow-up emails. 

Hence, to effectively follow up with a prospect, you can read the article – How often to follow up on sales leads? 

7. Reminder emails 

Every salesperson is trying to capture the attention of their prospects. And one of the ideal ways of getting a response is via writing a gentle reminder email that gets noticed. 

A person receives multiple emails in a day, so it’s normal to miss a couple of emails during the process. Here, you can capture their attention by sending a small reminder email. Whether it’s a reminder email on your scheduled meeting, or a reminder for a product demo, sending reminder emails helps you prevent miscommunication. 

Advantages of reminder emails 

• Stay on schedule.
• Never miss out on the important event. 
• Help keep the prospect in the loop. 

Disadvantages of reminder emails 

• Too many reminder emails can irritate the prospect. 

8. Thank you emails 

Thank you emails are extremely crucial when you’re sending sales emails. A thank you is a simple, courteous gesture to show that you appreciate the business and your prospect. 

This small effort in any sales email enables you to build strong relationships with your prospects and customers. Sending a brief thank you email right after your meeting or a call indicates how important the prospect is and shows your professionalism. 

Advantages of thank you emails 

• Helps strengthen relationships.
• Can be sent as a reminder as well, after a meeting.
• You can use thank you emails to offer additional value.

Polite thank you emails can certainly help you impress your prospects and close more deals. Here, you can find out how to write thank you emails that make an impact. 

9. Post transactional emails 

Post transactional emails are automatically sent after a visitor takes an action on your website. Whether it’s placing an order, verifying their email address, changing the password, a post-transactional email is sent to confirm the action taken. 

Moreover, post-transactional emails can also be sent to provide more information about the product/service to your visitors. 

Benefits of post transactional emails 

• Serves as a reminder for the changes implemented by the customer.
• Provides value to your prospects.
• Improves customer satisfaction. 

Here are 8 types of post-transactional sales emails to make a solid impression on your customers.

10. Check-in (long term follow up) emails 

You must be wondering, haven’t we already talked about follow-up emails? And how both of these are different types of sales emails? Well, yes of course. However, these follow-up emails are long-term, check-in emails.

Usually, a prospect stays in the market for about 3 days and then makes their decision. But, that doesn’t mean that you have to stop all the contact with them. Even if they have not chosen your company this time, there’s a chance that you might be able to sell in the future.

Therefore, after a while, you can send check-in emails, that mainly focuses on the prospect and asking about their progress. Whether they’d like to switch to a better (your) product/service.

If you have launched a new product or added an advanced feature, you can include the sneak peek in your check-in email to encourage the prospect to check out your product.

Advantages of check in emails

• Helps you stay in touch with the prospect for a long time.
• you can pitch your new products/services to the prospect.

11. Breakup emails

Well, no one likes ending all ties with their prospects, but it has to be done if it’s not bringing you any growth. Yes, after a prospect has gone cold, it’s not sensible to keep contacting them, especially when they’re not at all interested.

Or, in rare circumstances, the prospect might have gotten too busy to have opened your previous emails. So, in that case, it’s helpful to send a break-up type of sales email to your prospects.

In this kind of email, you are basically ending all contact with your prospect, while also keeping a window open for communication should they want to get in touch with you.

Advantages of breakup emails

• Helps you save time and focus on hot leads.
• Shows your professionalism when trying to close the file of your cold prospect.
• Enables you to send across your value proposition.

Find out how you can craft effective break-up sales emails to cut the contact with your prospect or maybe even get back a revert.

12. Upselling, cross-selling, and abandoned cart emails 

Yes, it’s important to constantly capture new leads to keep growing. However, it’s also crucial to retain the existing customers by sending upselling, cross-selling and abandoned cart emails.

For instance, if you’ve got a customer using your CRM software, you can send them an email containing information on the new tool you have launched for improved productivity. This way, you encourage the existing customers to purchase your latest tools and products.

On the other hand, if it’s a product-based company, and a visitor added the product in their cart but didn’t make the purchase, you can send a personalized abandoned cart email. So, the prospect is reminded that they have a purchase to make.

Advantages of upselling, cross-selling, abandoned cart emails

• It helps you retain existing customers.
• You can sell more without spending too much on capturing fresh leads.
• Serves as a reminder to bring back interested prospects.

Conclusion

Every business’s requirement is different, and so they need different types of sales emails. You need to find out the preferences and interests of your prospects, so you can create and send appropriate sales emails and strengthen the relationship.