How to Master the Intro Sales Email

Today’s B2B sales process is largely digital; in fact, for many sales reps, most sales relationships are built almost entirely online via email. With that in mind, sales reps must be skilled at writing professional, compelling email messages in any sales situation. 

While this particular message in a sales sequence may seem less significant than the third or fourth in a value-driven email exchange, the intro sales email shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought. A well-crafted intro email serves as your first impression and can be the key to initiating a positive, productive, and mutually profitable sales relationship.

They can also be surprisingly challenging in many cases. It’s no easy feat to generate enthusiasm from a stranger when you’re both sitting behind a screen (and the other party knows that you want to sell them something).  

In this article, we’ll go over everything you need to know about writing a great intro sales email. We’ll break down all of the key elements, help you avoid key common mistakes, and show you some examples of effective intro sales emails. 

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What Is an Intro Sales Email?
• Key Elements of an Effective Intro Sales Email
• How to Structure Your Intro Sales Email
• Common Mistakes to Avoid
• Examples of Effective Intro Sales Emails 
• Tools to Enhance Your Intro Sales Emails

What Is an Intro Sales Email?

An intro sales email is a message a sales rep sends to introduce themselves, their brand, and/or a new product or service.

A great intro sales email can help convert the recipient’s potential interest to actionable progress through the sale funnel. 

The goals of this type of message can vary, depending on the exact content:

• Start a new sales connection
• Introduce a new product to an existing customer base
• Help introduce two mutual contacts
• Generate interest in something and (hopefully) curate future communication

Regardless of their specific intended outcomes, intro sales emails are all about making a great first impression. 

(By the way, the collective opinion on the importance of this first step is nearly unanimous: 95% of people agree that the “first impression” moment in a relationship is extremely important.)

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Key Elements of an Effective Intro Sales Email

Here are the most important elements of any great intro sales email. 

Subject Line

The subject line of any email is one of the most significant components in dictating its success. 

According to research, far more than half of people choose whether to open or mark emails as spam based on the subject line alone. 

The subject line of your intro sales email should be compelling, personalized, and value-driven. It should also pique the reader’s curiosity, and entice them to open your message and learn more about you/what you have to say. 

Many sellers rely on specific email subject line “hacks” or emotional hooks that draw the recipient in. Emotions like curiosity, empathy, and FOMO are particularly effective when it comes to getting people to read more. 

In a recent email template study, Yesware analyzed 260,000+ email messages to determine the ideal length for subject lines. 

The data was clear: shorter subject lines (1 – 5 words) work best for improving open and response rates. 

Grab some successful subject line examples here: 20 Cold Email Subject Lines. 

Personalization

Targeted personalization can also go a long way in your intro sales email and may make it more likely for the recipient to latch onto your message in a crowded inbox. 

Personalized emails have a number of benefits beyond just standing out from the crowd. In fact, consumers these days not only expect personalization, they require it.  Using the reader’s name or their company’s name is one of the easiest ways to achieve a basic level of personalization, but you can also go a step further in many cases, depending on your research.

For example, you might (carefully) name-drop a mutual acquaintance or common interest to get their attention—but only if it’s relevant to the overall conversation. 

Another easy way to personalize your email is by boosting the recipient’s ego. Have they or their company recently achieved a big milestone? Feel free to mention that it shows you’ve done your research via a personalized compliment, which is a win-win situation.

Tip: Use tools like Yesware’s email templates to ensure all blogs are personalized. 

Value Proposition

Despite the fact that your intro sales email is the very first one you’ve ever sent to this particular recipient, you should still aim to include as much value as you (tactfully) can.   Some examples of successful ways to accomplish this are: 

• Free resources (e.g., how-to guide, whitepaper)
• Expert advice 
• Access to a free trial

Be upfront and clear about what you offer and the intention of your email, and be specific about how you and your product can benefit them. 

Whatever you do, avoid sounding “salesy.” Demonstrating value is a skill that requires nuanced understanding of the product and the recipient, and some sellers swing too hard the other way in hopes of sounding like an expert. 

Avoid jargon and technical terms and get right to the point. Recipients will appreciate it when you can show what you’re worth without wasting their time.

Call to Action

All sales emails should have a call to action (CTA), and the intro sales email is no different. 

Make it easy for the recipient to respond, and help them understand exactly how you’d like them to do so. If you’d like them to sign up for a webinar, include a registration link that will send an automatic calendar invite. 

If you want them to sign up for a free trial, give them an access code in the email to remove friction. 

Do whatever you can to make it easy for them to say “yes” to moving to the next stage of the sales funnel. 

Tip: Include a meeting scheduler link as your CTA for quick and effortless scheduling.

How to Structure Your Intro Sales Email

The following formula will give you a step-by-step guide for crafting a well-structured intro sales email. 

Opening

Your introduction email should always start with a friendly and professional greeting. Anything too formal might sound a bit spammy or unrelatable, but a tone too casual may not be the right fit for everyone, either. 

Then, offer a brief introduction to you and your company. This is also the chance for you to mention any mutual connections you may have, articles you’ve read about the recipient or their brand, a question you had about something that you think they can answer, or anything else that helps you make a connection off the bat. 

Remember, your opening needs to be as personalized as you can manage (without sacrificing professionalism).

Go into every intro sales email with a custom sentence about the recipient. This will not only show you’ve done your research but also help you build rapport right from the get-go.  See more tips here: How to introduce yourself in an email. 

Body

The body of the intro sales email is where you’ll try to make a genuine connection that keeps the relationship moving forward. 

To that end, this is where you’ll offer most of your value. 

One way to do this, if you can, is to try to challenge their assumptions or evoke their curiosity about something related to their role or their field. 

Take a look at this example:

Did you know that most sales reps spend about 70% of their day on activities that don’t generate any revenue at all? And yet up to 90% of those time-wasting activities could be easily automated if their teams had access to the right tools…

Social proof, one of the Six Pillars of Persuasion in sales psychology, can also go a long way in helping add credibility to your message. While it’s tempting to want to share all of the amazing things your product can do for the recipient, remember to keep this section brief and to the point. Bullet points can help you express your ideas succinctly in a way that leaves the reader with a solid overview of your offer, and eager to know more. 

Closing

Don’t sleep on the closing section of your intro sales email—this is your final chance to get the recipient to move forward and (most importantly) express your appreciation for their time and consideration. 

Remember to sign off with a clear and direct CTA, and be sure to always include a professional email signature that includes your contact information. 

If you can, look for ways to personalize how you end your email.  Most importantly, be gracious. The vast majority of emails don’t ever get opened, let alone read through in their entirety, so be sure to express appreciation for the recipient’s time thus far. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Watch out for the following common mistakes to avoid when writing intro sales emails. 

Being Too Salesy or Aggressive

Regardless of role, field, or location, the vast majority of professionals would agree that their email inboxes are absolutely overwhelmed with sales emails and promotional offers. 

Don’t let your intro sales email look or sound like all of the rest of them. Today’s B2B buyer is virtually allergic to overt sales tactics and will run the other way at the first sign of aggressive, pushy sales tactics. 

Maintain a friendly, professional, and quietly confident tone. And remember: this email is the beginning of a marathon, not a sprint. 

Sending Generic, Non-personalized Emails

Personalized emails are one of the most important parts of the sales process for today’s B2B buyers. 

If a buyer manages to get hooked by your subject line, but then opens a generic message, it’s possible they’ll feel duped and may stop opening your messages over time. 

Non-personalized messages are a big risk factor for cold leads and churned customers.

Overloading the Email With Information

It’s also important to remember that this particular email is just an introductory message. 

While it’s always a good idea to demonstrate value, it’s equally as important to give the recipient time and space to process your introduction and do their own research. 

With such limited real estate in your email message, it’s important to ensure that the copy you choose is effective and efficient.

Email A/B testing can be a very productive process for sales reps and teams hoping to identify the precise language that’s most effective in intro sales emails. We’ll talk more about tools that help automate email tasks later in this article. 

Neglecting to Proofread for Errors

Of course, just like every email you send, your intro sales email should be polished, professional, and completely free of errors.

You don’t have to consult a thesaurus—in fact, trying to edit your message to sound “fancy” or “impressive” may end up doing more harm than good. But there’s no excuse for spelling mistakes with spell-check built into every tool on the market. And basic grammar rules should apply to all of your messages. 

Examples of Effective Intro Sales Emails

Let’s take a look at some effective intro sales emails. 

Keep in mind that these are each effective for different reasons. They were drafted according to the needs of their target market and likely based on thorough market research. The components overall are what makes them worth studying, not the exact verbiage. 

With that in mind, let’s look at some examples.

1. Pique Curiosity Intro Sales Email

Our first example is from CIENCE:

This intro sales email example does a great job of piquing curiosity right off the bat by including a question in the subject line. The body of the email also includes multiple personalization factors, like the recipient’s name, their colleague’s name, some hyper-specific employee intel they found on LinkedIn. 

It’s clear this rep has done their research and has something that could genuinely help with this very targeted pain point. 

2. All the Right Elements Intro Sales Email

Here’s an example from Yesware, which demonstrates all of the integral elements of a sales email. 

This intro sales email attracts the recipient’s attention with an engaging subject line, immediately provides personalization, demonstrates social proof, provides value, and ends with a clear CTA.

Tip: We break down the above email example and provide various examples in our article here →  20 prospecting email templates.

3. Personal Connection Intro Sales Email

Here’s another example from Jacob Tuwiner: 

This intro sales email immediately makes a very personal connection by discussing a town they both spent time in and its unique climate. 

After that, the sales rep wastes no time demonstrating the value he can offer and then launches into the CTA. The message then ends with a personalized compliment, to boot. 

4. Objection Sales Intro Email

This one from WordStream does a great job of addressing a potential internal objection that readers may have: the fact that they can access similar information via Google Ads. 

Read on to see how the sales rep manages to overcome that:

Notice how each of the examples above doesn’t follow exactly the same script, format, or tone? They all, however, follow the same general template outlined in this article. 

The best intro sales email is the one that’s adapted to suit your communication style, brand voice, offer, and—most importantly—your (personalized) customer segment. 

Tip: Grab some proven intro sales email templates below.

18 Proven Email Templates for SalesWinning email templates for cold outreach, follow-ups, and nurturing relationships – backed by data and real-world examples.

EmailDownload PDF

Tools to Enhance Your Intro Sales Emails

Fortunately, there are tools available that help sales teams optimize their email outreach. 

Yesware’s features were built for sales reps and will help automate every part of your email outreach, covering every message from the intro sales email to the “looking forward to our partnership” message. 

Yesware’s reporting and analytics help you track which emails perform best based on open and reply rates. 

Yesware also provides real-time alerts with email tracking, giving sales reps the opportunity to respond in under a minute (which is shown to improve qualification rates by nearly 400%). 

And our email template tools make it easy to A/B test your intro sales email messages, and then automate the ones that best meet the needs of your different customer segments. 

And don’t forget follow-ups.

As important as the intro sales email is, data shows that most sales are only successful after at least four follow-up emails.

Yesware gives users the ability to save and track their best email templates and then schedule them to send at the best times, so they always have great communication with all of their contacts, no matter where they are in the sales pipeline. 

With Yesware campaigns, you can automate follow-up emails to go out when prospects don’t respond to your first outreach or book a meeting. 

Conclusion

Your intro sales email is the first impression a prospect has of you. And ultimately, it can literally make or break the future success and productivity of a sales relationship.

That’s why it needs to be written carefully.

With the right research, tips, and tools, you can make all of your intro sales emails successful. 

Remember to track the success of your emails and continue to make iterations and improvements until you see your desired results.

Start sending sales emails that get results: Sign up for a free trial of Yesware today.