Sales email

A sales email is an email that companies send to promote products and services and increase revenue. The efficiency of a sales email depends on the value of the offer, the level of subscribers' engagement with the brand, the quality of the email template, and email deliverability.

Though the essential idea of email marketing is to sell, it’s not only about selling. Today, companies make efforts to develop the right promotion mix that will sell, inspire, and care about your audience’s needs — all at once.

If you sell fresh vegetables, the value is obvious — healthy food with vitamins and minerals, but that’s not enough to convince your audience to buy from you. Share the history, the life, and experience of your brand; produce relevant and exciting content, naturally knitting in the sales element.

Watch this video from Amazing Seller to discover three steps of creating a sales email that solves customers' problems and increases your revenue.

We've highlighted four fundamental steps of creating sales emails that catch recipients’ attention, make it easy to digest information and turn subscribers into customers. Keep on reading!

Create an engaging subject line

The subject line is the first element that users focus on when they decide whether to open your email or not. Intrigue subscribers with a subject line like “You will be surprised...” or “That is almost a gift!” to stand out from the crowd of other brands. Be clear about the value you are going to provide inside the email: “15% off. Jeans on sale today.” or “2 tees for the price of 1."

Use a preheader text to support or continue the idea of the subject line: “Summer shoes. 20% off! — And a gift to the first ten buyers!” Summing up: create a subject line emotionally equal to the products or services you promote in your sales email.

To create eye-catching subject lines, check out subject line best practices here.

Show your offer first

Once the recipient opens the email, lay your cards on the table. Name the value once again — 25% off, bonuses, gifts, whatever — and use an appealing, high-quality image of the product that you aim to sell.

If you provide services like psychological consultation, for instance, use a design that creates positive emotions associated with professional problem-solving. Calm colors and images of self-confident people should make a good impression.

Follow email design best practices and learn how to move users down the sales funnel with ease.

Provide all useful details in the email body

As you’ve warmed up the reader’s curiosity, give them more information about the product or service featured in the sales email. For instance, explain the technical characteristics of a mobile phone, add more images to show the camera, buttons, functionality in detail. In other words, say why owning that phone is worth spending time on reading your email.

In the email body, you can also propose some more goods related to the original offer.

Create a meaningful call-to-action

Create a CTA that will inspire subscribers to move forward and buy, like “Try on!” or “Grab your shoes.” However, a call-to-action button shouldn't necessarily lead to a product page on your website. To avoid that too persuasive “SHOP NOW” style, use a CTA like “Learn more.” This is a way to suggest reading some more engaging content, which will then lead to a product page. This approach helps to gain a better reputation in the eyes of your potential customers, since you provide them with more value than competitors, being less persuasive.

• Combine sales with helpful content. There’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for sales: it all depends on a business’ niche and the tastes of your target audience. Despite these differences, nobody likes to be bombarded with deals as they create that feeling of urgency, which cannot be satisfied. Sell more naturally — smoothly mix offers with the valuable content. Explain what's so special about the kitchenware you promote, give some hacks for inspiration, and only then suggest making a purchase.
• Personalize your sales emails. Personalization is a powerful method of making more relevant offers based on data about a user. If you sell sports equipment, promote women sneakers to a female audience, or Chelsea merchandise precisely to the fans of this team. To make it work, create variables in your mailing list according to personal details like age, gender, location, preferences. Collect this data during the subscription or with the help of analytical tools like Google Analytics.
• Care about your email deliverability. Open, click-through, and unsubscribe rates form the deliverability of your emails. Reliable bulk email services like LIKE.TG ensure your sales emails will show up in front of your subscribers. Check all the necessary statistics for every email campaign you create, to know when and how to improve your email marketing.
• Use CTAs wisely. Focus subscribers’ attention on one specific product with a single call-to-action and make sure the link on that button leads to an accordant product page. In case you propose a variety of products, it’s a good idea to create multiple individual CTAs for every item. However, make sure there’s one dominant CTA right after the main offer and image, or at the bottom of the email. Here’s a helpful blog article that covers the CTA topic.
• Combine email with other marketing channels. Sales email is a powerful tool for a creative marketer, but what if you multiply your chances of being recognized and appreciated? Mix email marketing with other channels like SMS, Messenger, social media, web push notifications, etc. to increase sales and build long-lasting relationships with your subscribers.

Sales Email Examples

Madewell. This sales email offers 40% off the summer clothes at the end of the season. Recipients are asked to use a promo code to get a discount.

HP. The brand offers to save up to $710 on laptops and other goods through Saturday. They send such emails every weekend to engage in shopping activity and create an image of generosity.

Chubbies. This sales email offers up to 60% off in the course of the summer clearance sale. The company uses a humorous manner to tell that every product on their website is on sale.