Example Sales Development Email — Cargill Consulting Group

We decided to do something a little different this week.  For this week’s critique, we decided to not only critique the email, but to also rewrite the original message using the aggregated feedback from the team.  Check out RevBoss’ take below. Have a few “salesy emails” that you’d like to share?  Head to SalesyEmail.com to submit!

The Email

Subject Line: Question About Your Website

Hi SalesyEmail, Do you currently have an auto-play video on your website? If not, we’d like to invite you to participate in our test. We have developed a unique style of video that plays automatically when your website opens. In our testing, it has increased the conversion ratio (the percentage of people who contact us after clicking on our website) by 50%. We are looking for a total of 20 companies to test this video on their website. For the testing period, we will create a customized version of the video for your website at a very reasonable fee, and provide a guarantee if you aren’t satisfied with the results. You get to be the judge of whether it works or not. You can give the video back anytime within 60 days and get a full refund. Here are 4 of our Lead Generation Videos. See what you think.

• IT Company: Gen 5 Consulting
• Cost Recovery Firm: Lost and Found Corp.
• Consulting: Fast Forward
• CPA Firm:Starner Tax Group
• Additional Videos: CCG Animated Sales Videos

————————————————————–
If you would like to get more information on the process we use to create these videos and how you can participate this risk free test, reply to this email with the best times to reach you or click on the calendar link below and pick a time for a 15-minute preliminary call. You can also call us at 310-362-0615.

————————————————————–
To schedule a 15 minute preliminary call with us, click: Schedule a Call We look forward to discussing this with you. Good Luck and Good Selling!!!

Cargill Consulting Group
310.362.0615
Visit Us Online
Schedule a Call With Us

Feedback

Kelsey

• Not a terrible subject line, but could be better. They also shouldn’t capitalize each word.
• Why should I participate? How is this relevant to me? The second sentence immediately makes me want to stop reading, but I like that the first sentence is a question — it’s interesting and caught my attention, just needs better follow through.
• I like that they’re going to create a customized version of the video for each website that’s interested, but I feel like this should be free if they’re testing something — don’t like the style of the rest of this paragraph in terms of talking about pricing in this way.
• There’s also too many examples. They may have better luck if they link one of these in the middle of the copy, opposed to this big list.
• Should say “participate in this risk free test”.  Mistakes like this shouldn’t happen.

Paul

• Does it really matter if they have an auto-play video on their site? If they do, yours is apparently “unique” enough and should be enough of a differentiator to still pitch a demo/meeting. If they don’t, it still works out as a potential opportunity to pitch.
• I think that this does a very poor job of making the prospect feel that you’re interested in them specifically, which may be a turn-off.

Kelly

• The subject line is broad enough and creates enough curiosity for me to open it.
• Way too much being thrown at me at first. Felt the need to re-read a few times to fully understand what they are asking for.
• There are too many examples, but they have at least thought ahead knowing the videos would differ in different industries. 
• The call to action is way too big to be left up to the prospect to take on. Needs to be shorter and more direct.

Revised Version

Subject:  Quick question about your Website…

Hi SalesyEmail, It’s SDR from Cargill Consulting Group. We’ve developed a unique style of video that automatically plays when your website opens — its a pretty powerful concept that has increased the conversion ratios by 50%!

I was skimming through your website and thought I’d reach out to see if you might be interested in what we’re up to. Would love to see if we could help out at {{company}} by creating a customized test version of the video.

I’m assuming that you’re the best person to connect with but if not, who would you recommend that I follow up with?

Thanks for your help!

SDR Cargill Consulting Group 310.362.0615 Visit Us Online

Digging a little deeper 

First things first – you’ll notice that this email is a lot shorter than the original version.  The is because the goals of this initial email are to 1) Pique curiosity 2) Find out if you’ve even contacted the right person. By hopping right in to “who we are”, “what we do” and providing a proof point / validating stats, it makes it pretty clear to the prospect that we’re not trying to waste their time.  Following up with a sentence or two on how we can help them also helps maintain the flow. We decided to approach this in a more personalized way by mentioning that we actually did a bit of homework and took the time to look at their site definitely sounds better than blatantly stating that they’re a part of a big group that we’re wanting to do a test on. The RevBoss team agreed that the email was, in fact, too long and presented too much information that wasn’t directly relevant to the prospect.  At this point, the prospect would much rather hear what we can do for them specifically. Finally, the call to action is very clear and direct, as opposed to the original email where there were literally 3 ways to reply (email, call, or clicking a link to schedule a time).