How to Write Sales Emails That Actually Convert

Sales emails can be an effective way to convert potential customers into paying customers on autopilot. Unfortunately, if your emails aren't well written, they will likely get ignored or even marked as spam. Learn how to write effective sales emails so that you don't waste your valuable time writing emails that fall flat. Use this list of tips and tools to write emails that grow your revenue and your business.

Tip #1: Focus on the Transformation

If your goal is to sell a product or service, your natural inclination is probably going to be to send emails about how great your product or service is. However, the key to good marketing is always presenting your client as the hero and your company as the guide. To write effective sales emails, you want to focus on how your product can help your ideal client solve a problem and achieve success.

Although it might feel counterintuitive, this is a much more effective method of selling. When potential customers can visualize themselves living out the story of success you are painting for them in your emails, they will feel more emotionally connected to your offering.

Donald Miller says, "Almost all companies try to sell solutions to external problems, but customers are much more motivated to resolve their inner frustrations." By showing how purchasing your product or service will relieve your ideal client's inner frustration, you are providing a much more compelling reason for them to click buy than if you just focus on what your company has to offer.

Tip #2: Write Great Subject Lines

A well-written subject line is essential for getting your emails opened. It doesn't matter how great the email itself may be, if the subject line doesn't interest the reader, they're likely to delete the email without even opening it.

Spend as much time brainstorming subject lines as you do planning out the email itself. You can use tools like this subject line tester or these subject line formulas to help you brainstorm and test out your ideas.

Tip #3: Have a Clear Focus

When you're writing a sales email, it's important to have a clear focus. Your email should be laser-focused on one specific goal or idea. We call this the controlling idea.

Donald Miller, the author of Building a StoryBrand, compares each new fact or idea you present to a bowling ball. If you hand your ideal client one, or maybe even two bowling balls, they will probably be able to handle it. However, if you try to introduce more than two new pieces of information, your potential customer will drop all the bowling balls, get overwhelmed and stop reading your email.

Don't overwhelm your client with too many bowling balls. Instead, choose one main point you want to get across per email.

Tip #4: Use Strong Calls to Action

All good sales emails have a strong call to action that repeats throughout the email. If you don't tell your potential customer what to do next, they won't do anything at all. When business owners hint at their call to action, they come off as insecure about their product or service.

A strong call to action isn't pushy, it is helpful. You are giving interested people a clear next step to move forward in doing business with you.

Tip #5: Sell Sparingly

On the other hand, if every single email you send is sales-focused, potential customers will start to ignore your emails altogether. It's important to balance selling with providing valuable content that your prospective customers will appreciate. The valuable content you provide in your nurture emails helps build a relationship with your potential client and increases their trust in your business.

A good rule of thumb is to send out an initial sales sequence when people first download your lead generator. That's when they're most interested in your solution. After those initial 5–7 emails, you want to shift the type of content you send. About 80% of your emails should be nurturing, or providing value, and 20% should be sales related.

Another way to keep the balance is to provide valuable information in the body of your emails and include a sales-focused P.S. at the end.

Tip #6: Tools to Help You Write Effective Sales Emails

If the idea of writing sales emails feels intimidating or overwhelming, here are some tools that will make the task a little more manageable.

The Marketing Made Simple Sales Email Sequence

The secret sauce that we use when writing sales sequences for our clients is the Marketing Made Simple six-email sales sequence. This series divides up all the information you should share with a potential customer about your offering into six, digestible emails.

This sequence will help them fully understand the transformation that your product or service offers in a way that compels them to click "buy" or "schedule now" without overwhelming them with too much information at once.

Here is an outline of the sequence:

Email 1: Send out your lead generator. Email 2: Outline the problem your ideal client is facing and your company's solution. Email 3: Share client testimonials, showing how you helped someone else solve the same problem. Email 4: Refute an objection that often keeps people from purchasing your product or service. Email 5: Offer a paradigm shift that shows how your product or service is different from the competition. Email 6: The full sales letter (use the StoryBrand BrandScript format).

Online SalesScript Tool

One of our favorite tools to help business owners learn how to write effective sales emails is the online SalesScript tool. This tool provides guiding questions that prompt you to include all the necessary information for a compelling sales email.

Since it was also created by the StoryBrand team, it aligns perfectly with the BrandScript format mentioned above. You fill in each section with information about your offering and then the software weaves it together into a perfectly StoryBranded sales email.

Guide MKTG

At Guide MKTG, we enjoy obsessing over how to write the perfect sales email. We test subject lines like it's our job (oh wait, it is…) and spend hours analyzing email data to ensure none of our clients waste good money on bad marketing.

We'd love to use our email expertise to grow your business. If you're ready to get sales emails off your to-do list without doing the work, schedule a call with us today and consider it done.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should a sales email include to actually convert readers? A good sales email focuses on one thing: the transformation your customer gets, not the features of what you sell. It needs a subject line that earns the open, a clear single message without bowling-ball overload, and a specific call to action that tells the reader exactly what to do next. If your email is trying to do five things at once, it ends up doing none of them.

How many sales emails should I send in a sequence? The Marketing Made Simple framework uses six emails for a solid initial sequence. Each email covers a different angle: the problem, social proof, an objection response, a differentiator, and finally the full pitch. After that sequence, shift to an 80/20 mix, meaning 80% valuable nurture content and 20% direct sales. That balance keeps people on your list instead of hitting unsubscribe.

When is the best time to send a sales email sequence? Right after someone downloads your lead magnet or signs up for your list. That's when they're most engaged and most likely to buy. Waiting a week before your first email means a lot of people have already mentally moved on. Send the first email within an hour of sign-up if your system allows it.

How do I write a sales email without sounding pushy? Focus on the customer's problem, not your product's features. A pushy email says "here's what we offer." A good sales email says "here's the problem you're dealing with, here's what it costs you to ignore it, and here's what changes when you solve it." The call to action at the end doesn't feel pushy when everything leading up to it has been genuinely useful.

What's a realistic open rate for a sales email sequence? Industry average for marketing emails sits around 12 to 20 percent, depending on the list and sector. A well-written sequence with a strong subject line and a warm audience can hit 35 to 50 percent. The subject line is usually the biggest variable. If your open rates are low, fix that before rewriting the body of the email.