The number of volumes written on how to be persuasive in a conversation is overwhelming. But can you be as influential in an email conversation as you can in a face-to-face conversation?
Even though you don’t have the ability to show your charisma first-hand, you can still influence people in an email conversation.
Here are 4 tips that will help you do just that.
1. Get noticed first
The hardest part of conversing via emails is to get your first e-mail noticed. People are getting so many emails these days that they don’t have the time to read all of them, let alone to respond to each email. This is why so many important emails get abandoned in the incoming folder forever.
The easiest way to get noticed is to actually know the person you’re emailing. Say you’ve met at a conference or have a common contact who could introduce you. While this sounds good, in most cases, it’s not a realistic scenario.
If you don’t know the person you’re talking to just yet, try to get to know them on the internet. Find out their name, what they do for the company, what the company is doing right now, etc. You may also leave a couple of comments on the company’s blog or Twitter page to kick off a conversation.
With that, write the first email mentioning the contact’s name and start the correspondence.
2. Schmoose them
You need to remember that you don’t want to try and make a sale in the first email. It’s not realistic and the person you’re emailing probably gets e-mails like that by the dozen.
Instead, try a more indirect approach. Start with asking a question about the company or complimenting the person you’re emailing for their work. Monitoring their LinkedIn profile for recent achievements or activities is a great place to start.
Instead of sending an e-mail that reads “Hi this is John, our great company is doing so and so” write “Hi this is John, I’m impressed by the speech you gave recently.”
3. Listen
What’s the biggest difference between a successful and a failed sales conversation? The amount of time you’re talking about yourself and the amount of time you’re listening.
You need to find what problems does the person have and are they aware of solutions. Ask questions and listen to them to see their perspective. They’re basically giving you the information you need to close a sale for free.
When you figure out what this person’s business needs and whether you can help, come in with the offer.
4. Don’t sell hard, give options
When you tell the person you’re corresponding with only two options: to buy now or to stop talking to you, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Most financial decisions can’t be done on a spot, even if the person you’re talking to has that kind of power in the company.
What you can do instead is provide a conversion option that only requires low effort and giving an easy way out. Include a phrase like “no pressure” or “I’m not asking you to make a decision right now, let’s get on a call about it in a week,” and the person will be more likely to actually contemplate your offer.
5. Write readable emails
Psychology is really important for email communication, but writing readable prose is important as well. Since people are getting so many emails today, the time they can give to each email is extremely limited.
If you fail to write what you have to say well and briefly, the person who opened your letter may not get your point straight away and leave the email. Try to communicate all your points clearly and avoid huge blocks of text that are hard to read on mobile phones.
You may want to get an essay writing service to proofread your emails or get a Grammarly app to make sure there are no mistakes.
6. Wrap up
To sum up, what you need to do to be more influential when you talk over email is to stop forcing yourself on the person you’re talking to and start listening. Understand their problem, and offer your solution.
Write a short and clear copy and leave them plenty of room to decide, and you’ll persuade far more people.
