Why do some follow-up emails get opened, read, and replied to while most stay buried in your lead’s inbox?

In this episode of Conversations that Convert we pull back the curtain and reveal exactly how to craft follow-up emails that….

• Get the Attention of Your Leads so they don’t get lost in the inbox
• Create Interest so your email is read
• Build emotional Desire (hint: Follow the idea of “What’s in it from me?” from our last blog)
• Get your leads to take Action and respond back looking for more information

So what are you waiting for? Watch the episode below to know how best to use this powerful tool of email marketing.

Builder Lead Lead Converter helps home builders & remodelers grow sales revenue and margins while navigating supply chain and labor market issues. Find out how at https://www.builderleadconverter.com/

Transcript:

Hey, welcome to Conversations that Convert. Today, we’re gonna talk about the formula for crafting emails that make the phone ring. Let’s get started.

Welcome to Conversations that Convert. Every week, we’ll spend about ten to 15 minutes tackling relevant lead generation marketing and sales topics for remodelers, home improvement companies, and home builders. Conversations that Convert is brought to you by builder lead converter, your perfect sales assistant.

And now here’s Rick and Daiana. 

Daiana: Hi.

Rick: Welcome everyone. Hi, Daiana. 

Daiana: Hi. Hello, Rick. 

Rick: And happy almost Thanksgiving. This is coming out on Wednesday, the 24th, and we are not live. We’re recording this, but I wanna wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving and even Daiana, you in Romania, which you don’t really celebrate Thanksgiving, I guess, but happy Thanksgiving to you anyway. 

Daiana: Thank you. I will celebrate with you and take two days off. So…

Rick: Yeah, there you go. If you can’t observe the holiday, you can at least observe the time off. 

Daiana: Absolutely. Yeah. Enjoy your Thanksgiving. 

Rick: Yeah. Thank you. And if you are watching this afterward, you know, drop us a comment question and, if we happen to use it or mention it in the future episode, we’ll make sure that you get credit for it. So, Daiana, what are we talking about today? 

Daiana: Well, so today we have a new formula for crafting emails and that formula will make your phone ring. So isn’t that amazing? 

Rick: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And, and this is something that I developed over the years after spending a lot of time being frustrated, sending emails, following up with leads, and either getting no response or all of a sudden they just stopped responding. And even though email is an older way to communicate, you know, SMS or text messaging. It’s probably the preferred way to communicate right now. Email is still important, cuz there are folks that prefer to email versus talk on the phone or call. So we need to make sure that however we’re gonna craft an email. We make sure that it, it, it gets open, it gets read and it gets a response. Yeah. Agree with that? 

Daiana: Yeah, I know you worked a lot on this topic, so I’m curious. What is the goal of an email? How, how do you set your intent? 

Rick: And a lot of people would say, well, an email, the goal is just to get information to somebody, you know, and it’s an efficient way to do it. And that’s how most salespeople use email. And unfortunately, it’s the wrong way to use it. That’s why people stop responding or don’t respond is that you give them too much information. It is true that over time, our attention spans have gotten less and less and less. But what isn’t true is that emails are irrelevant. They’re maybe not as relevant as they used to be 10, 10 years ago for example, but they are still relevant today. And what salespeople tend to do is because they wanna provide good customer service. They want to get the information that the lead is asking for into their hands. I say, Hey, well, I’ll just give you all this information. And then they’ll be so happy with my customer service that they’ll want to come and buy from me. And it doesn’t work that way. it, it doesn’t work that way. So very simply, there is only one goal for using email follow-up. And that goal is to book an appointment. That’s it. The only reason I use email is to get a book, an appointment for somebody to get on the phone or have a face-to-face appointment. Everything else is overkill and you should stop or pull back on, on your email. 

Daiana: That’s very interesting. I’m just checking and looking back at my actions. So, and, and I know you have a, a formula and I can say of magic formula. So what is the magic formula? 

Rick: Well, the magic formula that I developed is called A-I-D-A, it’s something that originally started with doing phone follow. But it also works when you do email follow-ups. So it is a magic formula, so, let’s walk through it. Shall we? 

Daiana: Yes. And, we, we in Romania, we have, it’s actually a, a common name. It’s AIDA. So…

Rick: AIDA.

Daiana: Aida, well, that’s pretty close. Let’s call it AIDA anyway. So, I’m curious, what’s a for, for coming from.

Rick: Okay. So AIDA is attention, the most, and, and this is the most important part of your email is the subject line. Because if the subject line is not good, it gets buried in an inbox, or that it’s not compelling enough for someone to even open your email. So you could craft just a wonderful email, but if the subject line is poor, it’s all for not. Now a couple of tips for subject lines is number one, you wanna keep it short. you might wanna put the prospects or lead’s name in the subject line. Sometimes that will get your attention. You see your name, there in your inbox. and you also wanna use curiosity. So as an example, I could say something like, you know, Daiana. Would this help are Daiana interested? So again, short, concise and create curiosity. So by, by keeping the subject line rather vague, it makes us want to go deeper into the email. 

Daiana: And I, what is I from? 

Rick: Okay, so the I stands for interest. so this, if you’re looking on your phone or you’re looking in your inbox, typically you have a preview pain and that preview pane is going to be, either the first line in the email, the first sentence in the email body or on, if you’re sending out mass emails, you can actually program what you want someone to see in a preview pane. You can’t do that in a direct one-on-one email, but in a mass email, you can’t. So the preview pane has gotta created interest. So the recipient or the lead in this case will want to continue reading the email. So again, the subject line gets the attention that gets the email opened the preview, or the interest. That first line in the email will make somebody continue to read it. If the, if there’s a bad interest line there, someone’s gonna stop, delete your email and, and, and move on. 

Daiana: Great. I’m also taking notes, so, and D what, what is D from?

Rick: So we’ll walk through this now. So at getting it to someone’s attention, we maybe use their name. We use curiosity, we keep it short interest. We, we, we interest, you know, we wanna use that, that formula we talked about last week that what’s in it for me formula, why would I be interested in reading this, this more? As an example, you are gonna still follow the three templates that we gave you. It’s gonna be based on design, finding a location. If you’re doing, if you’re building homes or it’s gonna be based on pricing, you know getting, getting a budget so that interest line will have something related around design location or, or pricing. So, as an example, we do a lot of events. We found that’s a great way to reactivate a database into close, active leads. So we could say something like, well, we have a one-time open house on such and such a date that our customers allow us to show before they close and move in. Okay. So right away there, it’s like, oh, well, that’s something based on design. So that might speak my interest. I people, your leads love to walk through and see things because it’s difficult to look at a photo and really understand what you’re gonna get. Now, when we move to desire. Desire is where we create emotion, an emotional attachment to your email. So a desire is, it’s always emotional and it’s Le we, we create desire here because the next thing we want them to do in the emails, we want them to take action. So, with desire, let’s say, is an example to say, we track all the available home sites in such and such an area, including those that are unpublished. Okay. So in other words, oh, you have the information that I want. And so that creates desire or going back to the open house idea, this is a one-time open house. You’re gonna see some really cool custom elements here that you aren’t able to see through if you do in model homes or spec homes. And you might even add lib a little bit on those. What are they? You know, some of the cool design features to really peak their, their desire. 

Daiana: Right. And at the last A, we have two A, so…

Rick: Yeah, so I gave it away. So the last A is action. In other words, what do you want your lead to do? Now, most of the time, we assume that we send an email out and the lead knows what to do. But that’s not the case. We need to be very clear on what we want the lead to do. And, and, and part of that is that we don’t want to tell them to do more than one thing. So your action should be singular. If you want them to text, you tell them to text you. If you want them to come to the event, tell them, to come to the event. If you want them to reply to the email, tell them to reply to the email. You know, so as an example here, if you wanna get some sample project costs for your kitchen, just reply to this email and let me know. Okay. Going back to what are those three relevant topics that I’m after? Okay. We’ll budget and price share one of ’em. Yeah. I would like to know what some topics and some sample costs might be. okay. I’ll reply to your email. Yeah. How much would my kitchen cost? You know, when you get that, so that allows you to continue the conversation. And again, remember the goal is always to get an appointment. So once you get a response to the email. Then, you’re always gonna close for either a phone appointment. If it’s a brand new lead, cuz you wanna do your qualification or if it’s a lead you’ve already been in conversation with, you may wanna move them to the next step in your sales process, which would be a face-to-face appointment. 

Daiana: Great. So what’s the action for our followers today?

Rick: Well, the same thing, you know, take our 30-day leading booking challenge and start selling an extra one or three jobs every month without, without lifting a finger. We’re, we’re doing this thing right now called database reactivation. Daiana, I think I mentioned, you know, a couple of weeks ago, that we’re booking 10 to 15 appointments at about a two-hour period with no ad spend for our clients right now. So, you do that for you free of charge. You can see exactly how our revenue and profit system works. And, you don’t have to lift a finger we’ll book, all the appointments for you. You just show up and sell.

Daiana: That’s amazing. And, we have, next episode, a new…

Rick: Yeah. And we’re gonna go into a new series next episode, focusing on beating your competition and getting paid more while doing it. So that’ll be a four-part series here starting in December. That’ll take us through the end of the year. 

Daiana: Great. Amazing. So looking forward to seeing the first part of the four. 

Rick: Absolutely. And then again, happy Thanksgiving, everyone. And for my brothers and sisters in Christ made the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the holy spirit. Be with you all. We’ll see you next time.

Daiana: Take care.