Writing Persuasive Sales Emails

I’ve worked with 80+ clients on LinkedIn. I’ve also shared my own journey of building a six-figure agency. During that time, I’ve learned how to balance sharing valuable content without oversharing. I call it, the 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤. This framework outlines the key components to share effectively without overwhelming your audience: → Relevance: Share content that aligns with your audience's interests. → Value: Provide insights and tips that offer real benefits. → Consistency: Post regularly but avoid flooding timelines. → Authenticity: Be genuine and true to your experiences. → Engagement: Interact with your audience to build relationships. ... As well as what happens when each is missing. • Lack of relevance = "Disinterest" • No value = "Unfollow" • Overposting = "Annoyance" • Inauthenticity = "Distrust" • No engagement = "Isolation" Remember, your sharing strategy can always improve. Here’s how to do it: 1/ Relevance: Understand your audience’s needs and tailor your content accordingly. 2/ Value: Share actionable tips, insights, or stories that provide real benefits. 3/ Consistency: Create a posting schedule that keeps you visible without overwhelming your followers. 4/ Authenticity: Be honest about your experiences and show your true self. 5/ Engagement: Respond to comments and messages to build strong connections. The best content creators continuously refine their sharing strategies. Start using this framework today. And find the perfect balance in your content. Your audience will appreciate it! #linkedingrowth #Linkedinpersonalbranding

I grew an email list from 0 to 500K subscribers in just 10 months for a weekly travel email series. Here’s exactly how we did it: First, nail your strategy. → Identify scalable acquisition channels (cold email, giveaways, social media). → Focus on creating top-notch content that people love. Second, here’s a list of do’s and don’ts based on our success: 1. COLD EMAIL: DON’T: Treat cold email like spam. DO: Use data to personalize at scale. We built a tool that searched Instagram for public data: - Hashtags (like #travel or #wanderlust). - Geotags (places they visited). - Followed accounts (@natgeo, etc.). This allowed us to write hyper-personalized emails with subject lines like: - “Your #hashtag photo” - “Came across your Instagram” Results: 45-50% open rates, 10-15% CTRs, and 200K subscribers from this channel alone. Pro Tip: Warm up your email servers before scaling. Platforms like Gmass + SendGrid worked wonders for us. 2. GIVEAWAYS: DON’T: Run generic giveaways that only attract freebie hunters. DO: Offer niche rewards your audience actually wants. We gave away free flights and hotel stays (funded by rewards miles) and incentivized sharing. Every referral earned bonus entries, creating a viral loop. Results: 5K-15K new subscribers per giveaway, with tools like Gleam and ViralLoops doing the heavy lifting. 3. SOCIAL MEDIA: DON’T: Spend months building social accounts from scratch. DO: Buy and rebrand existing accounts in your niche. We acquired travel-themed Instagram accounts with 700K followers for $10K, then grew the network to 2.2M followers. Here’s how we used them: - Drove traffic to our website, giveaways, and landing pages. - Automated email collection through DMs using tools like MassPlanner. - Created Facebook Groups (30K members), collecting emails via sign-up questions. 4. AMBASSADOR PROGRAM: DON’T: Waste money on influencers who don’t convert. DO: Partner with micro-influencers and reward them based on performance. We recruited 100s of travel influencers from our email data and incentivized them with swag and free travel. Results: Tens of thousands of new subscribers at a cost of just a few cents per email. --- To recap: 1. Personalize cold emails with data. 2. Use giveaways and social proof to fuel virality. 3. Build or buy niche audiences and grow from there. These strategies helped us scale fast. Your email list is one of the best assets you can build. Start experimenting and watch it grow.

We had a beautiful customer newsletter... and no one cared. Up until the end of 2023, we had a highly designed version of the newsletter. It looked great, but it took a ton of time to pull together. Every send required custom images, specific copy lengths, and with no real guardrails on content, we tried to include ✨everything.✨ And it did… fine. But not fine enough to warrant the time it required and no clear strategy, so we stopped doing it. This year, I relaunched our customer newsletter — and doubled our engagement score and click-through rates. Here's the 4 steps I took to do it: 1️⃣ I redefined the purpose. The newsletter needed to be a valuable touchpoint for account managers — something that kept customers informed and encouraged them to explore more of the Lattice ecosystem through features, events, and content. Not salesy. 2️⃣ I scrapped the overly designed template and went plain-text. The emails now come directly from Account Owners (because who’s Kerry Wheeler anyways?). 3️⃣ We segmented our customers into three key groups and tailor content to each one based on what’s most relevant to them. 4️⃣ I implemented strong content guardrails. Every send now includes just two of the most relevant product updates, events, and resources — and it must be actionable today (no “coming soon” teasers). The results? Open rates held steady at ~50%, but engagement took off. Click-through rates more than doubled, and we’ve heard great feedback from both customers and AMs on how the newsletter has kept them informed and engaged.

In 8 months, I've generated 4,879 free newsletter subscribers from LinkedIn - work that would have cost $14,400+ in Facebook ads. And I did it without spending a dime on promotion or using any fancy tools. Here are the 5 biggest lessons I learned about building an audience: BACKSTORY: Back in May, I was staring at my newsletter dashboard - a whopping 0 subs from LinkedIn. I had just raised $2M for my new company Distribute.so, and everyone was telling me to "run Meta ads" or "buy a fancy marketing stack." But something felt off... I had grown my LinkedIn following to 200K+ by simply sharing what I learned. Why couldn't I do the same with my newsletter? So I ran an experiment: • No paid ads • No growth hacks • No complex funnels Just valuable content and a simple "subscribe" link. The first month? 12 subs.  Second month? 84 subscribers.  Third month? 378 subscribers. Then something magical happened... My subscribers started becoming customers, partners, and even investors. That email list turned into a nurture machine that powered everything from podcast growth to enterprise deals. Here are the 5 biggest lessons I learned about building an audience: 1. Consistency Beats Virality - My first 6 months of posting got barely any traction - Now at 200K+ followers, but it took steady posting since 2021 - The harsh truth... you need to show up daily, even when nobody's engaging 2. Your Newsletter Is Your Money Machine - I've used my 32K subscriber list to fill webinars - Launch new products (like Taplio to $1M ARR in 9 months) - Even land enterprise deals through nurture sequences - The email list is still king, social media is just the gateway 3. Document Your Journey - I share my experience growing Outreach.io openly - Talk about raising $2M for Distribute.so - Being transparent about wins AND losses builds trust - Your story is your best marketing asset 4. Cross-Pollinate Your Platforms - Use LinkedIn to grow your newsletter - Use your newsletter to fill your podcast - Use your podcast to sell your products - Everything should feed into everything else 5. Start Before You're Ready - I see too many founders waiting for the "perfect moment" - The best time to start building your list was 2 years ago - The second best time is today - Your first 100 subscribers will teach you more than any course TAKEAWAY: If you're not building an email list, you're leaving money on the table. The beautiful thing about LinkedIn? You can start with 0 followers. You can start with 0 budget. You just can't start with 0 effort. Want to learn more about my LinkedIn growth strategies? Comment "GROW" below and I'll DM you the invite link to our LIVE session today 👇

I’ve talked to 4-5 SDR Leaders that have gotten their email domains TORCHED in the last 2 months. Here’s the thing all outbound teams need to understand about deliverability: Email deliverability is a “death by a thousands paper cuts” type of situation. Stop stacking paper cuts and do these 9 things: 1️⃣ Set up secondary domains If you are still cold emailing off your primary email domain you may be in big trouble. This is crucial. Using something like Maildoso makes getting these domains and the whole technical setup super fast... more on that below. The last thing you want, especially if you DONT have a reputable domain like Salesforce(.)com is to burn your orgs primary domain. This doesn’t just affect your sales team. You don’t need your CSMS and CEO landing in SPAM. 2️⃣ Set up your DNS (DMARC, SPF & DKIM) records for ALL of your domains To skip the manual DNS headache... Maildoso automates this setup. I just set up 2 new domains in literally 1 minute with them last week. Right now we can only set up 2 mailboxes per rep in Outreach. Going to be adding a Smartlead integration soon in Common Room to run higher volume experiments based on various intent signals and double down on the ones that work with human SDRs. 3️⃣ Secondary domains should link to your primary You want to make sure your prospects are being directed to your actual company domain if they are curious and click. 4️⃣ Email Warmup - Domains should be “warmed up” for ~14 days before cold emailing Send at least 20-30 warm up emails per day per email account, with a 40% reply rate. This builds your domain reputation. 5️⃣ Email Volume - Build this over time. Start with 5-10 emails a day per account and do NOT send more than 30 emails per day per email account 6️⃣ Keep your email signature plain text. No Links. No images. No calendar links…at all Add your address in your signature and make sure you put a picture in your Outlook or Gmail profile. 7️⃣ Vary your cold email copy (i.e. SPINTAX). Sending the same template to every prospect signals that you are a spammer. Customize your first step email. For emails further in your sequence, use Spintax. Use alternate phrases “Hi, Hey, Hello”. New age sequencers do this automatically. 8️⃣ Understand that your domain gets TORCHED when people mark your email as spam. Good and relevant copy matter. 9️⃣ Constantly monitor your email deliverability. Deliverability varies across Outlook and Google servers. Get a platform that helps you land in ALL inboxes. Again, Maildoso makes this super easy...  they have daily reputation monitoring built right in so you catch issues fast. They average 98%+ inbox placement - wild. Maintaining good deliverability over time is key in the success of outbound. What would the email deliverability experts add here? #outbound #coldemail #deliverability

Your audience is in either solution-focused or browsing mode. And mostly, we're not spending time on the web looking to buy something. We're ready to be entertained but not sold to. Differentiate between when people are ready to buy and when they're just browsing. For those ready to buy (solution-focused approach): ✦ these individuals have specific problems or needs. ✦ they perform targeted searches with clear intent. ✦ content should be direct, offering solutions or products: → how-to guides addressing their issue. → product comparisons and detailed specifications. → clear calls-to-action, leading them to purchase. For the relaxed/browsing audience: ✦ this group isn't looking to solve a specific problem. ✦ they consume content for entertainment or general interest. ✦ content for this audience should be engaging and indirect: → stories or articles that entertain while subtly relating to your product. → informational content that broadens their knowledge. → interactive content that engages without a hard sell. Balancing content strategy: ✦ tailor content to match the audience's current mindset. ✦ use engaging content to nurture the relaxed audience toward a task-oriented mindset when they're ready. ✦ track audience engagement and adapt content based on feedback and analytics. That's why it's not either social media or blog. Either ads or PR.  We are constantly balancing our marketing between people who are already searching for a solution, and those who are not ready to be sold to. #content #contentstrategy #contentmarketing

Coaches, let’s talk newsletters. Growing up isn’t the hard part, keeping people reading is. I was talking to a coach last week who said: "My newsletter had 800 subscribers… but every week, people kept unsubscribing. I’m adding new people, but losing old ones. Feels like a never-ending loop." Sound familiar? The truth is that subscriber growth is exciting, but it means very little if people don’t stick around. Because real value comes from retention. From turning passive readers into engaged fans who actually open, read, and even buy from you. So let’s break down what keeps your audience hooked 👇 🧠 What Makes People Stay? Subscriber retention isn’t just about sending a “great” email. It’s about psychology. Here’s what your readers want (and what most coaches miss): ✅ Consistency — Show up like clockwork. Make opening your email a habit for them. ✅ Connection — Make your content feel like a conversation, not a broadcast. ✅ Value — Teach them, inspire them, or shift their mindset every time. No fluff. Personalization Wins A McKinsey study showed: → 71% of people expect personalized content. → 76% get frustrated when it’s all “me, me, me” instead of “you.” So stop using your newsletter to only talk about yourself. Instead: 🔹 Segment your audience – Are they beginners or advanced? Coaches or clients? 🔹 Share relevant stories – What real problems do they have? Speak directly to those. 🔹 Use simple tech – Tools like ConvertKit or Customer.io help automate smart content journeys based on your reader’s behavior. 💡 Case in Point: A Coach Who Fixed Her Churn One of our clients was losing 5-6 subscribers every week. We paused the regular “salesy” emails and shifted focus to high-value insights, short stories, and light mindset tips. Result? → Unsubscribes dropped by 25% → Replies went up → 3 booked calls in 2 weeks from her email list alone Moral of the story? Don’t just send emails. Send value. 🔧 Tool of the Week: Customer.io If you’re running a newsletter and want to automate smart, behavior-based follow-ups, this tool is gold. ✅ Personalized content journeys ✅ Re-engagement automations ✅ Works like magic with small teams Before you go, tell me 👇 What’s one thing YOU do to keep your audience engaged? Drop your answer in the comments or reply “ENGAGE” and I’ll send you a few newsletter prompts that always get high open rates. #EmailMarketingForCoaches #NewsletterGrowth #PersonalBranding #ContentRetention #CoachingBusiness

5 recruiting email best practices to boost your open, reply, and interested rates: At Gem, we've analyzed millions of recruiting emails sent through our platform. Here's what the data actually shows works: 1. Subject lines are your gateway Our 2024 data shows open rates have dropped to 76.6% (from 78.4% in 2022). The pressure on that first impression is immense. Effective subject lines leverage psychology: — Appeal to values: "Elevating [industry] together"  — Use flattery: "Come be our expert [job title] at [company]" — Create curiosity gaps: "Your experience at [Company] caught my attention" A subject line that *feels* like a mass email will be treated like one. 2. "Send on behalf of" is your secret weapon Only 21.9% of recruiters use SOBO (Send on Behalf Of), but those who do see up to 50% higher reply rates. Having messages appear from hiring managers or executives adds authority without creating workflow bottlenecks. This works particularly well for leadership roles and specialized positions where hearing from a potential future boss creates immediate credibility. 3. Message length isn't what you think Conventional wisdom says, "keep it short," — and our data shows 101-150 words often performs best for initial outreach. But here's where it gets interesting: A/B testing reveals longer messages can drive higher-quality responses. A recruiting manager at Zapier found: "I had fewer opens and replies on the longer message, but more candidates replied with interest." Quality > quantity. The most successful messages don't ramble, but they do provide enough substance for the right candidates to self-select. 4. Address changing candidate priorities The market has shifted dramatically. Candidates now prioritize: — Career advancement opportunities — Flexibility and remote options — Strong company leadership and culture With Gen Z entering the workforce (they'll make up 58% of the workforce by 2030 with millennials), your messaging must evolve. They're 36% more likely to prioritize advancement and skill development than other generations. As Yext's Senior Director of Recruiting said: "We're not trying to sell, [...] we're trying to start a genuine conversation; when we know their pain points, we know what value prop to use." 5. True personalization is non-negotiable Basic personalization (just adding a name) performs no better than zero personalization in our data. However, highly personalized messages see a 73% engagement rate. This means: — Opening with 1-2 unique details about the prospect — Including a full paragraph that shows you've researched their work — Connecting their specific experience to the role you're filling For high-value talent, this is essential. The best recruiters have shifted from "Here's the job" to "I see your expertise, and here's why this specific opportunity aligns with your career trajectory."

What happens when your entire business depends on a social media’s algorithm and the rules overnight?  I watched this reality happen to a founder.  Over the past 12 months his business had all but dried up. Not because his product was bad or the market crashed. Because he let someone else control his audience. Here’s the story: From 2020 to 2024, this guy was crushing it on X (Twitter). His posts about real estate best practices were getting hundreds of thousands of views. And generating dozens of B2B leads per week from owners and operators. What went wrong? The algorithm changed overnight. Instead of rewarding niche B2B content. The platform started amplifying controversial posts and viral media. His reach vanished. His leads dried up. His business died. The insight: The problem wasn't the algorithm change. It was that he never owned his audience. The founders who are still thriving did the opposite. The difference? They built email lists. While everyone else was chasing likes and retweets, they turned followers into subscribers. When the platform changed the rules, they had a direct line to their customers. Here’s how to start building yours: Create something valuable in exchange for an email address. A guide, a template, a mini-course. Give people a reason. Then nurture that list: • Send regular value • Build solid relationships • Turn subscribers into customers Build the moat that the algorithm can’t guarantee. The platform will change again. But your email list will keep your business alive. Don't let someone else control your future. Own your audience. Want to learn how real estate entrepreneurs are building sustainable businesses? Our "Selling into Real Estate Owners" course teaches you how to find customers, build relationships, and create systems that don't depend on social media algorithms. Next cohort starts soon. Details in the comments.

Your name means nothing...😬 At least, as an early-stage startup, it means nothing in a subject line. When you're first starting out and trying to contact a journalist, your subject line really matters. You have to stand out in a chaotic inbox that is receiving a lot of inbound pitches. The first barrier to getting attention is the subject line. (Same as it is when you start sending newsletters...) Sending something like "News...", "Hi from [insert company name]", or "Story about [insert company name]" doesn't exactly thrill anyone with excitement - and it's particularly frustrating when you do have an incredible story to share. First impressions really do count and make a world of difference. Your company name is a waste of valuable subject line space when you're trying to drill a whole story into one punchy, attention-grabbing line - you need to think like a headline (and bluntly, your startup name probably won't be in it). So, what could you use instead? Well, if there's one thing you should know as a startup, it's A/B testing. Come up with a range of subject lines that get across a combination of some of the following: 🌟 The offer: do you have a specific embargo date (launch), or are you offering an exclusive or an interview? Putting the offer or time in the subject line can help guide busy press. i.e. EXCLU: or For Weds: or For 21/09: or Interview: 🌟 Can you summarise your mission, vision or the problem you solve succinctly? i.e. "Built to battle the cost of living crisis", "Decarbonise the construction industry", "Empower factories of the future" 🌟 Did you raise money? If so, money talks - use a figure in the subject line 💵 (Data also talks) 🌟 Where are you located, and what industry are you in? Depending on the journalist you are pitching, the location and industry can be more or less relevant. i.e. "Dutch InsurTech", "German FinTech", "French ClimateTech" - certain sectors and locations can be 'very hot' right now. Use what you have. 🌟 Is there something special about you, the founder? (Un)Fortunately, your gender, race, age, sexuality, and ability can all be factored in being of more or less interest to the media. I would only recommend highlighting anything here if you are comfortable doing so. If you aren't - then don't. Another angle here - if you previously built a successful business or you were part of a major company (i.e. ex-Googler, serial entrepreneur), that can also be worth flagging. I bet "Spotify founder launching..." had a high open rate - but as would "Daniel Ek launches" because his name means something. 🌟 Can you link your news to what is happening right now? Timing is everything in PR. Can you mention a world event, societal tie, or crisis? There are options to try - and each can help you shape your wider pitch. Try different subject lines and see what gets the best results. Tailor it and keep it short! And remember to put your company name in the email. 🙏