How to Use Humor in Your Sales Emails

Nothing turns people off faster than staid communication, be it via email or any other form of outreach. With people’s attention spans getting notoriously shorter, the opening part of the pitch can make or break your effort.

On average, an individual receives 121 emails daily, and the average open rate for emails across industries is 31.5%. Most of these emails go unnoticed because people don’t have time to read through them. Putting forth an email with entertaining content will increase the odds that your sales emails will garner both interest and attention from the prospects. 

Do's and Don'ts of Using Humor
1. Ensure Relevancy to Your Business

If you are looking to incorporate humor within your sales emails, pay heed to the following things:

How you wish to portray your brand personality and niche.
Your target demographic (aka your potential customers). 
The intent that lies behind sending the email in the first place.
Avoid using humor that is likely to offend your readers. Play it safe and stick to harmless jokes and commonly used puns.

Among the funny sales opening lines, you could consider using, “Why are eating clocks so hard? Because it's time-consuming!” This is the kind of humor you need to share with your target audience without making it appear that you are trying too hard. The online world is a treasure trove of funny sales pitch lines that you could look up to find the ones you like.

2. Move Beyond the Humor and Convert Leads

While humor is indeed helpful in coming up with a funny sales pitch, the main objective is to generate business for your organization. Humor without a purpose means that your target audience will forget about your email as soon as they move away from it. Your emails should convey humor that increases brand recall among your target audience and encourages them to take the next step and become customers.

For instance: If you are running an eCommerce store, you could implement humor in the email you send to potential customers who abandon their cart. Next, analyze their response to it, and if they meet with a measure of success, you could use humor in your other email workflows too.

3. Play it Safe With an A/B Test

Plan for two variations of your sales emails. One with a formal or serious tone and the second with a pinch of humor. Evaluate the metrics of both emails and understand how they resonate with your audience.

If you feel the humorous approach works better and generates positive engagement, include humor in your emails. Consider using sales humor memes as a means to delight the prospect.

You could also run the email content by your friends or colleagues and ask them to think from the client’s perspective. Elicit feedback from all possible sources. If your instinct says your attempt at humor may not be well received, you need to revise your strategy.

4. Maintain the Right Balance

Every email you send out to your prospects need not include elements of humor. There is a fine line between being funny and professional. The fun element in your emails should be balanced, as it can affect your chances of converting prospects into customers.

If you keep sending your prospects the same kind of emails, you risk leaving them disinterested. So be sure to err on the side of caution and tone down the funny sales pitch occasionally.