Sending business emails can be both tedious and terrifying, especially if you are new to the whole thing. Luckily, there are standard ways you can structure your emails and tips to help you craft the perfect messages that can help you. Hence, here are the eight writing tips and tricks to create a winning email collaboration proposal.
1. Prepare Smartly
First and foremost, you need to prepare before you start writing your emails. Though “preparation” is a broad term, there are certain things you need to do without a doubt:
- Know Your Potential Partner: Do the necessary research and find out everything you can about your potential partner. Know their strengths and weaknesses and create a proposition that they will be interested in. For example, suppose you want an Instagram influencer to promote your handmade makeup brand. In that case, you will need to know what kind of makeup the influencer usually uses and whether they like to support small businesses like yours.
- Make an Outline for Your Email: A good email is a well-structured email that covers every necessary point one after the other. In other words, you need to make sure that your email is organized, and to do this, you will need to have an outline for your email before you start writing it. This way, you will avoid diverging from the topic and won’t forget to cover all the topics you want to.
- Plan Ahead for What Comes After: You will need to have a plan of action in mind even after you have sent the email. You might get a positive reply or a negative reply, or no reply at all. In the first case, you will want to proceed with negotiations. In the second case, you can either make a different proposition or just drop the matter. In the third case, you might want to follow up after some time and see if they changed their mind.
2. Start Correctly
To have a well-written email, you need to have every single part in place. Many elements make up an email, and all of them need to be taken care of. Consequently, you must start the email correctly:
- Subject Line: The subject line is what your recipient will see before they even decide to read your email. As a result, the effectiveness of your subject line will be the deciding factor that will determine whether or not your recipient opens the email at all. Of course, you want to keep your open rate consistently high, so make sure that your subject lines get right to the point, hook your readers, and spark their curiosity.
- Greeting: Once your email begins, the first thing your recipient needs to read should be a greeting of some kind. Most of the time, you will need to start with “Dear…” and follow up with whatever you choose to address your potential partners. A suitable greeting may feel redundant, but it is an essential part of any email, which is why you need to work on it just as much as on the rest of your message.
- Introduction: Right after the greeting comes the introduction. The first paragraph of your email is meant to introduce why you’re writing at all. So, don’t waste any space and get right to the point.
3. Be Polite and Professional
Speaking of getting to the point in your emails, the body of your letter should also have a minimal amount of empty words. It would be best if you were polite and professional and discussed exactly what you wanted from the person reading your email. Be straightforward and clear throughout your emails to avoid misunderstandings and prevent your recipients from being bored by what you are writing.
As Caroline Watts from the custom writing reviews site Writing Judge notes, “Emails might be a formal way to communicate with your potential collaborators and partners, but that doesn’t mean that they should bore their audience. Find the right approach to your recipients and stick to it – it doesn’t have to be too serious if that’s what works for you.”
4. Talk About Your Business
Remember that the partnership you are proposing in your email is not just about the possible collaborator you are writing to – it’s also about you and your business. You need to present yourself in the best light and show that you can bring something to the table that will be beneficial for your partner.
That’s why you need to talk about your business in one of the paragraphs in the body of your email. Explain who you are and what you do, and why you do it. If you have shared values with the potential partner, they will be more likely to team up with you on the project you are proposing to them.
In addition to that, you need to show examples of your work. You probably already saw what they create (considering that you decided to reach out to them), but they haven’t seen what you can do. This is why a portfolio can be beneficial at this point, but you can also attach one or two examples to the email itself.
5. Make A Valuable Proposition
As mentioned above, you will need to explain what you can bring to the table and show that you know who your potential partner is. But at the same time, you need to present a profitable proposition with a valuable message. You need to explain your partner’s role in the project but also focus on why their investment in it will be good for them in the long run.
For example, the promotion of handmade makeup could improve the influencer’s reputation in the eyes of their audience because supporting small businesses is considered trendy right now. If you are paying them a good commission, they might want to partner up with you again in the future. If you are promoting them in return, they might be able to increase their social media following.
6. Get Down to Details
Another thing you need to do while writing the body of your email gets down to details. You don’t necessarily need to make your letter very long by describing everything, but making the picture too general and vague won’t do you any good either. You need to find the golden middle and describe your proposition briefly and directly while also explaining some of the key details that are crucial for the project.
For instance, you need to propose an honest rate that you will be paying your partner if you expect them to do specific tasks for you rather than invest together in a common project. If you offer to pay them not-so-generously, you will lose them in an instant. Of course, there are exceptions, but underpaying your partners is one of the worst things you could be doing most of the time.
As Ray Devine from the writing service reviews site Pick The Writer puts it, “You want your potential (and current) partners to respect you and enjoy working with you. If they get a bad experience, they could easily expose you to their audience, which could escalate into a huge scandal and spoil your brand’s reputation.”
Giving a timeline of your project is also a must. You need to have a deadline for your proposition and outline the key milestones that you and your partner will have to achieve along the way. This will also help you better convey the goals of the project and your expectations for it.
7. Include Contact Information
You need to include your contact information at the end of your email or the beginning of it. Even though you are sending the proposal from an email address that your recipients will now know, you might want to include another one for more personal inquiries. Moreover, giving your business phone number is also a must as it will let the two of you communicate instantly when necessary.
Your mailing address or office address could also be helpful depending on whether or not you want to meet up with your potential partners in person or like to invite them to visit you. In other words, include whichever contact information you deem to be necessary, but never decide to skip it.
8. Show Gratitude
Last but not least, you need to show gratitude at the end of your email. Just like the initial greeting, showing gratitude and ending your email is essential for the structure and format of your message.
You can thank the recipient for their time and attention and add the fact that you will be expecting a reply from them (e.g. “Thank you for your time! I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.”) And then, you can end the letter with the standard ending such as “Yours sincerely” or “Best regards” with your name (and title) after it.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, writing effective email collaboration proposals is an important skill that anyone can develop and improve with proper guidance. Use the tips in this article to help you perfect your email proposals and start getting more collaborations.
Dominic Beaulieu
Dominic Beaulieu is a gaming enthusiast turned tech writer who covers an impressive variety of topics like design, development process, game marketing and helps developers spread the word about their creations. He is a fluent French speaker who also has mastered Dutch, Norwegian, and Swedish. He has experience in software translation, tech counseling, project management, and digital marketing tailored for startups.