Crafting Email Pitches

Emailing is a necessary and wonderful tool for contacting buyers to pitch your products.  But what do you say and how can you craft good email pitches that will gain attention from buyers?

Sound challenging or difficult?  Not really.

First thing I recommend BEFORE you even start your email pitch series is to call the store, tell them who you are and ask if you can email the buyer/manager/owner some information about your products.

Don’t spend time trying to pitch your products.  Retail buyers are busy people and may not have time to hear you out.  The main purpose of this call is to get the necessary contact information so you can pitch your products through your email.

Now, don’t panic!  When you make your calls, just be yourself.  Be polite and professional, but don’t be rigid or unreal.

Same goes for your email.  Don’t start the email telling the buyer how great you and your products are.  And don’t assume and tell them that your line will be the next best seller in their store!

If you have done your research ahead of time on the particular store, you can mention in your email that you know they carry XYZ product and that your line is often successful sold in stores that do will with XYZ line.

You might also want to mention that your line will be sold in only one zipcode (of other location designation) in their area, and you would like to give ABC store the first look at your designs.

Be friendly, be yourself, and remember to address what is in it for the store to buy your products.

Then, of course, attached your PDF catalog, flyer, or line sheet making sure you have all your products, wholesale pricing, terms and contact information attached.

Claire from Indie Retail Academy suggests the following points when crafting your messages:

• You have to write every pitch email from scratch.
• You have to really look at the shop and work out what you like about it.
• You have to find something specific to praise.
• You have to consider your collection and hand-pick one or two items which are an especially good fit for the store.
• You have to go through your letter word by word and make sure there aren’t any spelling or grammatical mistakes.
• Basically, if you want a great result, you have to do the work.

Of course, several follow ups may be necessary to insure a sale.  Don’t wait for the retail buyer to contact you — it is rare for them to do so.  Email them again asking if they saw your first email and if they are interested in knowing more about your line.

And don’t give up!  Sometimes it takes 5 to 6 or more contacts before you make a sale!