Why Your Sales Emails Aren’t Closing Deals — And How to Fix Them

The University of Missouri’s Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business would like to thank Samuel M. Walton for helping to make research like this possible.

With the rise of remote work and digital communication, email has become a central platform for business-to-business (B2B) sales negotiations. As much as 80% of B2B sales negotiations in the U.S. are now conducted over email. This shift raises a critical question: How can salespeople be persuasive without the benefit of face-to-face interaction?

Detelina Marinova, the Samuel M. Walton Distinguished Professor of Marketing at the Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business at the University of Missouri, explored how salespeople can successfully influence buyers and win contracts in these email negotiations (also known as “e-negotiations”). The key? It’s not just about what salespeople say, but how they say it — and how well they manage the buyer’s attention throughout the process.

The Missing Metric: Buyer Attention

“I was inspired to conduct this research after speaking with sales managers and salespeople who shared that much of B2B sales negotiations are shifting to digital channels (email) and they are concerned that they feel unprepared to handle buyers,” Marinova said. “Sales strategies that work face-to-face do not necessarily work in email negotiations.”

In face-to-face interactions, sellers can lean on emotional cues and real-time feedback. Email removes that safety net. And while email offers advantages like speed, documentation and transparency, it also makes it easy for buyers to disengage. That’s why attention becomes the leading predictor of success.

Marinova’s study found that when a buyer's attention increases by just one standard deviation, their likelihood of awarding a contract jumps sevenfold — translating into a potential $37 million revenue increase in the company highlighted in the studied.

Influence Tactics That Work (and Those That Don’t)

Marinova identified two main categories of influence tactics used in sales emails:

• Internalization Tactics: Designed to engage buyers analytically by prompting them to think critically about the offer. These include:
  • Information sharing: Providing data, comparisons or case studies.
  • Recommendations: Suggesting specific actions or solutions.
• Compliance Tactics: Aimed at simplifying decisions and reducing buyer hesitation. These include:
  • Promises: Offering guarantees or outcomes.
  • Assertiveness: Encouraging immediate action based on expertise.

Used strategically, both styles can increase engagement — but not when mixed. Combining tactics from the same category (e.g., information + recommendation) improved buyer attention by up to 15%. However, mixing across categories (e.g., promise + recommendation) led to a 30% drop in buyer attention. Why? Conflicting cues confuse or overwhelm buyers, leading to disengagement.

From Theory to Action: What Sales Teams Should Do

1. Treat Attention Like a KPI: Sales organizations obsess over close rates and revenue, but Marinova’s research shows that buyer attention is a leading indicator of success. Monitor it through behavioral signals like response speed, use of action-oriented language, or requests for clarification, then intervene before a deal stalls.

2. Train for Email Influence: Email sales is a different game. Traditional interpersonal skills don’t translate one-to-one. Instead, train your team to master aligned influence tactics. Focus emails around either internalization or compliance — not both. Avoid sending mixed signals that create friction or cognitive overload.

3. Leverage AI to Scale Persuasion: The researchers developed machine learning tools that use textual cue dictionaries to identify and score influence tactics in sales emails. These models predict buyer attention with up to 85% accuracy, enabling sales leaders to optimize messaging and coach teams in real time.

Final Thoughts

In digital B2B sales, attention is currency. Lose it, and even the best offer may fail. Gain it, and you unlock the buyer’s trust and engagement — long before the final contract is signed. Sales leaders would do well to rethink how they evaluate, train and support their teams in the digital era. Influence still matters. But attention is now everything.

“Compared with face-to-face communications, e-communications are leaner, with fewer contextual cues and less interactivity and flexibility, but they also offer easy accessibility to messages and unlimited storage of a variety of materials,” Marinova said. “ Sales managers can use these findings to train their sales staff to more effectively handle e-negotiations and increase contract win rates.”

Marinova’s study, “Business-to-Business E-Negotiations and Influence Tactics,” was co-authored by Sunil Singh and Jagdip Singh. It was published in the “Journal of Marketing.”

Mizzou’s Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business prepares students for success as global citizens, business leaders, scholars, innovators and entrepreneurs by providing access to transformative technologies, offering experience-centered learning opportunities and fostering an entrepreneurial mindset.