Client and business letters
Business introduction letters
An introduction letter is not a prospecting letter. There is no pitch in it and no ask at the end. It exists to make the next contact warm rather than cold, which means its whole job is to be read once and remembered vaguely, and that is a much lower bar than people write to.
Written by Autopen Australia · Updated
Opening a new territory or sector
[FIRST NAME],
We have started working with [SECTOR] businesses in [REGION] and I would rather introduce myself properly than turn up in your inbox one day.
What we do is [ONE THING]. That is the whole of it. Whether it is useful to [BUSINESS NAME] I genuinely do not know yet.
I will ring in a week or so. If you would rather I did not, reply to this and I will take you off the list without any awkwardness.
[NAME], [DIRECT LINE]
Taking over an existing relationship
The most common version and the one that matters most, because a handover is the moment accounts quietly leave.
[FIRST NAME],
[PREDECESSOR] has moved on and I am looking after [BUSINESS NAME] from this month.
I have read the file rather than asking you to repeat yourself, so I know about [SPECIFIC THING] and I know how you like to be contacted. Nothing changes at your end.
I will call on [DAY] to introduce myself properly. My direct line is below if anything comes up before then.
[NAME], [DIRECT LINE]
A new business introducing itself
Being new is a disadvantage you cannot hide, so name it. Hiding it is what makes a new supplier look evasive.
[FIRST NAME],
We opened in [MONTH YEAR] and you will not have heard of us, which is the honest starting position.
What we do is [ONE THING], and we do it for [NUMBER] businesses in [REGION] now. I am not going to pretend to a track record we have not got yet.
If you ever want a second quote on something, we are easy to reach and we will tell you when we are not the right answer.
[NAME], [DIRECT LINE]
Getting it right
- What to mention. Who you are, the one thing you do that is relevant to them, and what will happen next. Saying you will ring on a particular day is better than inviting them to ring you, and it is the only thing in the letter that resembles an ask.
- What to leave out. A capability list. A history of the firm. "We are excited to introduce", which is about you. Anything longer than the recipient will read standing at a desk with post in one hand.
- How long. 70 to 110 words.
- How personal. Plain and unhurried. An introduction that tries too hard reads as a pitch, which is the one thing it is not supposed to be.
Personalising more than a handful
The fields that earn their place here: [FIRST NAME], [BUSINESS NAME], [SECTOR], [REGION], [PREDECESSOR].
The predecessor field is the dangerous one. Naming somebody who left under a cloud, or who the client never dealt with, makes the handover letter the first evidence that nobody checked. Verify the previous contact against the account record rather than the org chart.
Before any run, read the piece with the longest value in your data, the shortest, and the empty one. If all three read as English the merge is sound. Personalising direct mail at scale covers the rest.
Sending these at volume
Introductions go out in bursts: a new territory, a restructure, a departure that reassigns ninety accounts in a week. That is a batch nobody has planned for, arriving at the worst possible moment.
Autopen Australia writes each piece individually with a real ballpoint, personalises every piece from your list, written into the sentence rather than dropped into a gap, hand-addresses the envelopes and prints your supplied letter or artwork before it is written on.
Reassigning a book of accounts? Price a one-off batch
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