How to Write a Cold Email That Gets Results
By Christian Bonnier
In today’s fast paced world of consumerism and companies vying for attention, it can be hard to stand out in a meaningful way. But, even with the average person seeing between 6,000 and 10,000 ads every single day, it’s not impossible.
With short messages dominating modern communication and the rise of popular messaging apps like WhatsApp, the key to standing out is to capture your prospect’s attention in as little time as possible.
Your prospects are always busy
Along with the nature of messaging becoming shorter and more interactive, the rapid rise in remote work, entrepreneurship, and side hustles means that no matter who your ideal customer is, they’re most likely extremely busy.
In an environment like this, it’s harder and harder to capture people's attention and stand out from the crowd when it comes to sales outreach and marketing. You’re competing with goals, work, distractions, family, friends, social media, and everything else going on in a person's life—not to mention the countless other companies bidding for a second of their attention. You’ve got to find a way to cut through the noise.
Cold email for sales
Believe it or not, cold email is still one of the most effective channels for B2B business growth. Companies like Salesforce have scaled their businesses to millions of dollars using cold email as a central tactic. But before you can use it, you need to learn more about it.
In short, a cold email is an unsolicited business email sent to a prospect that attempts to generate interest, get a reply, and move the prospect further down the sales funnel towards a sale.
It is not like a newsletter email like you’d send through Mailchimp; it is meant to feel like a one-to-one personal email, like you’d send to a friend or colleague, and it’s only for B2B communication. While the ultimate goal is to close a sale, cold email works best for creating an introduction to see if the prospect can benefit from what your company offers.
Isn’t cold email “dead”?
This is a common misconception. The answer is: no, cold email is not dead, just as cold calling and door-to-door sales are not dead. Cold email will always have a place in B2B sales as long as email technology exists. However, the strategies and tactics that are effective in cold email have changed a lot in the last five years.
There was a time where inboxes were much less crowded and people had the attention span to read long, descriptive emails. That era is over—it's estimated that the average office worker receives more than 120 emails per day, which means you have to catch a prospect’s attention in as little time as possible before they move on to the next email in their inbox.
Mistakes to avoid when using cold email
Over the last two years, I’ve used cold email to book sales calls, close new deals for my agency, and bring deal flow in for my clients. Here are five mistakes we’ve learned to avoid when sending cold emails:
Mistake #1. No personalization
Since prospects are bombarded with cold emails on a daily basis, email-blasting the same canned message won’t be effective. On top of generic emails being ineffective, any kind of mass email or “spammy” message will result in your email being added to blacklists and ruining future campaign results.
To fix this problem, include a personalized first line at the beginning of your email to show the prospect that you did your research and that you are not mass emailing them. Here’s a quick example:
Hi [NAME],
Awesome news that [PROSPECT'S COMPANY] raised $13M to fuel growth of your high performance food and beverage products. Congrats!
Let’s break it down: First, we address the prospect by name. Then, we mention a specific piece of company news that they are most likely proud of and celebrating. This type of email will immediately stand out in their inbox, and shows that we actually know and care about their company.
Personalization is more important than ever, especially if you’re in a niche where your prospects receive hundreds of emails per day.
Mistake #2: Too many assumptions
Making assumptions about your prospect in the email is a recipe for disaster. So many sales reps, marketers, and business owners write cold emails explaining their solution in detail, without even thinking whether the prospect they’re contacting is a good fit for their product or service.
It would be so much more effective to ask the prospect if they’re experiencing a specific pain point, executing a specific strategy in their business, or interested in improving a specific aspect of their business. We call this “conversational outreach.” Instead of pitching your product or service to an irrelevant prospect who isn’t a good fit, you ask prequalifying questions that intrigue and allow the prospect to continue the conversation.
This is better for you because you don’t waste time on unqualified prospects, and it’s better for them because you are not acting like another aggressive salesperson, and you are showing that you actually care about the prospect's business.
Here’s an example: Instead of saying: “I see you do email marketing for Shopify stores,” ask: “Do you do email marketing for Shopify stores?” If they respond “yes,” you can delve further into their situation and see if it’s worth jumping on a call to discuss further, add value, and close a sale.
Mistake #3: No clearly defined ideal customer profile (ICP)
Understanding your ideal customer is essential before doing any outreach. Even if you have the best product or service on the market, without a clear ideal client profile there won’t be any alignment, and your campaigns will fail horribly.
So many companies skip this step and they pay handsomely for it. Creating an ICP breaks down into these main steps:
- Interview your current customers
- Identify your base segment and subindustries
- Identify demographic data like location, revenue, and team size
- Understand your customer's organizational challenges and pain points
- Align the customer's pain points with the solution your product or service provides
- Understand the decision makers’ online habits to prospect effectively
- Understand other external consultants and providers they currently work with to explore partnerships and synergetic offers
There’s obviously a lot more that can be done, but this is a basic framework that, if followed, will enable you and your team to prospect, market, and close new business easier and faster than before. Without an ICP, you’re going to spend more money on marketing and sales (with much of that spend being wasted on unqualified leads!) and get unsatisfactory results.
This will be different depending the customer's unique situation. Study and talk to your market. Get their feedback. Use cold email to validate hypotheses. Build offers that align with your ICP. Scale what works and profit consistently, for the long term.
More articles from AllBusiness.com:
- Having Trouble Closing Web Leads? Here Are 7 Steps to Take
- The Secret to Making a Great Product Video
- 6 Ways to Leverage Email to Increase Sales
- 6 Email Marketing Tips to Help Your Business Grow
- 9 Superstar Traits Every Salesperson Needs to Beat Fear and Rise Up
Mistake #4: No unique sales proposition (USP) alignment
On the flip side, targeting your ideal customer with a poorly framed offer won’t get you very far. Your USP should align with the pain points and buying preferences of your ICP and should include at least one of these foundations:
- You’re unique because of the buyer you serve
- You’re unique because of what you sell
- You’re unique because you have an unusual angle
- You’re unique because of what your product or service does not do
- You’re unique because of the time frame around your offer
- You’re unique because of how you guarantee your product
Here’s an example of a USP: “We help e-commerce brands triple their revenue by increasing the lifetime value of their customers through personalized ‘welcome email’ flows, without spending money on paid ads.”
Mistake #5: The message is too long
As discussed earlier, no one has the time or attention span to read a seven paragraph cold email that reads like a great American novel. You may be anxious to go in-depth with your offer and describe how it will benefit the prospect, but keeping the message to one to two sentences is ideal.
The reality is, your message needs to captivate and entice your prospect to learn more. If you give it all away in the first cold email, you destroy the potential for a valuable conversation that builds trust and establishes a partnership.
Remember that cold emails are not sales or marketing collateral. They are quick introductions to explore possible synergies and benefits on both sides, through building a long-standing relationship.
Don’t get caught in the trap of trying to sell directly in a cold email—it rarely works.
How to craft a one-sentence cold email
One-sentence scripts are extremely effective and can be framed around any offer. To craft a script around your company’s offering, figure out:
- What pain points does your ideal prospect have? What is keeping them up at night and putting strain on their business and personal life?
- What organizational goals does your prospect have?
- Are they already working with a competitor/using similar services?
- Does your prospect use any specific technologies that align with your USP?
Once you’ve gone over these questions, write a handful of scripts based on your answers. Here are some examples:
- If your prospect wants to work with more vendors, ask: “Are you looking to get in touch with more vendors to sell your products?”
- If your prospect may be struggling to get in touch with more vendors, ask: “Do you have trouble getting in touch with more vendors to sell your products?”
- If your prospect uses LinkedIn to get in touch with vendors and you can help improve their strategy, ask: “Do you use LinkedIn to get in touch with vendors?”
Make sure your one-sentence script can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.” The easier it is for prospects to respond, the more opportunities you will have to add value, build trust, and onboard them as customers.
If you write multiple scripts, test them until you can identify a clear winner based on interested responses. Always judge your campaign's success on the quality of the leads and bottom line return on investment (ROI). Everything else is a proxy metric to help guide you in the right direction.
Another example: Let’s say you run an email marketing services company. Your one-sentence script might be:
“Do you use [COMPANY] for email marketing?”
We recommend sending this script to prospects who already use your company for email marketing. Now, you may be wondering, why ask a prospect a question if you already know the answer? Well, the reason is twofold.
First, by asking the question, you avoid making any assumptions about the prospect in the email. By asking the question, it comes off as conversational and low barrier.
Second, the question is meant to be answered with a “yes.” Once the prospect replies with a “yes,” you can pitch additional marketing services to see if there’s any interest. If the prospect is interested in learning more, continue the conversation by inviting them to call you directly to discuss in further detail.
Improve your sales with the help of cold email
Getting in touch with interested prospects is harder than ever today with the rapid evolution of digital marketing and the rise of popular messaging apps. With so many distractions available to the modern consumer, it’s critical to convey your message as quickly and efficiently as possible. And while it may seem that cold email is an outdated form of communication, it’s alive and well.
When used correctly, cold email is one of the most effective ways of getting in touch with B2B prospects who are interested in what you have to offer. With a simple one-sentence script framed around your offer, you will be able to generate interest, book sales calls, and close more of your ideal clients.
RELATED: 4 Little Email Marketing No-Nos That Could Land You In Big Trouble
About the Author
Post by: Christian Bonnier
Christian Bonnier is the creative director at ListKit. He has over two years experience in B2B lead generation and cold email.
Company: ListKit
Website: www.listkit.io
Connect with me on Twitter.