To whom it may concern:
It’s time to update your approach to cold emails.
Getting a meeting — or even a reply — to an out-of-the-blue message isn’t easy, but with some thoughtful strategies, cold emails can yield warm contacts. According to Aaron Smith, regional sales director at Zumper, the trick is to actually spend time on personalizing each email so it can fall into the right hands.
That’s not to say that each email should be a lengthy missive — in fact, just the opposite.
“This is your chance to share quickly what pain points you know they have and how to solve them,” Smith said. “If you spend the first two lines of the email asking them how their weekend was and how happy you are about the weather, I think you’re going to lose them upfront.”
To learn what else hungry sales reps can do to improve their click-through rate, Built In SF polled local leaders on what their best practices are when cold emailing potential customers.
What they do: Why is renting an apartment so difficult? Zumper is out to change that. In the company’s words, it wants to “make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel.” They’re making it happen through virtual tours, up-to-date listings and an easy online application process that lets users know if they’ve been approved in 24 hours or less.
What has been the most successful cold email subject line you've ever used?
Whenever I am trying to get in touch with a decision-maker, I have found that if you refer to someone in their organization that they lead, it almost always leads to at the very least an open. So if I have talked to a vice president of marketing’s digital marketing specialist named Kevin, then my subject line reads, “Kevin mentioned we should connect,” Or “Let’s chat — Kevin mentioned your name.” When I do this, it shows that I’ve done my due diligence and might actually have insight into why our product can help them.
If you reference directly the pain point, what it is costing them and how you can solve it and then ask for them to talk, it lends credibility to you for doing the work.”
What’s an effective strategy you use to hook the reader once they’ve opened your email?
I’m a huge advocate of keeping it short and sweet. No one wants to read a wall of text with 15 hyperlinks about how awesome you are. This is your chance to share quickly what pain points you know they have and how to solve them. If you spend the first two lines of the email asking them how their weekend was and how happy you are about the weather, I think you’re going to lose them upfront.
If you reference directly the pain point, what it is costing them and how you can solve it and then ask for them to talk, it lends credibility to you for doing the work instead of just sending a generic email blast to every VP on a purchased lead list.
What’s the most effective formula or approach you've used for writing cold emails?
I’ve tried sending multiple email blasts out with information, and then send quick responses out to make sure I have the right contact. While that gets responses (mostly because you send it to 5,000 people), it does not get you insight or influence to have a valued opinion into anything in their company.
Some of the best performers on my team keep a running list of people they are cold reaching out to. Every single morning before they hit the phones or meetings, they are sending emails out with information they learned the day before. To me, the only value that you can convey in a cold email is urgency. When you know the problem through doing great discovery, and you present that to the decision-maker in a succinct way, that’s a rare email to receive. Rare enough to get the Holy Grail: a begrudging response agreeing to meet — but only after they’ve told you that they likely don’t need what you are selling. But for us salespeople, we only need a little hope to close that next big deal!
What they do: Gong is a platform designed to help remote sales teams perform better. Through customer interaction data, deal visibility and tools to help sales reps understand where they can improve, Gong aims to help customers score more deals, strengthen their skills and shorten sales cycles.
What has been the most successful cold email subject line you've ever used?
The subject line of an email is always the most important part of your outreach. It doesn’t matter how phenomenal your email, company or value proposition is if nobody ever opens the email! I always go for noticeability and customization in both my subject line and in the email — I never want it to seem like a marketing template that I’ve sent to 100 people.
I love using someone’s first and last name, followed by a teaser of what’s in the email. I had over a 75 percent open rate, because who doesn’t want to open and read an email about themselves and an accolade that they’ve achieved? I think the curiosity of seeing your name attached to something identifiable is why this tactic is so successful.
What’s an effective strategy you use to hook the reader once they’ve opened your email?
To hook my prospect into the email, I tie my subject line to the premise for my outreach. Whether that’s an article they wrote, something about the company, a new role they’ve been promoted into, a LinkedIn recommendation they’ve received, company funding, etc. From there, I will then tie the premise to the body of my email, where I will speak to their buyer persona and connect our value proposition against it. Lastly, I tie it all together with a call to action, again highlighting what was mentioned in the premise and body.
A sample cold email from Eric
What’s the most effective formula or approach you’ve used for writing cold emails?
The most effective formula is to have a noticeable subject line, which is followed by this structure: the premise, the body and the call to action.
There are also seven pillars of messaging that I follow in every email:
- Noticeability: Subject line of the email.
- Relevance: Based on buyer persona.
- Prospect-centric: Only talk about your prospect.
- Pain-centric: How you alleviate pain, not add pleasure.
- Pride-aversive: Make the prospect the hero.
- Fluidity: Connect the premise to the body and call to action.
- Brevity: Never use seven words when four will do.
People want to read a customized email over a template any day.”
Lastly, if I’m using LinkedIn to prospect, I have five buckets that I place my premises into and have outlined them in order of importance:
- Authored content: Articles, LinkedIn recommendations, posts, webinars and blogs.
- Engaged content: Shared posts, “likes” and comments.
- Self-attributed traits: Profile descriptions, headlines, company experience.
- Company information: Mergers and acquisitions, blogs, funding, hiring, website language.
- Junk drawer: Schools attended, personal interests, social media.
Again, you have to tie back the premise, the body and the CTA against the buyer persona and your company value proposition.
Writing a cold email following the above mentioned has brought me a ton of success, booked me a lot of meetings, gotten me job offers (I never took them!) and money. People want to read a customized email over a template any day.
