The 6 steps of planning out a cold email

Cold emailing is a skill, albeit one that is neglected in most sales training programs. 

All too often, people just sit down and start pounding away a cold email and are amazed when they don’t get the result they were hoping for. 

I can hear the pushback: there are businesses out there that have their cold outreach zeroed in. That is true for certain sectors. Technology and SaaS, absolutely. A lot of E-commerce, sure.

But there are hundreds of thousands of sales and business development professionals out there that are grinding it out for companies that just have not adapted. They are the people who are having to spend their political capital with their bosses to even be allowed to do cold outreach. 

If that is you, this article is for you. I have been there and the idea of having had any cold email training would get you laughed at if you asked for it. 

Before we begin, even if this is not your first cold email campaign, the number one tip I can give you is don’t use a cold email template, especially ones that are floating around the internet. Many of those have been used for years and people are tired of seeing them. 

Instead, change your thought process and use a framework instead. They seem similar, but are actually very different. A template is just a plug and play: you fill in the gaps and you send out your campaign. Those aren’t going to work in the long term. 

A cold email framework is something you sit down and design out before every campaign making sure you have all the information needed. It is flexible but gives you enough direction to make sure you cover everything you need to. 

I have put together a Cold Email Framework Canvas at the end of this article. If you are new at this, fill it out and then put your campaign together using it. It fits on one page, so you can easily print it out, or just fill it in directly. 

1. Targeting

I am not reinventing the wheel when I say: not every prospect is equal. So let’s quit treating them like they are. Your product or service is going to have different benefits to different size of companies, or role within a company, or even geographies. 

Each message must be designed around who your prospect is and how are you going to benefit them. 

This is a key reason why a one size fits all approach will not be successful. 

Take the time to break out your messages based on who needs to hear them. That could be 3 or 4 different emails for even a hundred address email list. 

There is no discernible benefit for sending the same exact email to hundreds of people at the same time. In fact, by not being hyper-targeted you are lowering your reply rates, hurting your domain reputation, damaging your deliverability.

The very first thing that you have to figure out is who you are sending the email to. That may seem simple, but a message to an MD is much different from a Director of Sales. They both want different things and have different challenges throughout the day. 

Make sure your prospect’s position is the same across all your prospects, or you are going to be barking up the wrong tree.

Once you know who you are sending your emails to, you have to think about the tone that you are using. C-levels are not going to want fluff, whereas an HR manager may want to be buttered up a little. 

In general though, your tone should be to the point, it is just how hard you go in each direction that you have to figure out. 

Next you need to pick one core theme that you are going to discuss with them. You don’t want to start off giving them a 2 sentence case study about how you helped other people in your prospect’s sector and then follow it up with a reference to a speaker at a conference.

Pick one thing, and build on that.

Then comes determining the sentiment: do you want to tap into their desires (our product will save each of your team members 6 hours per week with automation), or do you want to agitate a fear (by not using our product, your team is wasting $100,000 of time each month on tasks they don’t need to be doing). 

It can be the same core element that you are focusing on, but you need to choose how you are going to present it to the prospect. 

Lastly, focus on where the message sits: is it high-level or is it hyper-focused. 

High-level can be more of a catch-all, an issue that is more likely to affect everyone in their position. These are good for a soft hook: Sales Managers in the automotive space tell us that they spend less than 1 hour a month on training and as a result their team doesn’t progress.

It is easy for your prospect to see themselves in that sentence, but at the same time it is easy for them to opt out by thinking: we had a 2-hour training just last week, so we don’t need this. 

On the flip side, when you start to get hyper-focused, you may not be relevant to all of your prospects, even if you are very targeted. 

We know when your deals break down, so we can offer your team training on car sales price presentation so their prospective customers don’t get up and walk away from the table. 

This particular issue may not apply to everyone, however for those that it does resonate with, they will come ready to buy. 

Most cold email campaigns need a mixture of both the desire/fear sentiment along with where the message sits between high-level and hyper-focused. 

From my experience I have found it best to use high-level messages earlier in the campaign and drill down as you send follow-up emails. 

An email address is a valuable asset, don’t waste it by not creating a targeted message. 

I know that this seems like a lot. But spend the time with your targeting and you will spend less time reading emails from your prospects asking to remove them from your list. 

2. Purpose

Now that you have your target down, the next step is to write down what is the purpose of your email. 

Literally write it down. At the top of the page. 

This is so important, but way too often gets overlooked. 

Do not send cold emails without a purpose. You are only going to confuse yourself and the person receiving the email of what you actually want them to do. 

Your purpose could be that:

• you want a response
• you want to schedule a call/meeting
• you want them to read a case study
• you want them to send you information
• you want them to be aware of your company

It is important to do this after the targeting though so you can determine the right person based on who your prospect is. 

Once you write out your purpose and make sure your message flows from there. This small step will save you time by you not having to go back and rewrite and entire campaign. 

3. Subject line

Subject lines are a tricky thing. Don’t get caught up trying to optimize every little detail. Just like earlier, don’t use a template either. It should be relevant to your custom message. 

Once again, if you take a subject line from some list that has the Top 17 Subject Lines for 2021, then you deserve to have your cold emails not be read. 

Most of those lists are just the same thing from the year before (or 2 or 3 years before) and have just had the title changed. A lot of your prospects will have gotten emails with those exact subject lines. If they didn’t open them then, they aren’t going to open them now. 

Also, don’t be overly goofy or spammy. You want your email to look like it is supposed to be in their inbox, because that is the best way for it to get read. 

It is ok to be a bit mysterious in that you don’t have to give everything away in the subject line. Again, subject lines that are long and explain everything tend to look like they aren’t supposed to be there. 

These are the ones that get deleted, or worse, get marked as spam. 

A good rule of thumb is that your subject line should be 2 to 4 words long and no more than 20 characters. There are exceptions, but if you keep it simple, keep it short, look like you should be there, you will be in good shape. 

4. Body

There is so much to cover when it comes to the body, that it would need an entire series of articles constantly being updated. That said, there are some easy wins that you can do to ensure that your sales email makes an impact. 

Once you have a general framework, you still don’t want to use a template, even if it is yours. Write each email from scratch. 

It is important that you make things easy for the reader. That starts with only discussing one thing/topic/point in your email. In future emails you can add additional information, but each email should have its own identity. 

Speaking of which, during a campaign you will send multiple follow-up emails and while it is important to have a narrative arc throughout the campaign, each email still has to stand on its own.

Any email that you send may be the only email that your prospect reads, therefore you have to give enough information for them to want to get back in contact.

Another way you make your prospect’s life easier is to write with plenty of white space. 

Don’t have block after block of text. Most likely the message is just going to get scanned first and then if it makes an impact, it gets read. 

Therefore, 3 paragraphs of text, making up a total of 7 or so sentences is really all it should be.

Remember to keep it about them, and not about you. Also, don’t spend much time with the formalities, it is ok to be a bit informal (and no, that does not mean that you can add a bunch of emojis).

As you start to write the body of your message, your first line is critical. Don’t waste it introducing yourself or with a fake blurb trying to make a connection. Get to the point and make an impact with your first sentence, because it might be one of the few things they read. 

There is so much more I could cover in the body of the email, but if you start with these things, your message will absolutely get better. 

5.Call To Action

We don’t want to just send an email for the sake of sending an email, hence why we have the purpose. 

But it is just as important to tell the prospect what that purpose is. 

The Call to Action (CTA) is really a part of the body (the final sentence or two in actuality), however it is so important that we get it right that we need to spend a little more time getting it right. 

A common theme that I have banged on about throughout this article is that you have to stay consistent in what you are saying and asking. The CTA must relate to the body of the email. 

Also, you can only as the prospect to do one thing. Not click a link and give feedback. Not click a link and then enter their email to book a meeting. Remove as much friction as possible and make it so they only have to do one simple thing. 

What is one thing: replying if they are interested. Keep it that simple. 

Another area where people get tripped up is when they are not clear enough. Again, remove all the friction from the prospect. Don’t use jargon. 

If you confuse, you lose. So ensure that the prospect knows exactly what they need to do. 

The final step is to make sure that it is easy. This may seem like a simple step, but the number of times I have seen the CTA ask for me to go way out of my way in a cold email is staggering. 

Don’t overlook your Call to Action because it is an area where people let off the gas and get quite sloppy. 

6. Signature 

The last step is to make sure you have an up to date signature. 

Believe it or not, people will click on your signature more than you think they do. Especially if they are interested. So it is important to make the most out of this real estate. 

Your signature doesn’t have to be fancy, but it does have to be complete. Name, position, website, address and email.

People tend to not put their email in their signature, but I find that the actual email address gets lost if messages have been forwarded or truncated. The messages will have your name but not the email address, so adding it to the signature solves that problem. 

Also have an address, it makes the business instantly look more legitimate. It is a quick win on the authority front. 

You can also add a link to a case study or the about section on your website or even your LinkedIn profile link. Since you are just passively putting it there, if a prospect clicks on it, then that is a plus. It is ok to put your information out there and let them decide if they want to research you more. 

There are plenty of free or cheap signature generators out there. Use one and if you get one of the fancier ones, you can even track the clicks.  

Putting it all together

I feel that I have just thrown a lot at you. 

To make it a bit easier I have made a Cold Email Framework Canvas that you can download here. 

It is free and you don’t have to give me an email address or anything. Click the link and download the PDF. 

In a following article I will go through this step by step so you can see how it works, though it is self-explanatory (especially if you follow along with the article). That said, feel free to reach out if there are any questions. 

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We have a lot more advice over at Pretty Good Cold Emails if you are interested in learning more or if you need help with your next cold email campaign.