Cold Emailing: A Guide

Most salespeople suck at writing cold emails.

What we think is an award-winning template, destined to land them that elusive tier-one prospect, is, in fact, too long, too wordy, and completely self-centred. Often the email provides no compelling reason for the prospect to even open it, let alone engage and respond.

But is this surprising? Absolutely not.

Now, it may be hard to believe, but the ranks of sales are not flooded with experienced copywriters; in fact, many of us have little experience in writing aside from the occasional LinkedIn post.

This shouldn’t come as a shock. Sales is an extremely labour-intensive and time-sensitive profession. We’re expected to hit productivity metrics, but also, maintain a consistent flow of SQLs and deliver on revenue targets. This pressure often means that the investment of time needed to develop and hone this skill is overlooked. Instead, we focus on ‘busy work’ – casting an increasingly wide net and upping the volume of emails we send. Such an approach certainly makes us look productive but does little to address the underlying skills gap.

What’s needed here is serious practice and a serious investment of time. There’s no denying that prospecting in any form is a numbers game, but the returns are infinitely higher when quantity is paired with quality. This is true about any avenue of prospecting we choose to pursue. However, the reason this investment pays higher dividends for cold email than any other method can be summed up as follows: it’s both repeatable and scalable.

Unlike other methods of prospecting, once a sequence of well-crafted emails has been created, we can use marketing automation tools to take care of most of the initial outreach and follow-up. There is a limit on the number of people that we can call at one time, but with email, we can engage with hundreds of prospects simultaneously.

For this reason alone, it’s important to get cold email right. The first step in mastering cold email isn’t in the subject line or opening line, it’s effectively defining our Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

An ICP is a hypothetical description of a company that would stand to gain the most from our product or service. In determining who our ICP is, we’ll need to utilise both qualitative and quantitative analysis; we need to determine the shared attributes and traits that our company’s most valuable customers share. We want to be looking at firmographic, environmental, and behavioural attributes. As a starting point, we can use the following factors:

●????????Company size (number of employees, employee split by function, annual revenue etc.)

●????????Maturity

●????????Industry

●????????Geographic location

●????????What are their common pain points?

●????????How does our product or service uniquely address those pain points?

Answers to these first few questions can be found by analysing data from our CRM, ERP and other systems. Answers to the last two questions are best reached by interviewing key stakeholders – both within our organisation and within our customer base.

The next step, once we know the types of organisations that fall within our definition, is to look in more detail at the individuals within those organisations we wish to approach. This is where buyer personas come in. These are very similar in operation to an ICP, in that they are based on similar analysis and educated assumptions, but they relate to people. Again, as a starting point, we may want to consider the following factors:

●????????Job title

●????????Demographic

●????????Communication style and preference

●????????What are specific challenges and objectives associated with their role?

●????????What are the triggers that will make them look for a solution?

●????????What are their career goals and aspirations?

The factors listed above for forming both an ICP and our buyer personas are not exhaustive. In fact, there is no limit to the number of factors we might consider as important. In any case, by asking ourselves these questions, and establishing a firm definition of both our ICP and buyer personas (at least initially – given that they are likely to change over time) we have started to build a strong foundation of understanding of our target. This foundation will ultimately influence the subject matter of our cold emails; allowing us to deliver segmented, but more importantly, relevant content, to our desired audience. Think of it as reverse engineering our messaging from the viewpoint of our prospect.??

Along with relevancy, there are two other factors which are crucial in determining the success of our cold email campaigns: the accuracy of our contact information and the application of personalisation.

There’s nothing more frustrating than crafting a beautifully worded email, only to have it bounce. That’s why we need to make the accuracy of our contact information paramount. For most companies, the starting point for doing so is by investing in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. Platforms such as this allow us to categorise our data, and in tandem with validation tools, measure its accuracy prior to forming a campaign – saving both time and effort in the long run. Also, given that we are likely to receive leads from marketing, it is good practice to set firm standards with them as to what constitutes a valid lead from the offset (including the accuracy of the data).

Once we are satisfied that we have accurate contact information and that the company and individual(s) fall within our previously defined ICP and buyer persona(s), the next step is to personalise our cold email. But why? Why should we go to the extent of personalising our cold emails? Isn’t the work we’ve done so far enough?

Well, no, it’s not.

People are more than the company they work for and their job role; they are individuals with their own interests and motivations, and, if we strive to have our emails opened, read, and responded to, we need to appeal to them as an individual. The best way of doing so is through personalisation. At first, this may seem daunting. However, company websites, content pieces and LinkedIn profiles, are a great resource in helping us will this challenge; often they contain snippets of personal information we can use to refine our message and bridge the gap between a templated email and something much more bespoke. For example:

●????????Did you attend the same University? Reference it.

●????????Did their football team win at the weekend? Reference it.

●????????Did they write about a personal or professional achievement? Reference it.

The key in this approach is not to simply personalise for the sake of it. We need to employ some creativity in linking this personal touch back to our pitch. For example, let’s say we’re in the business of selling software designed to help manage sales teams. We could draw an analogy between our software, and the kind of tools that a football manager would use to get the most out of their players; with deals won amounting to goals scored. It doesn’t take much, but again, investing time in this way will deliver much better results than the typical spray and pray approach.

With regards to the time investment required, there is a balance to be struck when drafting cold emails of this kind. Largely it depends on the scale of our outreach. If we are targeting niche industries with a limited pool of prospects, it may well be that we personalise our cold emails to a much higher extent than if we were targeting a larger pool. In the end, it’s a value judgement. If we were executing at scale, it might be advisable to block out time to research our prospects at once, gather facts and come up with a personalised sentence for each – affecting a balance between time and potential payoff.

Those topics we have touched on, in terms of forming an ICP, buyer persona(s), good data practices and getting to grips with personalisation, are the foundations of writing a targeted, relevant, cold email. Now the subject matter will vary considerably depending on our target and what resonates with them. Nevertheless, there are five fundamental components to any cold email: the subject line, the opening line, the body, the call to action and the signature – let’s get into them.

Delivering our cold email is one thing, having it opened is another. That’s why it’s so important to nail the subject line. Without a subject line that appeals directly to the prospect, our email is likely to be deleted without being read. The purpose of the subject line is to be just intentionally vague enough to pique the curiosity of our prospects and have them open our email. It’s simple to understand, but often difficult to execute. There are, however, some guidelines we can employ to help us:

●????????Ask a relevant question.

●????????Keep it brief (below 50 characters).

●????????Avoid spammy language, excessive capitalisation and punctuation marks.?

●????????Personalise whenever possible – use their name, their company name, and reference something specific to them.

●????????Be creative and, above all else, continually A/B test and review (this goes for all elements of the cold email but is particularly relevant for subject lines).

Essentially, when forming a subject line, we want to put ourselves in the position of our prospect and ask the question “what would catch my attention?”

Once we’ve got that attention, we need to hold it, and that’s where our opening line comes in. Now, first things first, we need to ensure that the opening line relates back to our subject line, otherwise, the prospect will feel that we’ve tricked them. After we’ve done that, we can utilise the research we did beforehand to personalise our message and connect with them as an individual.

Next, we need to bridge the gap between the personalised start and the reason why we’re reaching out to them specifically. This can take many forms, but in essence, we need to show the prospect that we understand their pain points (or at least those commonly experienced by those in their position) and their real-life implications. We need to communicate this clearly and in language that will resonate with the prospect. How do we do that? Well, remember those customer interviews we did as a part of forming our ICP? What better way to express our understanding than to use the very language of our prospect’s peers?

After we’ve got their attention, kept it, and highlighted a source of pain, we now need to position ourselves (or our product) as a credible solution to that pain. This is essentially our elevator pitch. Now, we won’t go into the nuance of how to create an elevator pitch, suffice to say it should be a single, ultra-clear, sentence that sums up our offering and the benefits that the prospect can likely expect.?At this point, we should also provide some form of social proof to back up our claim and establish credibility; the simplest way of doing so would be to reference similar customers we’ve worked with and the results they’ve experienced (ROI).

What’s our following step? The call-to-action or CTA. The ask. As this blog relates strictly to cold email, specifically the first cold email that we are likely to send, the objective is to simply obtain a response. As such, the typical approach of trying to book some time in the prospect's calendar for a call is likely to be inappropriate and result in very low reply rates. We need a call-to-action that is simple, low resistance and plays to our prospect’s own interests.

Here are some practical tips to consider when forming your initial CTA:

●????????Don’t ask for time.

●????????Pose an open-ended question that gauges their interest.

●????????Ask for their opinion on recent development in their industry or role.

●????????Ask whether they would like to hear some insights and learnings you’ve gained from working with others in their space.

As always, make your call-to-action clear and concise – the prospect should be under no illusion as to what we are looking for in a response.

The last thing that we need to consider when creating cold emails is our signature. By and large, email signatures are one of the most neglected parts of any cold email, which is surprising considering their potential. Of course, we should include the basics, such as our name, company name and contact information, but we should also be utilising this space to further our message. Whether it’s linking to a relevant customer story, webinar recordings or awards that we’ve won, all this information only serves to solidify our credibility and standing with the prospect – and that’s never a bad thing.

This blog is by no means the authority about writing cold emails, but hopefully, we’ve covered enough to make a decent start. Ultimately, no email is ever perfect – at least not for long anyway. In pursuit of perfection, we shouldn’t shy away from exploring new creative ways of messaging, but we should approach it in such a way that we can monitor and measure its effectiveness. Without constant testing, tweaking and revision, our once perfect email will begin to become stale and ineffective. Overall, if you continually invest time in developing this skill, it’s likely to become one of the most profitable, least time-consuming, ways of winning more business.?