Cold Emails that Disarm and Delight

One of the best ways to disarm people is to get them to laugh, but that doesn't always mean telling a "joke."

A better kind of laugh than a "ha-ha funny" laugh is the kind of laugh you get when the person has hit a chord and revealed something about you that you thought was a secret.

Great comedians do this all the time. We laugh because "we know it's true" even though we'll never say it out loud. The comedian now has control of the rest of his set because the audience feels like he gets them even though they haven't met.

That's what you need to do in your cold emails.

In our training yesterday for Nerdwise clients, our email automation and prospecting partner, we went through the Science Behind Why People REALLY Buy and reconstructed their cold emails to get more responses.

We talked about making sure you identify the problem and how your prospects are feeling about the problem (without making them feel worse) before you launch into a solution.

One attendee was in cybersecurity so we used him as an example. Now, before this exercise, he would email his prospects talking about how they "Align the technology with their business goals and best practices to prevent data loss and security breaches."

BORING!

When we dove into how his clients feel when they call him, he came up with the word "embarrassed." They are embarrassed that they clicked on an email they weren't supposed to and downloaded a virus. They feel dumb cause they have guidelines in place of what not to open. And this embarrassment even prevents them from reaching out because they're hoping the issue will just go away or not be as bad as they imagine.

So here's what we came up with:

SUBJECT: [Save this email]

(the subject line has to get them to open the email, almost like "ethical clickbait," but also relevant to what's inside so they can actually read the thing and you can help them)

Hi Joe,

OPENER: I jumped onto your LinkedIn and noticed we're both in the Sales for Geniuses group - are you getting value from it? I'm really just there for the memes which always make my day.

PROBLEM: I'm sending this email with my info so you can save it in the off chance you open one of those highly suspicious attachments that you know you're not supposed to click on but do by accident and download a virus that wipes out your company data - or worse snags it and sells it to some foreign enemy who will harass your clients with robocalls all day to get into their bank accounts.

FACT: And when that happens, don't be embarrassed, because even with the best protocols in place, 90% of our clients run into this problem themselves and I can tell you that the correlation of people who download viruses is in no way correlated to your IQ - we all make mistakes. Give me a call and we'll see how we can clean it up.

SOLUTION: AND, in case you'd like to prevent the scenario from EVER happening so you can go home for the weekend or on vacation and not have to worry about a data breach, next week we're doing complimentary consults where we'll check for holes in your current digital fortress so none of those nasty critters get through.

CTA: Let me know if you'd like to take me up on that offer and we'll schedule a date.

Have a great day!

Jessica

OK- try it for your emails!

Originally posted on https://www.jpmpartners.com/blog/cold-emails-that-disarm-and-delight