How to Write Cold Emails that Get Responses [+ Free Template] | Swareena
Cold Emails are important for you if you are a Copywriter, Small Business owner or Freelancer. Writing a cold Email that gets responses to your Business leads is one of the most important parts of your business development strategy.
In case you don’t understand what a Cold Email is, let me give you an idea.
You have a list of leads for your business services/ products and you want to establish a point of contact with them and get them on a call with you. These people don’t know who you are and haven’t warmed up to your brand. Hence the word Cold Email.
Cold Email is the first-ever contact you establish with your leads to convert them into a prospect.
This is why writing an effective Email is essential because it not only determines how they will respond but also how they will perceive your brand.
Understand that the objective of cold Email is to get a response and move to the next stage of the sales funnel, not to make a sale. So don’t try to make a sale here.
Feeling Overwhelmed?
Don’t worry, I will walk you through a step to step guide for writing a Cold Email that gets responses. Also, at the end of the article, you will find a Free Template that you can download and use.
So when we talk about getting a response for cold mail, these are 3 obstacles involved
- Getting your Email opened
- Getting them to read the entire Email
- Getting them to respond
So let’s Dive into each of these factors.
How to get Good Email Open rates
How to Write Emails that prospect reads
How to write an email that gets a response
1. How to get Good Cold Email Open Rates
The first challenge of writing a cold email that gets a response is getting the email read by the recipient.
I want you to go in your inbox right now and we will figure out how to overcome this challenge.
This is my inbox for example:-
Now I want you to think.. Which of the emails in your Inbox will you open?
These will be the ones that will catch your attention.
If your Email is able to catch their attention and hold it in the sea of the emails in Inbox you have won this battle
So what are the ways to catch someone’s attention when they are looking in their Inbox?
Sender Name
People are more likely to open an email if it is sent by someone they know. However, when you are writing a cold email you lose this advantage. But you should always use a formal and proper name for your Email Account and it should preferably be your name.
Subject Line
The next step is writing an attention-grabbing but informative Subject line.
45% of subscribers say they are likely to read your email because of who it’s from, and 33% of email recipients open an email based on the subject line.
Here is a List of Spam Trigger Words
Your subject line should be written in a way that not only informs the reader of the internet clearly but also does so in a unique attention-grabbing manner. There are some tricks that copywriters use to do so.
Warning- Do not use words like FREE, act Act Now and other spammy words in the subject. These are called Spam trigger words. Gmail’s algorithm is smart and it may automatically mark you spam. Also, avoid excessive capitalization of letters.
Use Attachments to get more space.
Open us your Inbox right now and find a mail with an attachment. See how much space the email takes as compared to other emails?
This is a powerful way to get attention.
So what can you attach with the Email?
Anything that provides more context to the mail.
It can be a CV, Portfolio, report or you could even attach a logo of your brand. Avoid sending spam attachments.
In one of my Cold Emails, I sent the prospect a Sample strategy I had for their brand. The Email worked wonders and got me a call back within 3 hours of sending the mail.
Tip- Make sure to use the right file formats ( preferably PDF). Most of your Emails will be read on Mobile and to make sure that the attachment is readable, use PDF format or PNG format.
Also properly name your file and give some content. A file named 12345.pdf will look suspicious. Instead name it: yourname_portfolio.pdf
Time of Sending
This one might be a little unexpected but makes a lot of difference. When sending an Email you have to think about when will the person open their Inbox.
This is due to an Effect called- Serial position effect.
The Serial-position effect is the tendency of a person to recall the first and last items in a series best, and the middle items worst.
People are more likely to remember the content they see in the beginning and end. Now you want your email to land in the first few lines when people open the Email. This means your email needs to reach them near the time they may open their inbox.
So while sending the email consider this fact. When sending an email to a company mail/ work mail, send it between 7 am to 3 pm. This is the time people are around the inbox.
However, if your service is B2C and you are sending it to a personal email you can send it a bit later too (as people check their personal Inboxes at any time of day).
2. How to Write Cold Emails that prospects Read
Now that you have convinced the recipient to open the Email, it’s time to engage them and make them read the entire mail till the end.
To do so let’s look into these my 4 S of Super Content.
Also Read- My 6 Step Framework for Content Marketing Strategy
2.1 Structure
When you write the contents of your Email, they should have a proper structure and format. It should look like a well thought out Cold Email. This means having an Introduction, Body, Conclusion and CTA.
In your introduction, you have to mention who you are and why you have written this Email. Also mention how you got their Email id. This will provide assurance that the email is not spam. All this should not be more than 3 lines, keep it short. (We will get in full introduction later)
Your body should be the main content of the Email (more on this later)
Your Conclusion should have how you can help them and have a Call to action.
You will find a Cold Email template at the end of this Article. Feel free to use it, but for now Focus.
All this should come in a natural flow that is not only readable but understandable.
Make sure to align your content body (left alignment).
2.2 Skimmable
According to a study from the Webdam, only about 20% of people actually read the content during an average visit. And of those people, only read about 28% of the content before bouncing.
This means if your content is not Skimmable then it won’t be read. Period.
So how to make your content skimmable.
Rule 1 — Use Short paragraphs. I want you to pay attention to this article. If you are reading this now I have managed to get to read (sorry, skim through) about 50% of the content. One thing you will notice is that nowhere have I written a paragraph that is longer than 4 sentences.
This is because people don’t like to read long blocks of content.
Additionally, add Images in between to provide text break and break the flow.
Rule 2- Format your Content
Use text formatters like Bold, Italics and underline to highlight important parts of the email.
Also, use lists and bullet points to add more structure.
2.3 Standing out
Your content should stand out in the eyes of the reader at first glance. Formatting your content gives an impression that you actually have put time into the Email and hence stand out automatically.
To power this up you can use one more trick.
Use a lot of Relevant links in the Email (focus on relevant).
Also called the Link-Ink technique. Use published links in your content that provide some form of credibility or content to your content.
So when you are writing a Cold Email, you can give links to your Social media profiles, Linked in profiles, Work samples, special mentions, reviews etc.
Do not use spam links as this will lower your credibility. These links should provide some value and some content to the rest of the email. Also, these links should be spread out throughout the email body in a uniform manner. Otherwise, it will look spammy.
2.4 Service
This is the most important part of an Email and any content piece for that matter.
Your Email should provide some actual value to the reader. Even if you are writing a cold email to pitch your service, your email in itself should give them some form of value.
To do this I follow a template which I have attached at the end of the Article. You can download it and use it.
Let’s understand how to do this.
Once you have written your Introduction which includes:-
- Who you are
- What you do
- Why you wrote the Email
- How you got the Email-id
.. It’s time to get into the body part.
3. How to write a cold email that gets a response from the Reader
Getting a response from the reader is the last hurdle of the Cold Email and it all depends on the strength of your CTA. However, it also depends on how you have pitched your services.
I personally use this format to do so.
Precise Praise
After you have given an introduction as stated above, it is time to talk about them.
No one wants to read about you indefinitely until they know how you can benefit them.
So start by a Precise Praise
True to its name it is praise but it has to be precise. Don’t take the lazy route and say “I liked your website..etc”. Go in-depth and talk about something that you actually like.
This means you will have to do some research on them beforehand.
Your Precise should be something like:-
“ I was scrolling through your Instagram profile and I noticed that you have talked about (some topic) and I really appreciate you for that. It is amazing that people like you’re working on causes like this. “
The point is that this praise should sound very personal and precise.
Also take time to talk about what you understand about their brand in general.
Demand Generation
Now that you have talked about their brand it’s time to generate demand for your services before even pitching them.
There are 2 ways to do this depending on the company.
Either find a problem they face and give a solution or Give them a vision and the roadmap to reach there.
Needless to say, these problems and vision should align with your services/product.
For example;-
“I notice that your Website is not getting enough visitors and you have 0 backlinks. If you want to make the best out of the website you should consider creating a solid Content Marketing strategy and off-page SEO strategy. “
Chances are that the brand is already aware that why they need this will work but do take time to talk about it.
Make sure to provide some reason as to why the solution will work by providing some case study or statistics.
Supply
Now that demand is created and they know why they need the solution, it’s time to pitch the solution i.e Your service/ product and you.
Start by giving an introduction of who you are and talk about What you do and a brief about your service. Talk about your credibility, attach links in the email that creates credibility. Add branded images and sample work.
Give them links to your social media handles and website.
Fill in the Gap
Now that you have talked about their needs and your Services, it’s time to fill the gap between the Problem and the Solution with You.
Talk about how your services will fill their needs and gaps in their business. This all boils down to writing a Value Proposition. Your Value proposition is the value to provide to your customers and it links to your Unique selling point. This is a huge part of your Branding activity.
A Taste of your Service
This is the part where you let them know your actual work style. You may have attached your work sample already but with this step, you have to show them how well you will work with their brand.
You have already done a brand analysis at this point. So, prepare a small report of the issues, opportunities and ideas you have for them. Do not break much sweat on this at this point.
Just take a note of small points and write them down.
Keep it simple. Mention the fact that since you don’t have all the data you can not give a thorough the report but give your 2 cents.
Closing and CTA
At this point, if you have all things right, the recipient wants to get in touch with you. This is the point when you bring it all together. Wrap up the whole thing together in a few lines and then the CTA.
Remember that the whole point of writing a Cold Email is to get a Response.
So writing this CTA right is the Key.
What to mention in the CTA?
Simple.
Tell them how they should contact you.
Tip:- Be very specific with the CTA. Don’t just write “Respond to the Mail”.
Consider the following.
“Reply to this Email with your Contact number”
“Send an email to [email protected] “
“Whatsapp at xxxxxxxxx”
Why is a signature important in Email?
In addition, give them alternatives by mentioning all other spaces they can reach out to you.
Add your Social Media handles too.
Signature
The point is that with this you can establish yourself as professional and as a proper brand.
You can be as crazy as you want with a signature and add a properly designed Image there, or you can simply use text ( which is what I do).
This is what my signature looks like.
I know.. I know it’s a long drawn out process but doing your due diligence and writing a proper Cold Email will increase your chances of conversion and you will actually end up saving a lot of time in the long run.
Get on a Consultation call with me.
Now as promised Here is the Cold- Email template for you to download and use for FREE.
Remember to add your own personality elements to it and brand it for yourself.
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Originally published at https://swareenaaggarwal.com on March 17, 2021.