Writing perfect cold outreach emails – Effective strategies and templates

The main factor behind any cold outreach email is intrigue – if your email cannot generate a sense of curiosity, it’s not going to work.  

Well, that shouldn’t have come off as a shock because when you’re sending cold outreach emails, it is to build connections with an individual or a company that you have no prior association or connection with. 

At this phase, the person isn’t even aware of your company, so you have to start from scratch and get them closer to the sales pipeline. 

Cold outreach emails can be completely hit-or-miss; what matters is how you approach the subject and increase the chance of converting them into customers. 

In 2020, the conversion rate of cold emails was 15.11%; hence it’s something you certainly can’t neglect. 

Moreover, 75% of surveyed executives are willing to make an appointment or attend an event based on a cold call or email alone. Now, this gives you an opportunity to capture and convert more leads by mastering the art of perfect cold outreach emails! 

What is cold outreach email? 

When we talk about the marketing strategies of salespeople and marketers, two terms come to mind – inbound marketing and outbound marketing. Inbound marketing is where the prospects make the first move and reach out to the company. 

Outbound marketing, on the other hand, is a traditional form of marketing that includes reaching to prospects via door-to-door selling, cold calls, advertisements and cold emails. 

Therefore, the emails with which we reach out to prospects in an email outreach campaign can be termed as – cold outreach emails.

You can execute a cold email strategy by building a list of potential clients and send them emails to grow your B2B network and capture more clients.Or, you can let professional blogger outreach services do the heavy lifting for you and enjoy the perks. 

Steps for writing the perfect cold outreach email 

As the cold email will be your company’s first impression, it’s essential to craft an effective email that’ll work in your favor. So, just follow these simple steps and start writing perfect cold outreach emails! 

1. Set measurable goals 

First off, you need to find out your exact goal and what you want to achieve through your cold email outreach campaign. Moreover, you must set measurable goals so you can track your performance and grow consistently.  

You also need to decide upon the KPIs to measure the level of the success of a campaign. So, here’s how you can set accurate goals for your campaign –  

• What’s the focus product/service that drives your cold outreach email campaign? 
• What is your target audience? Which B2B clients you’re approaching? 
• What’s the value proposition? 
• Find out the requirements of your prospects to stay relevant and target their pain points. 
• Find the perfect time to send the emails by tracking email clicks and opens with smart email tracking. 
• Ensure that you are using best cold email software to track every prospect and at which stage of the sales funnel they’re in. 

2. Build a targeted list and identify potential clients 

When you try to reach an entirely new section of people, it’s difficult to list down names or contacts that might be interested in what you’re offering. 

Therefore, it’s crucial to build a targeted list of potential clients that you can later reach out via cold outreach emails. 

You can easily identify your potential customers by learning about their challenges and requirements. The usage of social media has accelerated, so you can track the tweets or posts they share to identify their pain points and provide solutions. 

Moreover, studying the job adverts and descriptions of your prospects may also help you to learn about the prospect’s preferences. 

3. Write an intriguing cold outreach email 

Now comes the most crucial part – actually crafting a cold outreach email. 

You want your email to have a conversational tone, not robotic. After all, your main purpose is to get the prospects interested in your offer. Hence, keep the tone light and humanize the conversation rather than being all formal. 

Once you trigger the emotions with a personalized email copy, you’re more likely to get a revert from your prospect.  So, here’s how you can craft an effective cold outreach email –  

• Use compelling opening lines – A subject line will decide the fate of your email, literally. The decision of opening an email or whether or not to mark it as spam depends on the subject line, so it needs to be meaningful and to the point. 

Your subject line needs to be crisp, informative, relevant, and personalized. There are many variations when it comes to crafting a subject line, so you can test it out by performing A/B tests and find out which one is working best for your campaign.  

Lastly, ensure that your subject line is optimized for mobile users, so the message doesn’t get truncated. 

• Personalize the email – If you personalize your email content, you’re more likely to build a connection with your prospect. In fact, email personalization can increase your reply rate by 100%.  

• Get straight to the point – When you’re sending a cold outreach email, you don’t want to bore the prospect. So, ensure that your email content is precise.
• Use testimonials or feedbacks to gain trust – We all are aware that word of mouth is the best marketing strategy. Hence, if you can find a common client, you can use their testimonials to delight your prospects. 
• Include a professional email signature at the end – We often neglect this part and just sign off the email with our name. Well, there goes your chance to make a better impression! 

By adding a professional email signature containing your name, current position in your company, physical address, contact number, and the company’s website link, you can show your professionalism and leave a lasting impression on your prospect. 

4. Perform sanity check 

Many salespeople and marketers focus so much on perfecting the email content that they often forget about the last thorough check, which may affect your company’s reputation in front of prospects. So, here’s how you can ensure that the email is good to go. 

• See that your email content doesn’t contain any spam words or sentences. 
• Proofread the copy thoroughly to avoid embarrassing typos or errors. 
• Check the email tone – does it sound too casual? Or too formal?  
• Have you covered all the necessary points? 
• Make sure that the email is addressed to the right person or department. 
• ALWAYS remember to follow up! The cold email is just the beginning; there’s a long way to go, so keep following up. 

5. Use CTA at the right place 

CTAs are highly essential for every sales email, and more importantly for cold outreach emails. So you’ve impressed your prospect, now what?  

You need to trigger the actions using CTAs in the email body so your prospect can take the next step. Whether you’re offering a free demo, asking for a sign-up, selling a product, or just trying to schedule a meeting, ensure that you add relevant CTA at the end of your email body. 

Cold outreach email templates to generate leads 

Cold outreach email #1  

Hi [First Name], My name is ______ , and I am a marketing manager at (company name). Till now, we have helpd over 12000 businesses overcome (main challenge) with our automation software. [Add the USP of your company] Could you kindly connect me with the right person at your company so we can explore the opportunity and see how [Your company name] can assist you in handling the [challenges]. Thanks for your time, Your signature.

Cold outreach email #2 

Hello [First Name], We recently found out that a lot of [your competitor’s company] customers are facing issues like issue #1, issue #2, issue #3 since a couple of months. We know that these things can be irritating, so we’ve come up with the perfect solution! Our product is built to provide seamless user experience with high-end customer support and advanced features. If you’re available next week, our team can set up a meeting and we can enlighten you on why companies such as company #1, company #2, and company #3 moved from [competitor’s company] to our company. If you aren’t available next week, kindly let me know the best time to connect with you. Cheers, Your signature.

Cold outreach email #3

Hello [First Name], Did you know that an average sales person [ add a statistic about their pain point]? Is your sales team achieving the goals? [Add your company’s value proposition] If you’re looking to accelerate your sales like our clients [mention high-end client’s name] did, let’s connect for a quick 15-minute call later this week. Regards, Your signature.

Final Words

The outreach is an effective form to get the clients and leads from the market. The trend of cold outreach emails is still there and promises a high amount of ROI to marketers till date. With the minimum effort of sending emails, you can expect multiple leads. And this is only possible with outreaching through cold emails.