TL;DR

1. Each line of a cold email must persuade the reader to read the next
2. Put yourself in your recipient's shoes
3. Get to the point... quickly
4. Do your home work & personalize
5. Put all contact info in your signature
6. Get a calendar scheduling app - so that they can can get in touch with you
7. Close with a question
8. Track opens and click throughs

There are 124.5 billion business emails being sent every day,

which means that yours make up a tiny portion of the millions of pitches making their way into inboxes around the world. To make matters worse, 73% of executives favour working with professionals that have been referred to them by someone they already know, even if they don’t designate the received email as spam.

Be Careful About:

• Violating country specific SPAM laws - make sure to craft your email, and importantly execute it an manner that does not cross the line.
• You have no prior relationship with the potential customer, making it difficult to establish trust and build a relationship
• Unless written well, cold emails can seem spammy, or at the very least, like a waste of time or a desperate attempt to make a sale
• Non-verbal communication and visual cues are impossible to monitor, skills which good sales people rely on to adapt their message on the fly

Is There A Difference Between Cold Emailing and Spamming?

Spam emailing is a type of advertising that is unsolicited and sent in bulk, with the aim to sell or swindle the recipient. The contact details of the recipients may be sourced from public lists, programs and often less legitimate means like spambots, scrapes of web content and the contents of the emails range from selling bad products, offering a dodgy business opportunities or spreading malware and other suspicious material. Spam is usually sent from a fake profile, offers no opt-out option and unlike a well-crafted cold email, is not a genuine attempt to form a partnership in good faith.

This is spam

Would you like to be clearer about how to use social media to build your tribe?

Want to understand how to give your customers the kind of content they crave?

Then book your seat and come and talk with some humans who have a bunch of insights, advice and tactics you’ll love and questions that you’d like answered.

Morning tea and coffee provided

Click this link to register Cold outreach is more nuanced. Well performed it is highly personalized, not sent in a bulk fashion, tries to initiate a response and a relationship rather than an immediate call to action sale. Spammers don't have this sort of patience. Cold outreach pros will want to build rapport with you over several emails, maybe jump on a call, understand your business. Do likewise.Cold outreach tips:

• Spend the time to understand your prospect
• Show them you know them - reference several tweets, blog posts and show how they have influenced you
• Your first email should not be more than 2-3 lines
• Try and be truly useful and solve a problem that is specific to the person you are approaching
• End with a question
• Do not include links in your first outreach
• Run the email header analyzer to make sure your meet the email security compliances and your email domain looks credible.

This is bad outreach

Hey,
In one word, cogsworth.com is “Awesome”. I found many useful articles published on your site.

I’m Suzy and I have been blogging about online businesses and entrepreneurship for the last 8 years.
My articles have been featured on important websites like Entrepreneur.com, NBC News, Huffington Post and more.

The reason I am reaching out is to ask if you are accepting new guest contributors on your blog.
Do you?  I would love to share some useful and well-researched articles with your audience.

These are some examples of posts I’ve published:

[LINKS TO ARTICLES HE’S WRITTEN]

If you would be kind to accept me as a contributor,I’ll send some topic suggestions.
I can cover topics about online businesses,entrepreneurship and online marketing.

Let me know.

This is OK outreach

Hi,
I'm Bryan.
I'm a huge fan of Cogsworth, especially like your 2 way
Google Calendar sync functionality.
I have worked with companies like Kissmetrics and makeweekly videos for their
blogs that are published on their site [link to site].

Just wanted to email you and see if Cogsworth might be interested in such articles.
I made a demo for you to show you what this might look like [link].

Is this something you are interested in?

Bryan

This is better outreach

Hey [First Name],

I saw you on Yelp and was impressed by your 4-star rating for home care.

We help home care businesses increase revenue by 50%.

Love to send you our top 10 ways to do that.

Are you the best person to pass this information over to?

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

This is good outreach

Good morning Boris,

I heard about your from Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt (I'd written a comparison guide for PH earlier this year).
I just noticed your blog on growth hacks for appointments.

I'd love to do a guest post for you about content growth marketing and wanted to reach out and pitch it to you myself.
I have an outline drawn up, and would love to get your thoughts on it.

Would this make a good post for Coggy?

Best,

Simon
‍

‍What makes the above outreach good?

• It leads with an indication of timezone - so the reader knows that it was sent recently
• Obviously personalized
• Credible recommendation and reference source
• Shows research done on the product
• Offers value without asking for too much in return
• Appeals to ego
• Nice and terse

Overcoming the Skeptics

It’s vital you establish your legitimacy, grab their attention and demonstrate an understanding of their biggest business problem quickly.

77% of sales emails aren’t actually opened, and even if you do have a prior relationship with the person in question, a staggering 57% of recipients consider an email to be spam if the topic doesn’t seem relevant to their business.

To mitigate these problems, always:

• Get to the point and avoid generic and long-winded language
• Use your real, full name, as well as your professional title
• Send your emails from a business email address
• Include a professional signature that directs people to your website and other professional profiles. Cogsworth enables you to include a link to your available appointment times, making it super simple for your prospective customer to book in a time to find out more

The Must Knows

Do your research

‍Before you start cold emailing, it’s imperative to know your target market, understand their common problems, know how your product’s features will help them and know a little about the person you’re contacting, including their name, position and other relevant details. Having this information will enable you to craft a thoughtful, clear and genuine sounding email.

‍Stay on point

‍As you draft your email, keep three simple things in mind:
‍What are the client’s pain points? (identify their problems)
‍How does your product solve their problems? (articulate its key features)
‍How can they get started? (state the call to action)
‍Keep it clean Although you know how amazing your product is, unfortunately not everyone will see its value. Don’t earn yourself a bad reputation by harassing customers, and always offer an unsubscribe option and respect their decision to be removed from your contact list.
‍Get to the point Get to the point, be concise, don’t waste time with pleasantries and always remember: time is money!If you must add a link do it with class - in your signature

Believe in your product.. but prove it
‍It sounds corny, but in order to make someone love your product, you have to believe in it wholeheartedly, and confidently feel it can make a difference to your customer. If you don’t, your pitch will come across as superficial, and you should seriously consider if pursuing your idea is worth the time and money you’re no doubt investing into it.

Do you have stats, demos, free trials that you can use?

Don’t be lazy
‍Writing a carefully worded, compelling and impactful email is a time-consuming but non-negotiable endeavour. Don’t be tempted to get lazy and write a messy, bored or typo-riddled email. Be thoughtful or forget about it.

‍Don’t just rely on words
‍If you have images, videos, demonstrations and statistics about your product, use them just not straight away! Emails that include a variety of things are more compelling, and are an effective way to let your product speak for itself. Offer something.. and make it good! Your cold email shouldn’t include anything that sounds remotely like a favour (‘would you mind taking a look?’ for instance). In fact, you should view your pitch as a way to make your prospective customer’s life easier, so be sure to highlight that fact. Just be careful to avoid desperate calls to action that demand immediate activity, opting instead to suggest further discussion or a trial period. Your communication should always be genuine and real.

Why not give the person who is giving you their time, something for it? Free use of your system? A special status? Maybe an interview?

Make your call to action a question
Don't try and and get to home base on the first date. It takes time to build a relationship. Change your expectations to only start selling on the third or fourth correspondence. Whether it is an email or call.

Cold Email Template Subject line

‍33% of email readers choose to open an email based only on the subject line, so ensure that yours is compelling, straightforward and a teaser of what’s the come.

‍Greeting
‍Using someone’s name sounds far more legitimate than a generic greeting such as, ‘Dear sir’, so where possible, include it in your greeting.

‍Highlight the problem
‍Include statistics such as percentage of time wasted doing something a particular way, as well as examples of common pain points.

‍Offer a solution
‍Your product is the solution, so briefly explain what it is, how it solves the identified problem and where its point of difference lies.

‍Add additional parts
‍Include videos and images where appropriate.

‍Request some time
‍Use your Cogsworth link to make it easy to set up a time to talk.

‍Provide your contact details
‍Always include a professional signature with you contact details.

Safety in Numbers

Of course, even if you craft the perfect email that details how amazing your perfect product is, some people will simply not be interested in pursuing contact, so make sure to cast your net wide, and reach out to as many (relevant) people as possible.

‍Pro Tip: Try Sleeknote’s email marketing ROI calculator to determine how effective your marketing efforts really are.

Schedule Follow-ups

You may be using a tool that allows you to schedule follow-up emails, but if you’re sending out emails manually there’s no reason you can’t do the same. Your follow-up email should include a brief reference to your original communication, a request for further contact, as well as:

• A request that has a sense of urgency
• Assurances that you won’t contact them again if you don’t get a response

Pro Tip: Follow The Three P’s for best results - be Professional, Persistent and Purposeful

Embed Cogsworth into Your Signature

Cogsworth makes it easy to schedule appointments and takes the fuss out of the timely back and forth we all waste time with. Embed a link to Cogsworth in your signature and give prospective customers an easy way to get on board.