Cold emailing is an effective strategy for reaching potential clients and generating leads. However, it requires a well-crafted message to stand out in crowded inboxes and elicit responses. Here are some top tips for writing cold emails that get noticed and drive engagement:
Start with a Catchy Subject Line
The subject line is the first impression your email makes, so it should be intriguing and directly related to the content of your message. Avoid clickbait and instead focus on personalization and clarity. A good subject line should include:
Personalization: Mention the recipient's name or company to show relevance.
Urgency or curiosity: Ask questions like, “Are you Struggling with [pain point]? We’ve got a solution”
Straightforward offers: e.g., “Boost [company name]’s revenue with these 3 steps”
Personalize Your Email Content
Personalization goes beyond including the recipient's name. To demonstrate that you've done your homework, reference specific details about their business, role, or industry. Mention a recent company achievement or address a unique pain point in their situation. Personalized emails significantly increase response rates because they feel more genuine and relevant.
Keep It Short and to the Point
Your cold email should quickly communicate its value to the prospect. Avoid long-winded introductions or overly complex explanations. Aim for no more than 60-120 words per email, ensuring every sentence provides value or context. The goal is to be concise while giving enough information to pique the recipient's interest.
Include a Strong Call-to-Action (CTA)
Every cold email should have a clear and achievable CTA. Whether scheduling a call, downloading a resource, or visiting a webpage, ensure it’s the natural next step after reading your email. Avoid overwhelming the reader with multiple requests; stick to one CTA per email to avoid confusion.
Focus on the Problems, Not the Features
Prospects want to know how your product or service can help them solve problems. Rather than listing features, reframe your message to emphasize the benefits.
For example, instead of, “Our tool tracks expenses,” you can write, “Our tool saves you 5 hours a week by automating expense tracking, allowing you to focus on scaling your business."
Use Social Proof and Value Offerings
Incorporate testimonials, case studies, or specific metrics demonstrating your success with similar clients. Social proof establishes credibility and can persuade recipients to engage with your email. To encourage responses, you can also offer value upfront, such as an eBook, a whitepaper, or a free trial.
Write a Short Follow Up
Outreachly allows you to send additional emails in the same thread as the original email. This brings the original email to the top of the Inbox and gives your prospect a gently nudge. We recommend sending no more than 2 emails in a thread - and our best-performing email for replies when used in a thread is:
"What are your thoughts, {FirstName}?"
This works on LinkedIn too!
Optimize for Deliverability
Before you send out your cold email, please make sure your sending domain and email address are correctly set up and warmed up to avoid landing in the spam folder. Outreachly offers a managed domain and email warm-up service to help maintain high deliverability rates.
By adding multiple email accounts to Outreachly, you can limit the maximum number of emails sent per account to 50 using the automatic email rotation. This mimics natural human behavior and avoids spam traps.
🚀Success! By implementing these strategies, you can improve the performance of your cold email campaigns, build stronger connections, and ultimately convert more prospects into clients.