Cold Email Done Right
Why cold email is here to stay, what people get wrong and how to do it right.
For all the talk of Slack, Zoom, LinkedIn and all else in-between, businesses tend to stick to their guns. Change is hard and no one likes to make a wrong technology purchase.
That’s why email has and continues to be the primary method of business communication. And it’s not going away.
(Sidebar: Email’s ubiquity, shared understanding and crucial presence in “connecting” the web makes it irreplaceable in my humble opinion.)
In sales, email serves an even greater function: the creation of opportunity.
A cold email can start a conversation, share a story or lead to new business. All by typing a few lines, hitting send and getting a reply.
When you step back and think about, a thoughtful cold email is powerful tool. Where both sender and receiver are better for it. Considering the time investment is small, the results can be exponentially large.
Bought in? Let’s take a look at one reason why cold emails fall flat and what “good” looks like.
Sales teams, aiming for quick personalization at scale, have taken to wrapping personalization around an unappealing offering. Emails that mostly focus on the sender, contain too much product info and don’t offer real value. I like to call these kind of messages the “Tasty Bun, Bad Patty” email.
What it looks like is this: a salesperson personalizes the beginning and the end of an email to a potential buyer, but the disregards the middle. The buyer is left with a super tasty (in this case, brioche) bun on the outside and day old lettuce, a slice of bologna and no condiments on the inside.
It sounds upsetting and believe me, it is.
All because salespeople often fail to personalize, make relevant, what truly matters in any great sandwich: what’s on the inside.
Put another way, the person eating the sandwich only gets to choose the bread and someone else is picking the meat, cheese and condiments.
The point is this: the entire sandwich, top to bottom, needs to be to the liking of the person that eats it.
The Tasty Bun, Bad Patty email is not something salespeople should be aiming for.
A cold email should ideally be trying to serve up a burger exactly how a potential client likes it (everything on it, including tomatoes and pickles).
Now, there’s a multitude of approaches to cold outreach meaning it’s okay to experiment. Regardless of format, there’s some things that remain consistent (a sender, a receiver, an aim) across successful outbound emails.
Here they are:
Relevance: Being timely and relevant is the new attention grabbing.
Everyone and everything is trying to get your prospect’s attention. It means much more to deliver a message as it’s needed.
Relevance allows your prospect to connect the dots, as we’re all constantly trying to pattern match in a world of unlimited information. Deliver a message related to what they’re currently working on, an interest of theirs, something happening in their industry, or most importantly, their world.
Accessible: This takes into account how easily your message can be consumed and acted upon. Things such as what it reads like, visual appeal and how it appears in different formats.
Readability is key, as wordy or hard-to-read messages get filed away to never be seen again. Always err on the side of short and clear messaging, leaving out long words or phrases.
Meet your prospect where there are (which is quite often their mobile device) ensuring the message suits the context. Save the fancy design and multiple links for those reading on desktop.
Value to the Receiver: This should be a given but it doesn’t always show up in a message. Here it is put another way:
What’s in it for them?
The goal is to provide something of value to the receiver that they feel so inclined to give something back (the principle of reciprocity). Whether it be time for a call, a referral, feedback, sharing their content, etc.
It can sometimes be difficult to discern what exactly someone may value, but pay attention to what they say about themselves and how they say it (i.e. “I’m a 2nd degree black belt and love to coach kids on the basics of the support”).
Clear Ask: Now that the prospect got the message, what should they be doing with it? Be clear, to the point and leave little room for ambiguity when making the ask.
That’s not to say there aren’t other options or ways to respond. If the your potential client feels compelled to respond but prefers a different option, they will let you know.
The ask should be specific and as low friction as possible. Aim for the small win and go higher from there.
How can you better tweak your cold outreach?
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