The Art of Cold Emails (That Work)
Googling ‘cold email templates’ will give you a slew of results, but the cold hard truth is that emails, especially those that are a first-touch, should never be a template. So how do you avoid the cold shoulder when it comes to sending emails to people you don’t exactly know? The key lies in one step -- personalization.
Know your target.Amazon has changed our lives irrevocably. You’re probably wondering what that has to do with cold emails and though it might seem irrelevant to the subject, there is certainly validity in the Amazon Effect and how it has changed our expectations of interactions with businesses. We demand personalization in everything. If Amazon’s bots can know precisely what kind of coffee I’m going to like, a human emailing me to ask for my business should at least know what my company does. That’s why personalization is critical to lead generation strategies. In fact, according to a study conducted by Fast Company, where they sent a whopping 1,000 cold emails out, the biggest differentiator in opens and responses to emails was personalization.
But if you haven’t met someone at a networking event and just have a company in mind, how do you figure out who to reach, let alone how to personalize an email? You’re most likely looking to reach out to C-suite executives at companies that match your ideal client. With 20+ best-in-class data partners, RelPro’s lead generation software and integrated Relationship Intelligence allows you to search over 7 million companies with contact information for more than 150 million key decision-makers. But to stand out, you need more than just names and numbers. You need to know your target. This is where RelPro’s data & workflow integration delivers, combining the most accurate contact information with leading sources of business intelligence. RelPro has partnered with VerticalIQ and IBISWorld to provide focused industry intelligence covering all the major sectors of the US Economy. You’ll learn trending topics for the industry, while also getting to know C-suite executives personally through RelPro Alerts.
Now, you have the contact information you need and an understanding of your target audience’s industry, along with personalized insights from RelPro Alerts. Often, cold emails are focused on getting C-suite executives to drink whatever we’re serving up. This means they’re frequently filled with bloated statistics that are of no use to them. As our friend Jack Hubbard at St. Meyer Hubbard says, “Your job is not to make the horse drink. Your job is to make the horse thirsty.”
The reality of cold emails is that they often are not very real. Even if you popped the person’s name in the greeting, it doesn’t mean it’s personalized. No C-suite executive is going to clap you on the back for knowing their first name. You need to show you have real knowledge of their industry and that you know them, and more importantly, you need to show them why they need you to help them. You must take it past the generic and show that you can and are ready to be a trusted advisor to them.
This might mean your first email doesn’t plug your company. Your first email might just be a congratulations letter about a recent accomplishment and a request to have a chat about it. Or, it might be a plug that speaks to that recent accomplishment. Perhaps, their company is expanding their product line. You might congratulate them and then go on to ask them about what their go-to-market strategy is. Another angle would be to talk to something happening in the industry and link to an article (like what you’d find with the help of VerticalIQ) and invite them to have a conversation -- but not about your product, just about what’s happening. The key to keeping it real is to incentivize your reader to respond-- to make them thirsty, as Jack would say.
All of this sounds good, but you really just came here for a template. Trash the template. Yes, you read that right. Instead, replace your template with a recipe. Your goal with this recipe is to make the reader know that you are writing to them, not just any CEO in (fill in the blank) industry.
Your recipe should like a little like this:
3 parts research (industry, company, personal)
Equal parts human connection (show them you know them)
1 part proper grammar (services like Grammarly make this easy)
Mix well to get: an intriguing subject line, engaging content, an impression as a trusted advisor (not just some salesperson), and, best of all, a response.
Oh, and one template kind of thing -- always end with a question.
Are you ready to take your lead generation strategies to the next level with accurate contact information and unparalleled business intelligence? Schedule a demo today.