Let me guess, you sent another cold email campaign and you got only one or two responses. Well, you’re in luck because in this article, we’re going to help solve that problem going forward. Today, I’m going to share my favorite cold emailing strategy that will help you get opened and responded to.
First, I’ll give you the goods by sharing the template with you. Then I’ll break down why the template is so effective and how you might use it. And then we’ll wrap things up by talking about how you might scale this template in your own cold emailing efforts.
Over the years, I’ve tested this template multiple times and consistently gotten over 50% open rates with some campaigns going upwards of 90% open rates. And my response rates are consistently at least 15 to 20%. This cold email template is super helpful because if you apply it correctly, you will open up new opportunities for yourself in terms of both your career and your connections.
The cold e-mail template
First, let’s go over the email template that we’re going to use. This template is super effective and we’ll break that down after we introduce it. To get things started, let’s look at our subject line. I like to use something simple, like quick question for you, or a quick question about XYZ or three ideas for you.
You can use your own subject line if you’d like. But the key thing here is that your subject line is short and sweet. And if possible, that it’s personalized to the recipient. From here, you’re going to want to address the person. I like to just say, Hey or hi, and then the the person’s name. And then after that, I add a comma and then I include a single personalized line that is targeted towards the recipient of my email.
The key to a great personalized line is making abundantly clear that this person is the only person in the world that you could have possibly emailed this particular message to. After this line, create a line break and then state in the next sentence the reason for your outreach, as well as a brief introduction to yourself.
Once you get your introduction out of the way, and you start to talk about why you’re reaching out to them, you want to think about how to position that sentence around why it’s beneficial for them to engage with you, as opposed to just centering that sentence around you. Finally, you’re going to want to make your single ask.
Typically, I like to ask for a meeting via call or virtual conference. That being said, you could potentially try to add them to a pre-launch list or get introduced to somebody else they know. The world is your oyster when it comes to your ask. Finally, you’re going to want to sign off with your name.
Now that we have a basic understanding of this template, let’s go over how you might customize this to a particular message that you would cold email to somebody you want to get in touch with. Here’s an example I came up with.
For my subject line, I’m going to use quick question for you then for our body sentence. I’m going to say something along the lines of, “Hey Ally, just watched your YouTube on how to run a competitive analysis on SEMRush and loved how detailed you were in applying filters in your process. I always think this is overlooked by fellow digital marketers. I’m Will and I teach digital marketing as well. I’m working on a new SEMRush video series with other marketers and thought you’d be a good fit. This would give you an opportunity to continue building your authority around SEMrush. Do you have time for a quick call about a collab this week or next? Will.”
In this short email, I’ve made it really clear to Ally that she is the only person in the world that could be possibly receiving this email. And I’ve also made it clear who I am and why I’m reaching out. I have a really clear ask which is to jump on a call, to talk about a potential collab opportunity. And I leave the door open in terms of schedule flexibility to make things work on her end.
Why this template?
The main reason why it’s so powerful is because it cuts through the noise. We make it abundantly clear from the get-go that this person is the only possible person that we are emailing at this time about this particular message. So what this makes it easy for the person to do is quickly decide as to whether or not the ask that we’re asking is relevant to them. And if they want to engage with us.
Furthermore, because we have a call-to-action that is so simple and very clear, it’s super easy for the recipient of that email to quickly respond and be like, “yes, I’m into it”, or “no, I’m not into your email”. Making it easy for the recipient to engage with you is a key to breaking through the noise of busy people’s inboxes. You also noticed that in our email, we don’t include additional links where external resources that we’re attaching to our email, which makes it more likely for our email to be delivered to every single inbox that we’re cold emailing.
Typically, when you have a ton of links or pictures or HTML, your email will have a higher probability of ending up in the spam filter of your recipient. You also notice that with this template, we’re really emphasizing engagement within this email. Everything comes down to just that simple ask at the end as to whether or not Ally would be open to hopping on a call with us.
Lastly, if you think about the nature of this email, this is the sort of email that you’d send to a friend or even a loose acquaintance of yours. It’s something that’s friendly, it’s upbeat, and it’s super clear why we’re reaching out and what is in it for both people here. So the important takeaway here is keep your emails super personalized, where it feels like you’re emailing a friend and make your asks super clear and super easy to engage with.
How can you use this email template?
Now that we understand why this template is so effective, let’s break down how we might use this template for a ton of different purposes. Here are seven quick wins that you can start experiencing today by using this cold email template.
The first thing you can do is you can connect with interesting people. So for example, if you were to read an interesting blog article and you wanted to get in touch with that blog author, you might find it valuable to cold email them and attempt to connect with them. And from there, you might have been able to connect with somebody that you wouldn’t have otherwise connected with.
You can also use this cold email template to land a new job. I’ve literally used this template to land job offers or consulting gig opportunities in the past. All I have to do is send out a quick email that uses the subject line, like Three Ideas For You. And then I share to the business owner different ideas, and then I offer to hop on a call with them to talk more about my ideas.
That leads us to the third way you can use this template, which is to get new clients. If you’re struggling to get new clients, you’ll find that personalized cold emails are a great way to expand your pipeline. Another way you might use this template is to form partnerships with different brands or companies. Maybe you want to put together a webinar of panelists or just get some sponsored opportunities for your personal brand.
The fifth way you can use this template is to build a pre-launch list. Whether you’re building an app, a service, a business, or a side hustle, you’ll find this templates would be super helpful in building hype and excitement around what you’re building. You might also use this template to get early customer feedback. Perhaps you’re building your first digital product after applying the things we went over in our recent articles, and you’re just trying to get some early feedback from your core audience to figure out if you’re on the right track. And lastly, you might use this cold email template to reconnect with old acquaintances that you’ve lost touch with.
Honestly, the possibilities are endless with this template and the reason why I love it is because it is so flexible. In just the last year alone, I’ve used this to build collaboration opportunities with other creators, meet new people that I wouldn’t have otherwise met, get digital marketing gigs as well as job offers. The list goes on and on.
I can tell you with a high degree of confidence that if you consistently use this template, you will see results. Just try sending three cold emails every single day for two weeks straight.
How to scale this approach?
The last thing we should go over is how can we possibly scale this approach to cold email? The easiest way to do so is with any mail merge software. So if you’re sending out of Gmail, for example, you’re going to want to use a service like GMass, MailShare or Yesware in order to help you send in bulk. When you start scaling this approach, you’re going to want to build out a series of spreadsheets that has the first name of the person, their email, as well as the personalized first line that you want to send them.
Big takeaways
There are two things I want you to remember from this article:
- The first one is make sure you’re always personalizing, personalizing, and personalizing. The main way that you break through the noise in today’s digital age is making sure that it’s really clear to your recipient, that they are the only person on the other end receiving this sort of email from you. You can ultimately have the same sort of core asking your cold email campaign, but you have to make it really clear and your personalized sentence specifically why they are not just another number in your list.
- The second thing to keep in mind is to keep things really, really simple. You’ll notice that in this email template, we aren’t including any external links, pictures, attachments, or anything like that. By keeping things simple and having a single ask, we are encouraging the person to respond and making it easy for someone that’s really busy to respond to our email.
If you found this article helpful, be sure to check out my YouTube channel to get new videos every single week. I’ll help take you from zero to self-starter as you grow your business, get more customers, and hone your business acumen. Also, feel free to share this with anybody that you think might also benefit from learning how to write cold emails that always get read.