5 Cold Email Templates to Improve Your Response Rate
Today's newsletter is all about writing good emails.
You demanded examples of how I achieved a 95% open rate and 45% response rate.
Today you get 5 of them!
Reading time: 5 minutes
During the last quarter:
I sent 1000 emails over the last 3 months.
The numbers include inbound, outbound, internal, external, customers, prospects, partners and even co-workers
I got 450 replies from my outreach
As you can see my success rate is highly driven by quality, not quantity.
I believe every seller should learn how to create quality outreach FIRST before they scale to quantity.
To help you drastically improve your email QUALITY I have created
5 FREE Email templates that you can use and reuse
How To Write Good Emails
If you follow these 10 tips you are already in the top 1% of email writers out there.
Let's get more tactical. I'm giving you the 5 most common types of emails I write within my outbound sequence:
Painful Problem
Business Impact
Success Story
A/B Option
Friendly Stripline
Lets dive into them in more detail:
1. Painful Problem
I treat my prospects the same way I want to be treated. Which means: I don't spam them.
I also don't send automated Outreach or Salesloft cadences. Every email I write is written manual.
My first email is never about me or my product. It's 100% about the prospect.
For this I use my TPQ framework:
T - trigger: a visible signal that the prospect is in active buying mode or facing a business challenge I can help solve
P - problem statement: an assumption about the business challenge related to the trigger
Q - question: ask to validate the assumption, be curious, prompt a response & conversation
Like this this:
Subject: $5M Series A
Hey John,
Last week you raised a $5M series A with Sunrays. Congrats!
What we often see with other SaaS scale ups in Switzerland is that series A funding goes straight into hiring new go to market reps.
The challenge comes with onboarding them and scaling your best practice sales process across through KPI monitoring.
How are you tackling this?
Cheers,
Alex
Tempate 1: Painful Problem
Subject: ((account trigger))
Hey ((firstname)),
You recently ((trigger)). ((recognition))
What we often see with ((industry)) is that ((business impact related to trigger))
The challenge ((business challenge & root cause)).
((validating question))
Cheers / Best / Regards,
2. Business Impact
80% of pipeline is created after >10 touches. So follow ups are a must.
However, I HATE meaningless email bumps. Never send them.
"Just bumping this up your inbox" or "thoughts?" - you're dead to me.
Try to add value with every follow up. 3 ways to do so:
Be more specific with business challenge & impact
Insert a relevant customer success story
Provide a resource that tells more
Use only 1 with each follow up. That's already emails #2 to #4 in your sequence.
John,
If the KPI monitoring piece is missing you won't be able to see how your reps execute the strategy in real time.
As a result you will only learn about success or failure when the monthly pipeline & revenue reports come in.
It's a hit or miss strategy that can cost crucial ARR that is needed for the next funding round.
What are your thoughts?
Tempate 2: Business Impact
Subject: ((trigger))
((firstname)),
If ((your value prop, feature)) is missing then ((technical pain)).
As a result ((qualitative business impact)).
This strategy causes ((quantitative business impact)).
((validating question))
3. Success Story
At this point you have highlighted a painful problem your prospect might face.
You also quantified the business impact to drive urgency around this problem.
Email #3 in your sequence should educate the buyer on how you have solved this problem for others.
Identify one very relevant customer reference similar to the prospect and
Describe the solution short but concise
Hey John,
With Sunshine Industries we implemented real time sales KPI monitoring within 2 weeks.
After 4 weeks of adoption they saw a 15% increase in forecast accuracy, which enabled the sales leadership team to react more agile to real time pipeline information. They've grown revenue 50% YoY since last year.
I see similarities to Sunrays. Should we discuss if we can help you, too?
Cheers
Tempate 3: Success Story
Subject: ((trigger))
Hey ((firstname)),
With ((reference customer)) we implemented ((feature, capability)) within ((implementation time)).
After ((adoption time)) they saw ((KPI improvement)), which enabled ((stakeholders)) to ((organisational improvement)). They have ((overall ROI)) since ((total time frame)).
I see similarities to ((account). Should we discuss if we can help you, too?
Cheers/Best,
4. A/B Option
Emails #1-#3 in this sequence are very effective.
They demonstrate you have done your research, understand your prospect and know what you're talking about.
Often you still don't get a response from prospects. Not because you're not relevant but because they are busy, distracted, sick etc.
That's why I like to put some interactiveness in email 4.
I give the prospect an A/B option and promise something of value.
The piece of value can be
A personalised video message that highlights the business challenge
A resource to a case study or other resource
A personalised report (if applicable)
A personalised product demo
etc.
The piece of value should be something of effort on your side.
Therefore only give it to prospects who are at least willing to smash a like button for you.
(Fun insight: smart inboxes like Gmail will automatically suggest
or
as a response button, making it very easy for the prospect to show a reaction.)
Like this:
John,
If you're still with me I have a quick question:
Would you like to receive a personalised demo of what our solution could look like for you?
Simply respond "
" for YES
or "
" for NO
Cheers
Tempate 4: A/B Option
Subject: ((trigger))
((firstname)),
If you're still with me I have a quick question:
Would you like to receive ((valuable resource)).
Simply respond
"
" for YES
or "
" for NO
Cheers
Want me to audit and rewrite your sequence?
Email me: alex.papadakis88@gmail.com
5. Friendly Stripline
At some point it's time to give prospects an easy way out.
Maybe they're not for you, you're not for them or the timing isn't right.
Give their inbox a break and sequence them again 3 months later.
The
here is to use a bit of humour and create some positive emotion. Give the prospect a good laugh.
It's important to end the sequence on a positive note. Never burn bridges
Like this:
Hey John,
Either real time KPI monitoring is not a priority right now or you hate receiving emails from strangers.
Whichever it is, I'll give your inbox a break for some time.
If you change your mind you know where to find me!
All the best,
Tempate 5: Friendly Stripline
Subject: ((trigger))
Hey ((firstname)),
Either real time KPI monitoring is not a priority right now or you hate receiving emails from strangers.
Whichever it is, I'll give your inbox a break for some time.
If you change your mind you know where to find me!
All the best,
Summary:
A good cold email sequence looks like this:
Address a painful problem the prospect might face. Ask to validate.
Highlight the business impact to drive urgency around this topic.
Tell a story of how you have helped similar customers.
Give the prospect something of value with an A/B option.
Be friendly and use humour in your breakup email. Never burn bridges.
And if you want a longer sequence, simply repeat steps 2-4 a couple times.
That's all for today! Let's go and use these templates this week