7 Cold Email Templates to Boost Your Outreach

There are many reasons why you might need to send a cold email as a marketer. The fact that it is so commonly used in B2B communications means that it is something that most of us simply cannot avoid doing at some stage in our careers — or while building our businesses.

That said, cold emailing often makes even the most hardened marketer or salesperson feel a little uncomfortable; there is something a little unnerving about reaching out to a total stranger who you have never communicated with in the past.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Cold emailing is still an effective sales and marketing tactic when done right.

The problem is just that many don’t get it right. 

Cold email is an art. And you need to know how to get the most from the tactic for it to be effective, as well as to prevent uninterested recipients marking your mail as spam.

And let’s be clear on one point — cold emailing isn’t spam. Not when done properly.

Just because you have never communicated with someone in the past doesn’t mean that you can’t add value to them and that you don’t have something of value to offer them.

Yet all too often, cold communication is considered spam simply due to the number who don’t do it right.

In this guide, you will learn how to do cold emailing the right way, whether that is as a marketer or a salesperson, and walk away with a series of different templates that you can utilize for your own cold communication. Here is what this cold email guide will cover:

What Is Cold Emailing?

You are probably familiar with cold calling. You know, where a telemarketer or salesperson calls you up and tries to sell you something, get you to complete a survey, or something similar.

Once a lot more common than it is now, but there is a good chance you remember it well.

You can probably count on one hand the number of times when you actually took action from such a call. And those where you did were most likely calls that addressed a current need of yours or added some sort of value and gave you a reason to listen to what they had to say.

Remember this — it is all about adding value.

We will come back to this later.

Quite simply, cold emailing is when you reach out (by email) to someone who you have never had previous communication with. It is like cold calling but by email.

There are a number of reasons people send cold emails; here are some of the most common reasons:

• Link building outreach (including guest posting, resource link building, and digital PR)
• Sales prospecting
• Influencer marketing
• Seeking mentoring
• Asking a favor from someone (appearing on your podcast, sharing tips for your round-up, etc.)

The most important thing to grasp when running a cold email campaign is how to do it, rather than why.

By understanding what drives success, what just frustrates recipients, and what pretty much guarantees that your email will be deleted without being read, you can tailor your emails accordingly.

The 7 Golden Rules of Crafting the Perfect Cold Email

While it would be wrong to say that there is only one right way to put together a cold email, there are definitely things that you need to make sure you consider.

Cold emailing isn’t an exact science, and that is the beauty of the tactic — there are best-practices you should adhere to and things that you need to make sure you avoid.

Choose Your Prospects Carefully

You should not be using a ‘spray and pray’ approach to any form of marketing, let alone cold emailing. Spray and pray is where your ‘strategy’ is to send as many emails as possible and hope that a small number stick and are responded to.

• This is spam; it is not a marketing tactic, but a surefire way to damage your reputation.
• It is also why cold emailing gets a bad name.

It is important to take the time to carefully build up a relevant list of prospects whose inclusion you can justify.

For every contact that you add to a prospecting list, you need to know why they should be there and how they would benefit from the content of your email.

This also gets you thinking about the tactic from their perspective, not yours.

How will they benefit from your email? Don’t focus on you.

Prioritize Getting Your Subject Line Right

If your subject line is weak, you can be sure your email will go straight to trash.

In fact, it is safe to say that your email’s subject line is the most important part of any cold email. If your subject line isn’t engaging, your email isn’t going to be opened and read.

And if your email isn’t being read, the recipient isn’t going to be taking any action.

Be sure to prioritize getting your subject line right. Avoid subject lines that sound spammy or look like a blatant sales attempt and focus on adding value.

Personalize Your Emails

No one wants to feel like they are receiving the same email as hundreds of others, especially when you are offering something deemed to be “exclusive.”

You need to make sure that you are personalizing your emails, at least to some degree.

There are a number of ways that you can do this, including segmenting your prospect list into tightly targeted groups who share the same problem or have a commonality between them.

At the very least, be sure to personalize by name and their business or publication, as well as showcasing why you believe they could benefit from what you have to offer.

Introduce Yourself Properly

The whole concept of cold emailing means that your recipients don’t know who you are. They have had no prior communication with you, so it is important that you properly introduce yourself.

• Why should someone listen to what you have to say?
• What is your experience, and how does that relate to their current pain points or frustrations?
• Why should they trust you?

At this stage, you are a total stranger, so you need to break the ice and build trust quickly. But this is harder to do than it sounds. Building trust, at least partially, by email, isn’t easy.

One of the most effective ways that you can do this is by including social proof and giving the recipient something they can connect with, whether that’s namedropping a common connection, showcasing recent social engagements, or even press mentions.

The more you can do to build trust early on in your email, the better your success rate will be.

Identify and Demonstrate a Pain Point

Unless you can create a hook that encourages the recipient to read your email right through, you will lose them. – Read more