7 ms·

One Way to Write A Powerful Cold Email

107 points by scottbrit 14y ago

charlieirish 14y ago
Sending cold emails shouldn't be the black art that is supposedly is. If you need to improve your emailing skills (cold or otherwise), you really need to be answering one question. Why? Why are you sending the email and why should the recipient read it? It doesn't really matter what your goal is. It normally falls in to the following buckets: - start relationship (cold opener) - maintain relationship (information/email series) - click on a link (signup/purchase) All these are about persuasion. Many of Caldini's principles still apply: Reciprocity, Commitment and Consistency, Social Proof, Authority, Liking and Scarcity. (I would add Empathy to that list). However, more importantly, you should be providing something of true value otherwise, you're just spamming.
- rgraham 14y ago
  I totally agree. I have an article about how to try to pack that in a brief email: http://www.ashmaurya.com/2012/08/cold-emailing/ http://www.ashmaurya.com/2012/08/cold-emailing/ Sometimes, though, you are better off making a call. http://blog.asmartbear.com/cold-calling.html http://blog.asmartbear.com/cold-calling.html
guylhem 14y ago
Are ppt + audio more efficient than a 4 lines email ? The author seems to suggest that. I'd like more proof however than a single trial on 28 leads.
- TannerLD 14y ago
  I don't think so. I don't want to listen to a person saying "uh" every other word.
dcotter 14y ago
Also: Bill Shakespeare didn't write novels. Just sayin'.
eterpstra 14y ago
This just seems like an ad for the bContext app. There's a link to an article about cold-emailing prospects that had a lot more meat, imo. http://life-longlearner.com/how-to-cold-email-prospects/ http://life-longlearner.com/how-to-cold-email-prospects/
TomAnthony 14y ago
Its an interesting idea, but I'd suggest picking up the phone where possible. My thought is people respond better when you stand out, and you stand out when you break out of the 'default' method for doing something. For example: - Phone somebody who most people fire an email to. - Applying for a job? Send the responsible person a paper copy of your CV/Resume on good quality paper; hand deliver it if you can. Of course, I'm sure it will work differently for different 'target' people.
- csomar 14y ago
  Unless the position is a paper graphic designer, I'd advice strongly against sending your CV on mail. This will not make you stand out, it'll take your CV straight to the trash.
hinoglu 14y ago
I fail to see what exactly is different from the other emails filling up my junk mail folder? They are also few lines long, sent from a person unknown to me, refer to my site(s) and contain links to external sites that have suggestions for optimizations. Many of them refer to me with my name, either taken from whois info or from the site.
- dwj 14y ago
  Yes, I agree...it's just spam. I certainly would never respond to this spammy crap. In fact I now never respond to any company spamming me, because in general they tend to be evil in other ways and provide a crappy service. If I want something, I'll do my own research.
orangethirty 14y ago
Testing has taught me that successful email marketing depends on one thing. The message subject. The message body can be a link, image, wall of text, or even empty. Writing a good message subject is like writing a good headline. Though there are some differences between mediums. Allow me to share some with you. Email is personal. Your message subject has to feel (and read) like a one-to-one message. There are various ways to achieve this. One is to use a simple to when writing it. Instead of being overly logical, just break down the message into simple words. Example: Logical $product name will help you save $500 a year on office supplies. (The above is an actual headline I got from a serious company) Personal I'm a business costs consultant. My job is to help you reduce operating overhead. I have some pointers to share with you. I actually tested both headlines. The personal achieved a response rate of around 3.5% ( slightly above average ). The logical had a response rate of 0%, unless we count the emails calling me names for spamming them. All were cold emails from account randomnly selected from the web. Two. You should not adhere to any specific message subject length. Some ideas are better conveyed through 2-3 sentences. Others with one word. It all depends. Always test. Don't trash an idea beause of the length. Test it! Three is simple. Include a phone number, email address, URL on the message subject. Not long ago, I did an email campaign for a client. The message body was empty, but it had a very powerful message subject: I sell a system that helps you get more sales leads. 555-555-1234 - John. All cold emails. Response was very good, and it helped my client sell over 10K worth of products. But wait. Let me explain how it worked. When people saw the message they had two options. Either call John, or reply. Few ignored it. Why? Because of one simple human trait: We feel obligated to reply when we humanize messages. We would not want to upset John by not calling! He would be disappointed! People called, and/or replied to schedule a call. Hope you can benefit from this. I'm writing a book that shows how to write good copy. Keep posted, it should launch soon. If you are curious (or want to hire me), just shoot me an email (check profile).
- dsr_ 14y ago
  The logical had a response rate of 0%, unless we count the emails calling me names for spamming them. All were cold emails from account randomnly selected from the web. Yes, that's because you were spamming them.
raldi 14y ago
Ironically, your presentation about his mobile-unfriendliness gets cut in half when I try to watch it on my iPhone.
corobo 14y ago
"502 Bad Gateway" Good enough reason as any to give this idea a miss, the email is a bit too cold if it's dead
- sswaner 14y ago
  I agree. bcontext.com is a no-go for me if a little HN attention brings them down.
waxjar 14y ago
The reason this works is simply because it stands out. Not a lot of people email other people mini presentations, which makes it stand out. This raises the chance something will be done with it. Just like regular marketing. I suspect that if everyone started doing this, success rates would drop quickly. Congrats to the OP for finding a way to stand out, but this isn't something ground-breaking. I have some comments on the actual email. It bugged me. > WPTouch is a plugin that actually mobile optimizes wordpress blogs to enhance the viewing experience for your readers on phones and tablets. When you have a few minutes would love to connect to get this taken care of for you. Alternatively, you can just download the plugin here. These are not proper sentences. For me that would be reason enough to dismiss your product entirely. I have some very shallow reasoning for that: it shows that you didn't proofread the email. That could mean you don't think this email is very important. If that's the case, why should I find it important? It could also mean you don't generally pay much attention to "details" like that. If that's the case I'd be concerned if this show trough in your actual product.
- orangethirty 14y ago
  Mini-presentations have been used for years.
- mnicole 14y ago
  Great point about that quote. To me it sounds like an SEO salesman with the use of buzzwords instead of actually defining what it does and why it's important (mobile users accounting for x% of the web and growing). I know we're being short and sweet, but give me a relevant example where enhancing the user experience in this way greatly improved a site's viewership or sales numbers. Then when I get to the "When you have a few minutes.." part, I'm completely gone. If it's so complicated that I need your help and I don't know the value, I'm not going to do it. The following sentence about "Or you can just get it here," just emphasizes this is a sales pitch, less you actually caring about my audience and the UX of my site. I think it would have been smarter to say "It's easy to grab and install the plugin on your own, but we'd love to help get you connected if you have any problems or questions!" Like someone in another thread said today, A/B testing is great and all, but just because you have an overall winner doesn't mean it's actually the most effective. It's just the most effective method you tested.
not_that_noob 14y ago
The cheap shots here notwithstanding (it's spam! link's down!) I think this is an awesome example of how to do bizdev cold emailing better. It's personalized and targeted and it shows what's wrong and how to fix it. The sender put time and thought into it, and if I had a blog, I would absolutely be interested in making sure it shows up correctly for readers on any device. Thanks for sharing Scott.
ricardobeat 14y ago
Looks like a good technique, people are curious when something has their name on it. Now, to Dan: please don't install WPTouch. Your site looks fine on mobile, just increasing padding a little and using a 16px font by default would make it perfect. It's not as offensive as OnSwipe, but it would make your website look like a settings page out of iPhoneOS 1.0, with lots of wasted space and glossy huge topbar. That's not how you "optimize" a website for mobile.
akleyweg 14y ago
Is this an ad for bcontext?

107 points by scottbrit 14y ago

Sending cold emails shouldn't be the black art that is supposedly is. If you need to improve your emailing skills (cold or otherwise), you really need to be answering one question. Why? Why are you sending the email and why should the recipient read it? It doesn't really matter what your goal is. It normally falls in to the following buckets: - start relationship (cold opener) - maintain relationship (information/email series) - click on a link (signup/purchase) All these are about persuasion. Many of Caldini's principles still apply: Reciprocity, Commitment and Consistency, Social Proof, Authority, Liking and Scarcity. (I would add Empathy to that list). However, more importantly, you should be providing something of true value otherwise, you're just spamming.

rgraham 14y ago
I totally agree. I have an article about how to try to pack that in a brief email: http://www.ashmaurya.com/2012/08/cold-emailing/ http://www.ashmaurya.com/2012/08/cold-emailing/ Sometimes, though, you are better off making a call. http://blog.asmartbear.com/cold-calling.html http://blog.asmartbear.com/cold-calling.html

guylhem 14y ago

Are ppt + audio more efficient than a 4 lines email ? The author seems to suggest that. I'd like more proof however than a single trial on 28 leads.

TannerLD 14y ago
I don't think so. I don't want to listen to a person saying "uh" every other word.

dcotter 14y ago

Also: Bill Shakespeare didn't write novels. Just sayin'.

eterpstra 14y ago

This just seems like an ad for the bContext app. There's a link to an article about cold-emailing prospects that had a lot more meat, imo. http://life-longlearner.com/how-to-cold-email-prospects/ http://life-longlearner.com/how-to-cold-email-prospects/

TomAnthony 14y ago

Its an interesting idea, but I'd suggest picking up the phone where possible. My thought is people respond better when you stand out, and you stand out when you break out of the 'default' method for doing something. For example: - Phone somebody who most people fire an email to. - Applying for a job? Send the responsible person a paper copy of your CV/Resume on good quality paper; hand deliver it if you can. Of course, I'm sure it will work differently for different 'target' people.

csomar 14y ago
Unless the position is a paper graphic designer, I'd advice strongly against sending your CV on mail. This will not make you stand out, it'll take your CV straight to the trash.

hinoglu 14y ago

I fail to see what exactly is different from the other emails filling up my junk mail folder? They are also few lines long, sent from a person unknown to me, refer to my site(s) and contain links to external sites that have suggestions for optimizations. Many of them refer to me with my name, either taken from whois info or from the site.

dwj 14y ago
Yes, I agree...it's just spam. I certainly would never respond to this spammy crap. In fact I now never respond to any company spamming me, because in general they tend to be evil in other ways and provide a crappy service. If I want something, I'll do my own research.

orangethirty 14y ago

Testing has taught me that successful email marketing depends on one thing. The message subject. The message body can be a link, image, wall of text, or even empty. Writing a good message subject is like writing a good headline. Though there are some differences between mediums. Allow me to share some with you. Email is personal. Your message subject has to feel (and read) like a one-to-one message. There are various ways to achieve this. One is to use a simple to when writing it. Instead of being overly logical, just break down the message into simple words. Example: Logical $product name will help you save $500 a year on office supplies. (The above is an actual headline I got from a serious company) Personal I'm a business costs consultant. My job is to help you reduce operating overhead. I have some pointers to share with you. I actually tested both headlines. The personal achieved a response rate of around 3.5% ( slightly above average ). The logical had a response rate of 0%, unless we count the emails calling me names for spamming them. All were cold emails from account randomnly selected from the web. Two. You should not adhere to any specific message subject length. Some ideas are better conveyed through 2-3 sentences. Others with one word. It all depends. Always test. Don't trash an idea beause of the length. Test it! Three is simple. Include a phone number, email address, URL on the message subject. Not long ago, I did an email campaign for a client. The message body was empty, but it had a very powerful message subject: I sell a system that helps you get more sales leads. 555-555-1234 - John. All cold emails. Response was very good, and it helped my client sell over 10K worth of products. But wait. Let me explain how it worked. When people saw the message they had two options. Either call John, or reply. Few ignored it. Why? Because of one simple human trait: We feel obligated to reply when we humanize messages. We would not want to upset John by not calling! He would be disappointed! People called, and/or replied to schedule a call. Hope you can benefit from this. I'm writing a book that shows how to write good copy. Keep posted, it should launch soon. If you are curious (or want to hire me), just shoot me an email (check profile).

dsr_ 14y ago
The logical had a response rate of 0%, unless we count the emails calling me names for spamming them. All were cold emails from account randomnly selected from the web. Yes, that's because you were spamming them.

raldi 14y ago

Ironically, your presentation about his mobile-unfriendliness gets cut in half when I try to watch it on my iPhone.

corobo 14y ago

"502 Bad Gateway" Good enough reason as any to give this idea a miss, the email is a bit too cold if it's dead

sswaner 14y ago
I agree. bcontext.com is a no-go for me if a little HN attention brings them down.

waxjar 14y ago

The reason this works is simply because it stands out. Not a lot of people email other people mini presentations, which makes it stand out. This raises the chance something will be done with it. Just like regular marketing. I suspect that if everyone started doing this, success rates would drop quickly. Congrats to the OP for finding a way to stand out, but this isn't something ground-breaking. I have some comments on the actual email. It bugged me. > WPTouch is a plugin that actually mobile optimizes wordpress blogs to enhance the viewing experience for your readers on phones and tablets. When you have a few minutes would love to connect to get this taken care of for you. Alternatively, you can just download the plugin here. These are not proper sentences. For me that would be reason enough to dismiss your product entirely. I have some very shallow reasoning for that: it shows that you didn't proofread the email. That could mean you don't think this email is very important. If that's the case, why should I find it important? It could also mean you don't generally pay much attention to "details" like that. If that's the case I'd be concerned if this show trough in your actual product.

orangethirty 14y ago
Mini-presentations have been used for years.
mnicole 14y ago
Great point about that quote. To me it sounds like an SEO salesman with the use of buzzwords instead of actually defining what it does and why it's important (mobile users accounting for x% of the web and growing). I know we're being short and sweet, but give me a relevant example where enhancing the user experience in this way greatly improved a site's viewership or sales numbers. Then when I get to the "When you have a few minutes.." part, I'm completely gone. If it's so complicated that I need your help and I don't know the value, I'm not going to do it. The following sentence about "Or you can just get it here," just emphasizes this is a sales pitch, less you actually caring about my audience and the UX of my site. I think it would have been smarter to say "It's easy to grab and install the plugin on your own, but we'd love to help get you connected if you have any problems or questions!" Like someone in another thread said today, A/B testing is great and all, but just because you have an overall winner doesn't mean it's actually the most effective. It's just the most effective method you tested.

not_that_noob 14y ago

The cheap shots here notwithstanding (it's spam! link's down!) I think this is an awesome example of how to do bizdev cold emailing better. It's personalized and targeted and it shows what's wrong and how to fix it. The sender put time and thought into it, and if I had a blog, I would absolutely be interested in making sure it shows up correctly for readers on any device. Thanks for sharing Scott.

ricardobeat 14y ago

Looks like a good technique, people are curious when something has their name on it. Now, to Dan: please don't install WPTouch. Your site looks fine on mobile, just increasing padding a little and using a 16px font by default would make it perfect. It's not as offensive as OnSwipe, but it would make your website look like a settings page out of iPhoneOS 1.0, with lots of wasted space and glossy huge topbar. That's not how you "optimize" a website for mobile.

akleyweg 14y ago

Is this an ad for bcontext?