THE COLD EMAIL

MASTERCLASS
BY MAILSHAKE.COM
INTRODUCTION THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

WATCH INTRODUCTION VIDEO

Whether you use cold email to find sales leads, connect with influencers, build your personal
brand, find mentors, or grow your network, there’s no underestimating its power. Cold email is
one of the best sales channels you can add to your business. When done well, it can generate
a huge response rate to your inquiries (see the 29 percent rate Kyle Gawley achieved).

Unfortunately, most people don’t do cold email well. After the Mailshake team reviewed
hundreds of cold email campaigns to increase their effectiveness, we’ve learned why some
people don’t reach their campaign goals.

They don’t do the research that’s necessary for cold email

success.

They use personalization in a way that’s artificial (or, worse

still, creepy), rather than motivating.

They don’t send at the frequency needed to make an impact.

They don’t commit to improving their writing, following up

as needed or measuring their performance in order to reach
their goals.

Writing good outreach email isn’t rocket science. There are proven formulas you can
leverage, as well as lessons you can draw from other digital marketing disciplines, such as
conversion rate optimization and ad copywriting.

There’s no substitute, however, for doing the work.

Over the next 8 lessons, I’ll show you how to turn theory into practice, tapping into existing
cold email best practices and deploying them in a way that’s both efficient and effective.

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INTRODUCTION THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

We cover everything you need to complete your journey from novice to master cold email
outreach performer right here.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

LESSON #1
HOW TO WRITE A GOOD EMAIL 11

We’ll look at the prep work that goes into writing an effective cold email
as well as explore different templates you can draw on for inspiration.

LESSON #2
WRITING SUBJECT LINES, OPENING LINES 28

& BODY COPY

We’ll take a deep dive into three critical components of your cold emails:
your subject line, opening line and body copy.

LESSON #3
EXPEDITING THE SALES OUTREACH PROCESS 40

We’ll explore the tools and processes you can use to find anyone’s
contact information. Use them to focus and fine-tune your cold emailing
efforts so you’re reaching likely buyers - not tire-kickers.

LESSON #4
PERSONALIZATION 49

Personalization is about more than the first name merge field. In this
lesson, we’ll cover the specific types of personalization you should be
using, as well as when they should be deployed.

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INTRODUCTION THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

LESSON #5
BUILDING A QUALITY CHECK PROCESS 64

Don’t damage your reputation with an error-riddled email. Reference the

“10 Questions” given in Lesson #5 before sending out every cold email.

LESSON #6
FOLLOW UP EMAILS 67

We’ll look at the prep work that goes into writing an effective cold email
as well as explore different templates you can draw on for inspiration.

LESSON #7
ANALYZE, OPTIMIZE & SCALE 81

Cold email optimization is the difference between lackluster

performance and sales messaging success. Here, we’ll cover what to
test, how to test it and how to scale your cold email campaigns.

LESSON #8
EXPERT SESSIONS 91

Don’t just take my word for all of this. Check out Lesson #8 for video
interviews with cold email experts who give you their best suggestions
for sending sales emails.

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INTRODUCTION THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

A DEEPER CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER DIVE

LESSON #1

In Lesson #1, we’re going to start with the basics: how to write a good email. What
separates those that you ignore or immediately delete from those you can’t help but
read until the end?

I’m going to walk you through the most common mistakes, the power of planning, the
most effective structures to try - including my own 3-sentence format - and when to use
them, the tenets of copywriting that apply to cold emails, and how to apply conversion
rate optimization thinking to your email marketing.

With every email you send, you want your recipient

to do something. I’m going to show you exactly
how to make your ask stronger, your argument
more persuasive, and your conversions higher. And
all with plenty of templates, examples, and data to
demonstrate what I’m teaching you in action.
Writing an email is easy. Writing a good email takes
more effort and insight.

LESSON #2

Email has three critical components:

Your subject line

Your opening line

Your main body

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INTRODUCTION THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Fall short on one, and you’re fighting an uphill battle. Lesson #2 is going to give you the
tools and tips to make sure that never happens.

I can’t stress enough the importance of your subject line. Legendary copywriter David
Ogilvy said:

“Your headline is 80 cents out of your dollar.”

With email, your headline is your subject line. 33% of recipients open an email based on
the subject line alone. Keep it short, personal, useful, specific, and if possible, create a
sense of urgency or exclusivity.

Of course, getting them to open is just step 1. Next, you need to quickly pull them in with
an opening line that’s crystal-clear and focused on them, not you.

Finally, your main body needs to be conversational, to the point, and personalized wherever
and whenever possible. But don’t worry, I’ve got some cool tools to share that make it
much easier than it sounds.

LESSON #3

Email is powerful, affordable, and scalable… but it

does hinge on you having a steady supply of
names and email addresses. In lesson #3, we’ll
cover some fantastic ways to expedite your
outreach and find anyone’s contact details.

We’re a social media society, so it makes sense to

start there. Platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and
Facebook can be mined for the data you need to
find not only prospects, but likely buyers.

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But don’t forget about low(er) hanging fruit like “About Us” or “Contact Us” pages on
business websites, conference speaker and attendee lists, author pages on industry
blogs, and more. I’ll share all my secret tips on where and how.

You’re spoiled for choice in this area, with dozens of tools and services that can
simplify or take over the process for you. VoilaNorbert and Email Hunter for contact
details, Dux-Soup and Phantombuster for data scraping, and Mailshake’s own Lead
Catcher are just a few that I recommend.

LESSON #4

If you’re not personalizing, you’re not really

marketing. I said it, and I stand by it.

Personalized emails have higher open and

click-through rates, better conversion rates,
and they improve customer experience, a key
component to overall business success and
customer satisfaction.

This lesson will walk you through common mistakes and how to avoid them, examples
of how to personalize beyond *just* a first name (like location, job title, a comment on
some piece of content they’ve shared, an upcoming event in their city or company, and
more), how and why to conduct proper research, and how to segment (which is
essentially breaking up your list into smaller lists based on - you guessed it - personal
details and behavior) by content, product, persona, and lifecycle age.

I’ve even got some advice on how to warm up your recipient before sending that sales
outreach message.

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INTRODUCTION THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

LESSON #5

The greatest spell-checker is the send or publish

ABC button. Ever notice that? We tend to spot our
spelling and grammar mistakes, formatting issues,
and every other blemish after we send it or share it.

Nothing kills your credibility or makes a bad first

impression faster than an error-riddled cold email
showing up in someone’s inbox.

It’s happened to me, and I’m sure it’s happened to you. In lesson #5, I’m going to give
you a comprehensive 10-question checklist to make sure every email is a perfect email.

Do I have any spelling or grammar errors (use spell-check and a dedicated add-on like
Grammarly)? Are my sentences too long (keep it short and to the point)? Have I verified
the names and email addresses of my recipients?

If you can’t answer ‘yes’ to all ten questions, your email is not ready to send. It’s that
simple. Get in the habit of carefully checking each email or template. Quality control is
too important to ignore these days.

LESSON #6

In real estate, it’s location, location, location. But in email marketing and outreach, it’s
follow-up, follow-up, follow-up.

If you’re quitting after one unanswered email - and the majority do - you’re missing out.
Most marketers stop after four ‘no’s’, but 80% of prospects say ‘no’ four times before
saying ‘yes.’ That’s a serious disconnect.

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INTRODUCTION THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

You have a 21% chance of getting a response to a

second email. In fact, you have a 7% chance of getting a
response to a tenth message. Keep. Sending.

Obviously, you’re not going to send the exact same

message ten times. That’s not going to work, and will
undoubtedly irritate your recipients.

In lesson #6, I’m going to teach you what does work: how to write an effective
follow-up email (add value and lower your ask), how to automate your follow-ups and
timings with a platform like Mailshake, and several examples of follow-up emails that
got the job done (and why they worked so well). Ready to be inspired?

LESSON #7

One of the many benefits of cold email outreach is the relative ease with which you can
analyze, optimize, and scale your efforts. Identify what’s working, what works better,
and what’s not working at all. Quickly scale up or down as required. Very few other
channels can give you that so readily.

In my experience, it’s best to conduct a simple A/B test with 100 people before you scale
up to 5000. Iron out the wrinkles with a smaller audience first; only then should you
send it out to a larger one.

My simple optimization process lets you make incremental but steady improvements
to your messaging in 5 easy steps:

1. Set your metrics 4. Run your test

2. Set your goals 5. Repeat

3. Design and run your experiment

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INTRODUCTION THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Get all the details in lesson #7. Your email outreach is not and should never be a
set-it-and-forget-it situation. Be active. Be smarter. Be better.

LESSON #8

In lesson #8, I invite you to stand on the shoulders of giants. You’ve listened to me for
seven straight lessons, so it’s time to share the spotlight with cold email experts as they
share their best tips, tricks, and advice in a collection of video interviews.

I’ve got seven videos to share with you from a wide

variety of individuals and industries, including
paralegal, growth marketing, conversion
copywriting, and conversion optimization.

Each video also includes a written breakdown and

summary of the key points and ideas. Watch the
videos. Read the summaries. Learn from the people
not just using cold email outreach, but crushing it in
the real world.

Theory is good. Practical application and experience is better.

Are you ready to become a master of cold email outreach? Are you ready to better find,
connect, and engage with prospects and decision-makers faster and more efficiently
than you are right now?

Take the time to invest in yourself and your business.

Lesson #1 is ready and waiting. See you on the other side.

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 THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

LESSON #1

HOW TO WRITE A GOOD EMAIL

WATCH LESSON 1 VIDEO

You’ve probably written thousands of email messages in your life… so why are your cold
sales emails falling flat?

WHAT MOST PEOPLE GET WRONG WITH EMAIL

When you’re writing a cold sales email, you’re trying to
get somebody to do something. For that appeal to be
effective, your message needs to be structured in a
compelling way.

HERE’S WHERE MOST PEOPLE GO WRONG

Their messages are too long. Everyone’s busy these days. Messages that are too long
just won’t get read.

They fail to capture their prospects’ attention. You have seven seconds (maybe less) to
make a first impression. Don’t waste this opportunity with boring, unengaging email copy.

They don’t personalize at all. Adestra's 2016 State of Digital Personalization report
attributed a 75% higher email click-through rate to email personalization. Yet, despite
this, some salespeople still fail to use any personalization at all, placing them behind the
curve of what’s possible with today’s cold emailing technology.

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HOW TO WRITE A GOOD EMAIL THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

They go overboard with personalization. Inserting merge fields into your message isn’t
a substitute for understanding the personalized needs of your prospects and what they
need to hear from you to take action. Use personalization wisely and sparingly. Focus
more on the needs of your customers than on including every possible merge field.

They try to do too much with single message. Multiple calls-to-action (CTA), images or
links to recommended resources distract prospects and prevent them from taking any
action. Keep your initial ask easy and friction-free.

A BETTER APPROACH TO WRITING COLD EMAILS

Getting cold email right doesn’t have to be complicated.

By outlining your thoughts and choosing a proven template, you can simplify the process of
cold emailing and improve your results at the same time.

START WITH AN OUTLINE

We’ll get into templates in a minute, but to be able to choose the right one, there are a few
key pieces of information you need to know.

WHAT’S YOUR ASK?

Your first cold email isn’t the right moment to ask for
the sale. Just like you wouldn’t propose marriage on a
first date, your first cold email should set the stage
for a long, productive relationship.

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POSSIBLE LOW-FRICTION ASKS INCLUDE:

Viewing a quick video Arranging time for a demo

Sharing a link or resource socially Setting up a time for a call

In a Whiteboard Friday video, Moz founder Rand Fishkin breaks down a successful cold
outreach email, including a low-friction ask:

The whole video is worth a watch, but here’s what Rand has to say about the ask:

“This person says, "FYI, my startup was nominated for XYZ award. It would mean
a ton to me if you could tweet or share the link." There's the link. That's the ask
right there. They've done a few very smart things here. They've kept the ask short
and sweet. This is two sentences, extremely few number of words, very obvious
what they want and need.”

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HOW TO WRITE A GOOD EMAIL THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

They also make it easy for him to act on the ask by providing a clickable link that can be
shared quickly.

If you’re cold emailing for sales, a social share may not be top priority for you. But you can
take advantage of the same effects described by Rand by:

Making your ask low-investment

Making it easy for prospects to take action right away

WHAT’S THE BENEFIT?

The other critical piece of information you need to know before planning out your cold email
approach is what specific benefit you have to offer the recipient.

To understand your benefit - and to be able to communicate it clearly - you need a few
other pieces of information:

What problems do you solve?

What makes your product or service special?

What makes your company unique?

How have you helped clients who are similar to

the prospect you’re about to email?

These aren’t simple questions. Put some serious thought into them before moving forward
with cold emailing. Determining your answers ahead of time will make the best way to
structure your message clear, whether you write a custom email or use one of the seven
sample structures in the next section.

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TIP
If you can, try to quantify your benefit. Saying
past clients have saved 10 hours per week after
implementing your solution is much more
compelling than saying they “saved a lot of time.”

7 STRUCTURES TO TEST

Now that you have some idea of what you want

to say in your cold email, you don’t have to
reinvent the wheel. Instead, test different cold
email templates that have been proven to work
in order to cut your prep time in half.

I’ve covered seven possibilities below, though this list is by no means exclusive. Choose the
structure that seems like the best fit for your target prospect:

If prospects aren’t likely to have heard of you before, use a structure that leads with
attention-getting (such as the AIDA structure)

If you know your prospects are experiencing a significant pain point your product or
service solves, the BAB or PAS structures may be better fits

Don’t like the results you’re seeing? You can always come back to the drawing board and
choose another structure to test.

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HOW TO WRITE A GOOD EMAIL THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

ATTENTION-INTEREST-DESIRE-ACTION (AIDA)

This copywriting classic involves four steps:

Attention : Get your reader’s attention quickly

Interest : Explain why you think your offering will interest your prospect

Desire : Grow their desire for your offering

Action : Show them how to take advantage of it

SUJAN’S 3-SENTENCE FORMAT

I don’t have a cheesy name for this one, but it’s proven successful for me over and over.

Basically, the ideal cold sales email should have three sentences:

The introduction A description of what Your ask

you’re selling

You might not be able to get your message down to three sentences alone, especially if
your product or service is complex. Do your best by weeding out anything extra you’ve
added that doesn’t meet one of these three needs.

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HOW TO WRITE A GOOD EMAIL THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Hi Jamillah,

My name is Jon Benjamin, and I’ll keep this quick.

I’m the founder of a software tool that saves busy executives like yourself as many as 10 hours per week.

Could I have 10 minutes of your time next week for a personalized demo that’ll make clear why entrepeneurs like
Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Ferris and Malcolm Gladwell lover our product?

BEFORE-AFTER-BRIDGE (BAB)

Courtesy of Buffer, the before-after-bridge aims to get prospects envisioning exactly

how your solution will make their lives better.

This is done in three steps:

Before : Describe what your reader’s life is like now

After : Help them picture how your solution makes it better

Bridge : Show them how you’ll take them from before to after

Hi Juan,

If you're like most busy executives, you know how frustrating it can feel to have your time wasted

Our software changes that, freeing up as many as 10 hours per week for client like Gary Vaynerchuk,
Tim Ferris and Malcolm Gladwell

If You'd be willing to give me just 10 minutes of your time, I'll show you how you can achieve the same
saving with out innovative platform

What's the best time next week to reach out to you for a personalized demo?

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HOW TO WRITE A GOOD EMAIL THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

PROBLEM-AGITATE-SOLVE (PAS)

Another structure to test, the problem-agitate-solve cold email template works by

tapping into your prospect’s pain points:

Problem : Describe the current problem your prospect is facing

Agitate : Emphasize the pain of the problem

Solve : Share how you’ll help them solve it

Hi George,

When was the last time you finished everything on your to-do list

If you’re like most busy executives, you’re constantly struggling to stay afloat -
let alone be the effective leader you know you could be

Our software helps motivated entrepreneurs like Gary Vaynerchuk. Malcolm Gladwell
and Tim Ferris save as much as 10 hours per week that can be directed towares your top priorities

I’d love to set up a personlized demo. When are you free next week?

PRAISE-PICTURE-PUSH (PPP)

Who doesn’t love a compliment? Get on your prospects’ good side from the start with the
PPP format:

Praise : Compliment recipients on a recent achievement or milestone

Picture : Paint a picture of how your solution will help the prospect achieve
even more

Push : Encourage them to take action on your ask

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HOW TO WRITE A GOOD EMAIL THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Hi Rita,

Congrats- I just saw you were chosen as a speaker for the 2018 Inbound marketing conference

As you're preparing for your presentation, it's natural to fall behind on the others task on your to-do list.
If you're struggling to keep up, I'd love to show you how our software can help you save 10 hours or more per week

Can I have 10 minutes of your time next week to give you a personalized demo?

SHARE A HELPFUL RESOURCE

This Mailshake template will help you leverage your existing content marketing
assets while simultaneously earning the trust of your cold email recipients. Fill in the
blanks with your own resources, based on what you know about the prospect’s needs
and pain points:

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CHALLENGE THE CURRENT STATE

This is a Mailshake template that works by challenging your prospect’s status

quo.As we’re all on the lookout for the “latest and greatest” products, this template
piques recipients’ interest by suggesting there may be a better alternative out there
for their needs.

Deciding between some of these templates will be easy. If your prospect doesn’t have a
recent achievement you can find online, for example, you can’t use the praise-picture-push
template. Other decisions will be less clear.

My suggestion? Don’t overthink it. Pick the template that resonates best for you, relative
to the information you outlined earlier and test your assumptions using the process
described below (and more in Lesson #7).

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HOW TO WRITE A GOOD EMAIL THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

TAP INTO COPYWRITING WISDOM

Want to become a better cold email writer

instantly? Look to ad text copy for inspiration and
start thinking like a copywriter.

Much has been published about writing great ad

copy, and I won’t rehash it all here. The following
resources are great primers if you’re new to both ad
text and email copywriting:

Wordstream: “4 Simple But Powerful Tactics for Writing Compelling Ad Copy”

Hubspot: “Copywriting 101: 6 Traits of Excellent Copy Readers Will Remember”

Writtent: “35 Copywriting Tips & Tricks from the Pros”

Cold email copy differs from ad copy in a few ways, but the fundamentals are still the same:

Focus on your “headline” (in this case, your subject line and opening line)

Make your ask as compelling as possible

Use clear language that’s easy to understand

Match your tone and voice to your audience and your brand’s personality - Don’t be
afraid to inject a little personality into your cold emails. Check out this fun example
from HustleCon’s Sam Parr:

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HOW TO WRITE A GOOD EMAIL THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Make your message scannable - Avoid “wall of text” syndrome. If your message looks
like this...

...Incorporate line breaks, bolded/italicized fonts, and lists until it’s easier to read.

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Build credibility - People want to do business with people they trust. That can be
tough pull off in a cold email that’s as short as three sentences.

One opportunity you have is to include content you’ve

published in your email signature. Having authoritative
resources backing up any claims you make in your
message instantly builds credibility.

Here’s mine, which links out to resources I’ve published on Youtube and on my blog:

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Another way to build credibility is to share successful past experiences, as in the following
example from Groove:

Alex builds credibility by emphasizing that he’s approached similar prospects with the
same offer in the past and had great results with it. It’s an effective use of social proof to
minimize the friction of moving forward.

If you aren’t sure you’re communicating your point clearly, a second (or third, or fourth) set
of eyes never hurts. Having a coworker review your email copy may reveal issues you
missed on your own.

THINK LIKE A CRO

I’m going to get technical for a minute. Your goal with cold emails is to get people to take
action. Improving your copy or working off a predefined template can help, but you can also
look to conversion rate optimization (CRO) for guidance.

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CRO is a field of digital marketing that’s concerned with

testing landing pages and other web assets so that they
perform as well as possible, relative to target metrics
you’ve set. We’ll dive into cold email optimization in
greater detail later on in Lesson #7, but since you need
to keep these principles in mind when planning your
campaigns, we’ll touch on them here as well.

METRICS MATTER

If you aren’t measuring the success of your cold email

messages, you can’t make them better.

After all, if you aren’t measuring something like open rate,

how will you know if the changes you make in the future
are resulting in more or fewer opens?

Some of the most popular metrics salespeople use

in cold email campaigns include the following:

Open rate Leads generated

Link clicks New business

generated
Response rate

All of these are valid metrics, but some are easier to track than others.

If you’re totally new to cold emailing, start with one of the first three. If you have the
resources to dedicate to more complex sales analytics tools, you can start digging into
leads generated and new business generated.

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Pick at least one metric to track now, as the number you choose to watch will influence
how you structure and test your campaigns.

TESTING COLD EMAIL CAMPAIGNS

Remember earlier in this lesson, when I warned you not to overthink choosing your template?

That’s because, in order to make your cold emails as effective as possible, you’ll need to
continually test your messages to improve them according to the metric you’ve selected.

? Again, we’ll dive deeper into testing in a little bit, and I’ll
show you exactly how to structure a cold email testing
campaign for best results.

? However, you may find it helpful - as you go through the

lessons leading up to that - to jot down notes on specific
? elements you want to test later on.

When it comes time to actually execute your testing campaigns, you’ll be glad to have a list
of possibilities at hand already.

VALIDATE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCES

One final consideration I want you to keep in mind early on is

the question of whether or not you’re sending to the right
people.

Knowing who you’re messaging informs everything from the

template you choose to the tests you decide to carry out.
Simply put, you can’t write a “good” email if you’re sending it
to the wrong person.

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Tim Soulo of the Ahrefs blog has a great breakdown of the four groups you can mail to as
part of an influencer outreach campaign: sharks, big fish, small fish and spawn.

I think these distinctions apply equally as well to sending cold sales emails:

Sharks are the big names in your industry. They’re the kind of
people you’d kill to have as clients, but because they’re so well
known, they’re difficult to reach via cold email. You typically need
a personal intro or to do something really outstanding to get on
their radar.

The big fish are the people one tier down. They’re not as famous,
but they’re still big enough to have an impact on your business.
You won’t get their attention with a template email, but you may
still be able to connect with a smartly-worded cold message.

Small fish are one more step down. They have value to add to
your business as a customer, but they may not be quite as
lucrative or have a large enough following to refer your product
or service to others.

Spawn, in this case, are the bottom feeders, tire-kickers and other
time-wasters who don’t have a budget for you (even if they’re
more than willing to take up your time or energy).

Focus your cold emailing efforts on your big and small fish. Save time by skipping
outreach to sharks and spawn.

We’ll talk about finding these prospects in Lesson #3, but for now, having a rough
understanding of the type of prospect you’ll be targeting should help you understand
exactly how to structure and write a good cold sales email.

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LESSON #2

WRITING SUBJECT LINES,

OPENING LINES AND BODY COPY

WATCH LESSON 2 VIDEO

In Lesson #1, I mentioned that one of the things people get wrong
with cold email is that they don’t capture attention quickly enough.

Your subject and opening lines are where you make this happen.

SUBJECT LINES

As you probably already know, your subject line is the “title”

of your message. It’s what’s visible in your recipients’ inbox
when you message them.

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WHAT YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW IS THAT:

33% 69%
Email recipients Email recipients
open email based on report email as
subject line alone. spam based solely
(Hubspot) on the subject line.
(Hubspot)

Basically, it’s in your best interests to get your subject line right. How do you do it?
Keep the following seven best practices in mind:

TIP #1 GO SHORT

One variable you can play with as you write your

subject lines is length. According to Hubspot,
subject lines with 30 or fewer characters have
an above average open rate.

You won’t know for sure if this statistic applies

to your unique audience until you test it. Include
a few short subject lines in your future tests to
see if it holds true.

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TIP #2 GET PERSONAL

Hubspot reports that personalized subject lines are

22.2% more likely to be opened.

If your mailing service supports it, test different

personalization options in your cold sales emails:

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TIP #3 USE URGENCY AND EXCLUSIVITY

In the case of cold emails, subject lines that create a sense

of urgency and exclusivity can result in a 22% higher open
rate - that is, if you use them right.

Don’t fake it. If your “exclusive” offer is clearly open to

everyone, or your “urgent” offer can be claimed at any
time, you’ll lose credibility as a sender.

Don’t over-do it. Even if your urgency and exclusivity

are legit, stressing them in every message you send
diminishes their value.

TIP #4 BE SPECIFIC AND USEFUL

This one’s just common sense. Do you open messages that

don’t seem like they’ll meet your needs? Do you care about an
email if it’s clear you’ll gain little from opening it?

Before sending any cold sales email, ask yourself the following
questions:

Does my subject line convey a specific benefit?

Is it clear why this message will be useful to the recipient?

Would I open this message if it was sent to me?

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WRITING SUBJECT LINES, OPENING LINES AND BODY COPY THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Here’s a great example from Lauren Lopuch that illustrates the point:

The subject line is specific: it’s focused on RuffArmor’s search performance. It also implies
the usefulness of achieving first page rankings.

Given this winning combination, it’s no surprise that Lopuch was able to use cold email to
grow her freelance copywriting business by 1,400% in four months.

TIP #5 DON’T OVERSELL

Don’t compromise your credibility for quick email gains. If you over-promise (or worse,
make entirely false promises), you won’t just lose potential responses. You’ll lose the
likelihood of ever doing business with the recipient in the future.

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Take the following example from Salesfolk:

According to the company, the template above scored:

A 57% open rate A 21% response rate 16 new customers

With results like that, it’d be easy to think that building

a similar subject line and template into your cold
email campaign will drive the same results.

But what if you can’t actually deliver on your promise

to 10x your prospect’s results in 10 minutes? It’s a
bold claim - and it’s the kind of statement you should
only make if you’re confident you can achieve it.

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WRITING SUBJECT LINES, OPENING LINES AND BODY COPY THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Keep the advice of True Film Production’s Stanley Meytin, shared in a Business2Community
article, in mind:

“Nobody wants to be sold something right away in a cold email — a lot of

spammers tend to do this and you don’t want to be associated with them.
Try to introduce yourself and do a soft pitch, focusing more on the prospective
than yourself.”

TIP #6 DON’T FOOL RECIPIENTS

For similar reasons, skip the the fake “RE:” or “FW:” subject
lines. They might get you an open, but they won’t get you a
click once people realize they’ve been fooled.

TIP #7 USE UPWORTHY’S 25 HEADLINE PROCESS

Upworthy is well-known for its “25 headline” process.

To create the click-worthy titles the company became
famous for, team members were required to come up
with 25 possible headlines for each article.

It might sound excessive, but in doing so, they weeded

out weak ideas and allowed great ones to surface.

You can do the same with your email subject lines.

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WRITING SUBJECT LINES, OPENING LINES AND BODY COPY THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

As you’re first learning to write cold sales emails, think up 25 possible subject lines for
each message. Experiment with different types. Include personalization elements. Try
subject lines featuring questions. Go positive, negative and neutral.

Once you’ve written all 25, choose the two you think will perform best to test (more on
testing coming up in Lesson #7).

Even if it isn’t realistic to do this every time, practice by writing at least 5-10 possible
subject lines for each cold email. Over time - and as you watch the performance of past
subject lines - you’ll get faster at figuring out which alternative will work best.

OPENING LINES
Optimizing your cold email subject lines for better
performance isn’t exactly a secret. Even if you aren’t
already doing it, you likely know you need to.

But where most people drop the ball after fixing up

their subject lines is with their opening lines (aka, the
first sentence of their messages).

Your opening line is the first line of your cold email, and according to Colin Nederkoorn
of Customer.io, it’s one of the two most important parts of your message:

“The two most important lines in your email are the subject line and the first line
of the email. Like peanut butter and jelly, your subject line and first line belong
together. And if you pair them well they can work wonders for your open rates.”

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WRITING SUBJECT LINES, OPENING LINES AND BODY COPY THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

A good opening line naturally engages people and keeps them reading through to your
CTA. To learn how to write one, let’s look at what not to do first…

The following is an example of a bad cold email opening line, shared by Interstellar’s
Jonathan Grana:

Image Source: Interstellar

Let’s look at what’s wrong here:

MISTAKE #1 THE FOCUS IS ON THE SENDER

In this example, John has no reason to care who Amy is or what company she represents.
As a result, Amy has wasted a chance to catch John’s attention with something more
compelling.

MISTAKE #2 THE OPENING LINE ISN’T CLEAR

The best opening lines get to the point - and they get there quickly.

In the example above, we’re already two sentences in, and it isn’t clear why Amy’s reaching
out or what the value she’s offering is.

What awards has SEO123 won? What reputed clients have they worked with? More specific
examples would have made her introduction clearer.

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WRITING SUBJECT LINES, OPENING LINES AND BODY COPY THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Here’s a better way to open the message:

Image Source: Interstellar

Much better. With the mistakes above fixed and its new focus on John’s pain point,
Amy’s message hits home and creates immediate interest in her company’s services.

EMAIL BODY COPY

The final component of a cold email is your body

copy; basically, the main text of the email.

Just because your subject line and opening line are

two of the most important parts of a cold email
doesn’t mean you get to slack off here. Great subject
and opening lines will get you opens. Body text that
delivers on the promises they’ve made gets you wins.

Here’s how to create body copy that gets results:

TIP #1 WRITE LIKE A HUMAN

Don’t try to write like a perfect sales robot. Be genuine. Try to make a real connection by
writing like a human being.

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WRITING SUBJECT LINES, OPENING LINES AND BODY COPY THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

If you aren’t sure where or how to get started, use the

templates above in Lesson #1. But don’t copy them word
for word. Use the principles underlying each structure, but
translate them into your own language to create a message
that’s uniquely yours.

TIP #2 PERSONALIZE YOUR BODY COPY

Personalization isn’t just for your subject or opening lines.

Sending mass emails because it’s easier for you is a recipe for low response rates.
That’s because, according to data gathered by the Harvard Business Review, people
are far more motivated to help others when they feel uniquely qualified to do so.

Skip language like, “Are you the decisionmaker?” Instead, use personalization to
incorporate everything from unique CTAs, to pain points, to benefits descriptions
and more.

TIP #3 GET TO THE POINT

Don’t waste people’s time. Share only the information

that’s necessary. Leave recipients anxious to email you
to find out more.

Another great rule of thumb comes from Joanna Wiebe:

only send emails when there is more value for the
recipient than you.

If you can’t confidently clear that hurdle, wait to email

until you can.

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WRITING SUBJECT LINES, OPENING LINES AND BODY COPY THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

EMAIL WRITING TOOLS

You don’t have to go it alone when it comes to improving your cold email writing skills.
There are plenty of tools I recommend that’ll shortcut your learning curve and rapidly
improve your campaign performance:

A/B testing - Again, more to come on email testing later. For now, check and see if
your email provider offers an internal A/B testing tool. Don’t worry if it doesn’t. There
are manual processes you can use instead.

Headline Analyzer by Coschedule - Before you send a cold email, run your subject line
through CoSchedule’s free tool for guidance on making it even more effective.

AppSumo’s Kickass Headline Generator (as well as its list of 51 Headline Formulas to
Skyrocket Conversions (And Where to Use Them))

Upworthy’s 25 headline process template - Upworthy’s Slideshare presentation that

describes its headline creation process has great ideas for getting started.

Headline Hacks - SmartBlogger’s free Headline Hacks report is intended for blog post
creation, but offers great tips on writing compelling headlines that can be applied to
email as well.

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LESSON #3

EXPEDITING THE SALES

OUTREACH PROCESS: FINDING THE ‘RIGHT’
EMAIL ADDRESS WITHOUT WASTING TIME

Writing great emails - using the tips from Lesson #2

- is only half of the cold messaging battle. As you
perfect the language used in your cold emails, you’ll
also need a plan for finding the addresses of the
people you want to reach.

I’ve compiled a list of strategies, tools and other

resources below. Pick the ones that best suit your
industry and sales style, and then get to work!

WHERE TO FIND EMAIL ADDRESSES

The communities you’re already a part of can be rich places to mine potential contacts.

LINKEDIN

Sample Strategy: Export your contacts to capture work or personal email addresses
from your connections.
Per LinkedIn, you’ll need to take the following steps to export a list of your current
connections, including their email addresses:

1. Click the My Network icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.

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EXPEDITING THE SALES OUTREACH PROSSES THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

2. Click Your connections on the left rail.

3. Click Manage synced and imported contacts near the top right of the page.

4. Under Advanced actions on the right rail, click Export contacts.

5. Click Request Archive.

6. You will receive an email to your Primary Email address which will include a link
where you can download your list of connections.

Use the Instant Data Scraper Chrome plugin to scrape contact information from
LinkedIn Groups

Join as many Groups as possible in your industry to increase your possible

connections

LinkedIn currently limits scraping tools to roughly 2,750 records

Check out the full tutorial from GrowthPack.co’s Tzvika Avnery here

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EXPEDITING THE SALES OUTREACH PROSSES THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Follow the company pages where your key prospects work to find their email
addresses and others’ contact information

Autofollow 2nd connections to increase the size of your network

TWITTER

Copy your competitors’ followers’ Twitter handles, match them to LinkedIn profiles
using FullContact, and scrape their visible email addresses on LinkedIn.

Start by creating a list of the Twitter handles following your competitors. Check the
tools described below to automate the process - or, for a manual alternative, Bill Sebald
of Greenlane offers a 5-step process using copying, pasting and filtering within Excel.

Next, use the process described by

Salesflare to enrich your Twitter data with
LinkedIn profiles through FullContact,
using its Personal Enrichment Template:

1. Make an account over at FullContact

2. Download the Person Enrichment

Template (Excel Macro File)

3. Log in as developer to get an API Key

4. Open up the Person Enrichment

Template and fill out your API key

5. You’re ready to enrich contacts. Select

Twitter handles as source

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6. Go to ‘InputSheet’ and paste the Twitter handles

7. Go back to Begin and hit ‘Populate Contacts’

With your new list of LinkedIn profile URLs, you can use the Dux-Soup tool to auto-visit
each profile and scrape the visible email addresses into a new list of contacts.

Use AllMyTweets.net and search for “email” to locate email addresses mentioned
in your followers’ tweets

Match Twitter handles to Gmail addresses using FindThatLead

Use Twitter’s Advanced Search feature to look for phrases like “email” “address”
“at dot,” etc.

Image Source: Ahrefs

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EXPEDITING THE SALES OUTREACH PROSSES THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

FACEBOOK

Download your Facebook data to extract the contact information of your personal
connections

Image Source: TechGYD

Join Facebook Groups in your industry

Use Grouply.io or the paid Facebook Social Toolkit Chrome extension to extract
Facebook Group member email addresses

The following video explains how to use the Facebook Social Toolkit Chrome extension to
scrape Group member contact information:

WATCH VIDEO

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OTHER OPPORTUNITIES

Use the strategies described below to find relevant contacts. Then, match them to the
correct email addresses using the tools described in the next section.

Locate email addresses on your prospects’ “Contact” or “About Us” pages

Do the same on relevant author pages

Extract email addresses from upvotes on Product Hunt

Compile lists of those who have left product reviews on sites like Capterra

Use BuiltWith and Hunter.io’s Tech Lookup tool to find domains using your
competitors’ software

Scrape BuzzSumo to find people who shared content in your niche

Scrape similar influencer data from contributors to the following sites (depending
on your industry):

AngelList Clarity.fm

CB Insights Inbound.org

CrunchBase Udemy (or other free open course sites)

GitHub

Visit conference websites and gather names from the lists of speakers

Check out Chambers of Commerce or other business directories for more names

For many of the strategies described above, both manual and automated approaches exist.

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EXPEDITING THE SALES OUTREACH PROSSES THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Take the example of scraping BuzzSumo. If you’re willing to do some manual research
(or if you aren’t comfortable running scraping code), follow BuzzSumo’s process for
identifying influencers using its built-in research tools.

Or, if you’re looking for a more advanced alternative, you may

be able to use an API service to connect BuzzSumo with a
scraping tool or find a bot built for the specific purpose of
scraping the network.

Whatever approach you take, remember that not every raw

email address you scrape will be a viable prospect. Do your
due diligence to qualify each new contact before reaching out.

TOOLS TO HELP

There are plenty of different tools to assist you in executing the strategies above. Choose
from the following based on your needs and your comfort with technical complexity.

DIRECT SEARCH
The processes above describe different methods
for connecting with possible prospects, though
most of them require some level of validation to
ensure you eventually mail only the right ones.

If you don’t want to do the leg work required to

use these techniques, the tools below are
intended to help you find the right contacts and
their email addresses in as straightforward a
manner as possible.

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EXPEDITING THE SALES OUTREACH PROSSES THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Each has a different focus, process and price point. Review all of the options below to
find the right email capture and validation tool for your needs.

VoilaNorbert Clearbit Sheets

FindThatLead Toofr

FullContact Find Any Email

Email Hunter SellHack

Clearbit Connect Headreach

Rapportive (look particularly at its “Best LinkedIn SalesNavigator

Guess” feature)

DATA SCRAPING

If you’re comfortable executing more advanced data

scrapes, the following tools will help you parse and
collect massive amounts of contact data quickly.

Though the tools below aren’t necessarily

email-specific, they can all be adapted easily to that
particular use.

Dux-Soup Instant Data Scraper

DataMiner Mechanical Turk

Phantombuster

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EXPEDITING THE SALES OUTREACH PROSSES THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

OTHER TOOLS TO EXPLORE

FriendOrFollow - To expand your network by finding people you’ve followed who

aren’t following you back yet on Instagram or Tumblr

EmailPermutator+ - To test various combinations of possible corporate email

addresses (HINT: enter these into a draft message in Gmail and let Rapportive
identify the correct one)

Conspire - To make connections with key prospects (and the interim connections
needed to get there)

Mailshake's Lead Catcher - To validate the leads you’ve reached out to using the
methods described above

This isn’t a comprehensive list of all the

tools out there. It’s a starting place.

Give the strategies and tools described

above a try. As you improve your skills at
finding and validating email addresses,
you’ll likely identify other options and
opportunities that make your future cold
emailing campaigns even more successful.

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LESSON #4

PERSONALIZATION

WATCH LESSON 4 VIDEO

I mentioned earlier in Lesson #2 that personalization is a great way to improve the

quality of your subject lines, opening lines and cold email body copy.

Here are a few different data points from various case studies and pieces of research
suggesting how much of a difference personalization can make in your campaigns:

Statista that the open rate for emails with a personalized message was 18.8%, as
compared to 13.1% without any personalization in 2016.

Further research by Aberdeen suggests that personalized email messages improve

click-through rates by an average of 14% and conversions by 10%.

Campaign Monitor shares data which found that emails with personalized subject
lines are 26% more likely to be opened.

Customer.io found that personalized emails had 29 percent higher open rates and
41 percent higher click rates than emails without any personalization.

That said, not all personalization is created equal. Getting personalization right is just as
important as doing it in the first place.

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WHERE AUTOMATED EMAIL GOES WRONG

Ever seen a message like the one below come through to your inbox?

Image Source: Customer.io

Or, maybe you’ve received something like the equally bad:

Image Source: Customer.io

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That’s personalization gone wrong, and it happens because the database behind your list
looks something like this:

Image Source: Customer.io

So how do you get it right? First, there’s the

obvious data hygiene issue. A simple review of the
database would have uncovered obvious errors -
from empty fields to inconsistently-formatted data.

Make a habit of regularly scrubbing and updating

your list before taking any of the more advanced
steps described below.
?
Using fallbacks (that is, field values that can be
subbed in when data is missing or improperly
formatted) helps too.

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Here’s how to do it in Mailshake:

Image Source: Mailshake

HOW TO DO PERSONALIZATION RIGHT

Keeping your list clean is one very small part of the battle. Beyond that, it’s up to you to apply
the potential of personalization in smart, savvy ways.

MOVE BEYOND PERSONALIZING JUST THE ‘FNAME’

Subbing in a first-name fill field is personalization 101.

The most successful cold emailers know that you can
do so much more to customize your messages - even if
you’re still using a mass email sender.

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Mike Sharkey, CEO and co-founder of Autopilot, suggests 2-3 personalizations per
message as a “sweet spot.”

“Limit each email to two to three personalizations. You don’t want to seem creepy
to your contacts.”

So beyond ‘FNAME’ replacements, what are some of your best options? Give any of the
following a try:

COMPLIMENT A PIECE OF CONTENT DEVELOPED BY PROSPECT

Look for recent guest posts, LinkedIn Pulse

articles or other pieces of content developed by
the people you’ll be reaching out to. Then,
personalize your cold emails with a compliment
on the specific content piece.

Take the Mailshake template example below:

Image Source: Mailshake

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Although this particular template is asking for a guest post, you can see how similar
messages could be setup to encourage sales connections.

PERSONALIZE CTA BASED ON PROSPECT’S BUYER PERSONA

You can personalize more than individual form fields. If your email sender supports
dynamic content, you can automatically adjust your entire body copy, CTA or other
element based on data stored in your customer list.

Here’s how Campaign Monitor sets it up:

Image Source: Campaign Monitor

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Here, the email automatically detects whether or not the recipient has been tagged in
the customer list as a “friend,” “VIP” or other subscriber. The CTA can then be updated
on-the-fly to provide the offer that’s most relevant to their needs.

PERSONALIZE YOUR DEMO OR LANDING PAGE

Think outside the email box. Personalize your messages by including custom demos or by
redirecting prospects to landing pages that have been tailored to their specific needs.

Proposify’s Kyle Racki shares a cold email example from FullStory that included a
30-second demo interaction (which he - unsurprisingly - called the best cold email he’d
ever received):

Image Source: Proposify

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PERSONALIZE WHO YOU SEND FROM

If you’re a solo entrepreneur, you’ll send from yourself. But if you’re part of a larger
company with multiple sales reps, one of the best things you can do to personalize your
messages is to ensure they come from the right person.

Take one of Hubspot’s lead magnet follow-up emails as an example. Initially, the
click-through rate for the email from the company was 0.73%.

But, when the email was altered so that it was sent from someone on HubSpot’s
marketing team, the click-through rate jumped to 0.96%, generating 292 more clicks.

Image Source: Hubspot

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DO YOUR RESEARCH
The more advanced types of personalization described above are only possible if you have
comprehensive data on your prospects.

Your success, therefore, comes down to your research and your ability to gather data. In
particular, Diane Potter of Customer.io suggests collecting as many of the following data
points as possible:

Name (first and last)

Location
?
Birthday

Favorite Color (or animal, or any favorite)

Interests (products, areas you email about, etc)

What they’ve purchased

What they’ve searched for

I’d add the items below to her list:

Title

Company

Time at current position

Decision-maker status

Social profiles

Content publishing history

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For even more ideas, check out the VentureBeat graphic below describing the data points
most commonly used by marketers for email personalization:

Image Source: Customer.io

Some of this information, you’ll capture through your own research. Other pieces, you’ll
add as you go, using:

Surveys

Follow-up emails

Data scraping tools

As you add to your data record for individual prospects, put it to use through proper
segmentation.

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SCALE YOUR MESSAGING WITH

COLD EMAIL SEGMENTATION

Cold emails are often sent on an individual,

case-by-case basis. However, you can scale up your
sales outreach by mass emailing prospects - if you
get your segmentation right.

The key to proper cold email segmentation is to

choose groups of prospects that are large enough
to justify the time associated with setting up mass
email campaigns, but small enough that prospects
aren’t alienated by a generic message.

That’s especially important, given that Janrain found

74% of people get frustrated when they receive
content that has nothing to do with their interests.

Marketers and salespeople have only themselves to

blame. Research gathered by VentureBeat found
that over 60% of marketers target fewer than 15
segments. Half target fewer than 10.

The following are just a few segmentation options

to get you started. Add others based on information
gleaned from past campaigns and from ongoing
research into your prospects’ backgrounds.

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SEGMENT YOUR COLD EMAILS BY:

CONTENT
What topics and media have they engaged with (if any)? What media formats
do they prefer? How have they chosen to receive content?

PRODUCT
Which of your products have they demonstrated interest in? Have they
purchased past products? Have they visited your website’s pricing page?

PERSONA
What do you know about their attitudes, goals, needs, and persuasion
preferences?

LIFECYCLE STAGE
Have they heard of your company before? Are they a startup, young company,
mid-stage enterprise or established company? Are they a small firm or
enterprise institution?

Let’s walk through an example of what this might look like in practice. Putting this together
with the tactics described above in Lesson #3, you could:

Use Hunter.io’s Tech Lookup tool to find companies using your competitors’ software

Use FullContact’s Company API to return key contacts based on company name or URL

Segment this data using FullContact’s company size or founded date data

Validate the email addresses of your segmented prospects using VoilaNorbert

Import your final segment into Mailshake for use with a template like the one below:

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If you set your segment to only include

contacts at companies that have been
founded within the past two years and that
have fewer than 10 employees, you could
be reasonably confident you’d be reaching
early-stage startups (manual research
could confirm this).

Further, since you know they’re using your competitors’ software, you can get right to
the point describing the specific differentiators associated with your product.

Tailor the messaging in your cold email templates as closely as possible to what you
believe your prospects need to hear. Then, refine as necessary, paying attention to the
size of your segment and how closely related the prospects on it are.

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WARM UP YOUR PROSPECTS BEFORE MESSAGING

Ultimately, you’ll find personalization and segmentation easier if the people you’re cold
emailing aren’t really cold at all.

Imagine that, before sending a sales outreach message, you took any of the following
actions:

Following them on social media

Sharing or liking their social content

Joining the LinkedIn, Slack or Facebook Groups they’re a part of

Commenting on their blog posts

Sharing their blog posts

Mentioning them in one of your blog posts

Emailing their content to your list (and alerting them to that fact)

Sending them an email with a compliment (and no sales pitch)

Leveraging a connection for an introduction

Congratulating them on a recent promotion or speaking gig

Paying for their time on clarity.fm

Following them on Angel List or Product Hunt

Connecting at an in person event

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Now, not only do you have more of the data you need to make your sales emails as
personalized as possible, they aren’t really “cold” anymore. Your prospects will be more
likely to open your messages, simply because they already know and have a
relationship with you.

Obviously, engaging extensively with all of your prospects before sending a sales
message won’t make sense in every case. Don’t pay for a conference ticket or blow
hundreds on clarity.fm calls for every long-shot prospect you can think of. Instead, save
your energy for the big-ticket opportunities that are most likely to result in sales or
long-term partnerships.

MAKE IT MATTER

At the end of the day, remember that you aren’t just

sending to sales prospects. You’re messaging people.
And no matter what bells and whistles you use in
segmenting, personalizing or sending your cold emails,
what you say has to matter to them.

Flash and glamour won’t make the difference. You

don’t need expensive tools to make cold emailing
work. Engaging with your sales prospects as real
people, with real needs and pain points, is what’s going
to get you results.

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LESSON #5

BUILDING A QUALITY CHECK PROCESS

FOR SALES OUTREACH EMAILS

WATCH LESSON 5 VIDEO

Simply put: Sending cold sales outreach email with errors is suicidal.

If you’ve gone through all the lessons above, you’ve put a ton of effort into your cold
emails up to this point.

You’ve optimized your subject line, opening line and body copy

You’ve searched out the right people to email

You’ve personalized your content to their needs (or to the needs of their segment)

Don’t blow it all by missing errors that immediately diminish your credibility!

As Hubspot contributor Emma Brudner notes:

“Misspelling words or misusing punctuation never comes across well, but

prospects are more forgiving once they've gotten to know you. When you're
reaching out for the first time, a single error can destroy your credibility.”

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BUILDING A QUALITY CHECK PROCESS FOR SALES OUTREACH EMAILS THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Both Emma and I recommend Grammarly as a first

step in ensuring your sales emails meet your high
standards. After that, I suggest having a quality
control checklist you run through before you even
think about hitting the ‘Send’ button.

Here are 10 questions to get you started:

10 QUESTIONS TO ANSWER BEFORE SENDING

Am I sending to the right person?

Have I verified the email address I’m sending to?

If I’m importing emails from a CSV, have I correctly mapped my fields?

Have I personalized my message correctly?

Do I have any spelling or grammar errors?

Is my focus on my prospect’s needs or my own?

Are the benefits of my product or service obvious?

Are my sentences too long?

Could any part of your email be considered culturally insensitive (language,

salutation, etc)?

Does my message have a CTA?

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BUILDING A QUALITY CHECK PROCESS FOR SALES OUTREACH EMAILS THE COLD EMAIL MASTERCLASS

Some of these questions will be easier to answer than others. Spelling and grammar
errors require just a quick check. Making sure the focus is on your prospect - not you -
is more subjective.

Practice running through this list with every email you send, and you’ll soon get faster
at identifying issues when they exist.

You might also find it helpful to add to this list, based on what you know about your
strengths and weaknesses.

If you struggle with personalization, add extra questions checking the way you’ve
introduced and executed specific customizations.

If you’re regularly mailing to people in multiple countries, a greater focus on cultural

norms may be necessary.

Wherever you decide to focus, make this step a

mandatory part of your cold emailing process.
Checking your messages takes only a few minutes.
Repairing damaged relationships with prospects
who received improper or incorrect messages can
take a lifetime.

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LESSON #6

FOLLOW UP EMAILS

WATCH LESSON 6 VIDEO

If you’re short on time, I’ll save you a step. All you need to
know about follow up emails is this:

Follow up emails are effective, and your cold sales email

campaign needs to have them.

Want more? Here’s what makes them so effective, as well

as my best tips on deploying them successfully.

WHY FOLLOW UP EMAILS?

Intuitively, you probably already know the answer to this.

But let’s back our instincts up with data:

92% of salespeople give up after four “no’s”, but 80%

of prospects say “no” four times before they say “yes”.
(Marketing Donut)

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Research shows that 35% to 50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first.
(InsideSales.com)

You have a 21% chance of getting a reply to your second email if the first goes
unanswered. (Yesware)

The following chart from Yesware shows just how effective follow up emails can be,
with senders receiving responses after as many as 10 separate follow up messages:

Image Source: Yesware

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HOW OFTEN SHOULD YOU SEND FOLLOW UP

EMAILS?

Ten follow up emails might feel excessive to you. It does to me - I tend to stop after three.

That said, there are as many opinions on the topic as there are senders of cold emails. To
help you find the follow up schedule that’s right for you, I rounded up suggestions from
three top salespeople:

“If you reach out completely cold and never had any interaction with the other
person, follow up a maximum of six times. You really don’t have the type of
relationship that gives you permission to do much more than that.

If you already had some kind of interaction and that interaction was not a clear,
definite NO, then follow up as long as it takes to get a response. Never stop till
you get a response.”

- Steli Efti, close.io

“Persistently emailing your prospects with a valuable and interesting message

ultimately overshadows the effect of timing, especially if you vary the timing of
emails throughout the campaign.”

- Heather Morgan, Salesfolk

In one example, Heather describes her company’s engagement with tech startup Ambition.
To improve response rates to cold emails, her team devised a sequence of eight follow up
messages for each of the team’s two buyer personas.

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The best performing message? #6B. According to Heather:

“While email #6’s performance may partially be a result of how persuasive and
effective this particular email copy was, this coincides with the classic sales lesson
that persistence works for email.”

Eric invested in follow up emails after realizing his cold email response rates were, in
his words, “an abysmal 3%.” After adding a 5-step automated follow up sequence to his
cold emails, he was able to achieve a 83% open rate and a 13% response rate.

“Sometimes you just need a swift kick in the butt to get you back on track. After
auditing our processes, adjusting our templates and automating our follow-ups,
we got the results that we were looking for.”

- Eric Siu, Growth Everywhere

Still not sure where your company should fall on the follow up spectrum? Here’s a general
rule of thumb to keep in mind: You’re representing your brand with every message you
send. Be persistent, but not so aggressive that you diminish your brand’s value.

HOW TO WRITE A GOOD FOLLOW UP EMAIL

Now that you know you need a follow up email (or, even better, a series of them), what
should you put in them?

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While there’s no universal solution for follow up success, there are a few principles to
keep in mind that’ll steer you in the right direction:

ADD MORE VALUE

If you didn’t get an initial response, try something like “Still

interested in having this call? By the way, I thought of you
with these two articles.”

Don’t assume that people aren’t interested in talking to

you, just because they didn’t respond to your first
message. Assume they’re busy, and that it’s up to you to
figure out what value they need to see in order to engage.

DIAL DOWN YOUR ASK

If you initially asked to setup a free consultation call, test whether or not you have better luck
asking for a lead magnet opt-in, for example.

TEST A DIFFERENT PITCH OR CTA ENTIRELY

Maybe your prospect isn’t looking for a new SaaS provider

at the time. But they may still be interested in your bespoke
consulting services.

Get them on the line for one product or service, and selling
others becomes easier once they’re onboard.

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BE FUNNY, NOT GIMMICKY

Here’s an example of a funny follow up message, courtesy of Steli Efti:

Image Source: close.io

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And here’s an example of a gimmicky follow up message, thanks to NextGen Leads:

Image Source: NextGen Leads

This isn’t grade school. Don’t ask your prospects to take multiple choice quizzes or to
check “yes” or “no” on whether they like you.

The line between funny and gimmicky is a difficult one to walk. If you aren’t confident
your follow ups will be received as clever, not creepy, stick to messages that are purely
professional.

TEST, TEST AND TEST SOME MORE

Test as many variables in your follow up emails as you do your initial cold messages.
In particular:

Test different templates Email at a different time of day

Test different message formats Test the number of follow up

messages you send

Continually iterate your follow up sequence to increase your ultimate odds of success.

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AUTOMATING YOUR COLD EMAIL FOLLOW UP

As with your initial cold emails, your follow up

sequences can be automated to save you the time
and energy of sending manual messages.

Automating follow up messages comes with its

own caveats, however, as there are unique
challenges associated with sending full series of
emails on autopilot.

For instance, what happens if prospects on your

list receive duplicate follow ups, as Capterra’s
Caroline Malamut did after attending a conference:

Image Source: Capterra

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There’s also the risk that past interactions you’ve had with a prospect won’t be
reflected in the follow up sequence, as happened to Yesware’s Elise Musumano:

Image Source: Yesware

Before launching an automated follow up series, ask yourself the following questions:

Do I have the technical know-how to setup and manage a drip sequence?

Are my custom/personalization fields pulling the right information?

Have I optimized my follow-up templates before adding them to a sequence?

Does my sequence timing take weekends, holidays, etc into consideration?

Will my automated follow-ups be sorted with my original email in prospects’ inboxes?

Will prospects who respond be taken out of follow-up sequence?

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It’s also worth reviewing the following tips on deliverability to ensure your follow up
messages make it to the intended recipients - especially given that 21% of opt-in emails
never make it to the inbox:

Choose a reputable drip campaign sender with a track

record of high deliverability

Practice good data hygiene by verifying any emails

you’ve scraped (using a tool like VoilaNorbert) and
scrubbing any addresses that bounce

Avoid words that trigger spam filters

Don’t include too many images or links, relative to

the amount of text you’ve included

Send consistent volumes at consistent times

Customize the text associated with your links (as

leaving the raw URL as is can cause mismatches
between the printed link and the tracked link the user
gets, which spam filters don’t like)

Keep the Golden Rule in mind to avoid spam complaints. If you wouldn’t want to receive
the follow up messages you’ve drafted, don’t send them unto others.

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GREAT EXAMPLES OF FOLLOW UP MESSAGES

Get inspired to put the tips and tricks described above into practice with the
following examples:

FULLSTORY

Remember the personalized cold email from FullStory I shared in Lesson #4?
Here it is again as a reminder:

Image Source: Proposify

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Here’s where the story gets even better… This is the follow up message sent
from FullStory after Proposify’s Kyle viewed the personalized demo:

Image Source: Proposify

WHY IT WORKS
FullStory’s follow up is successful because it’s
triggered by an action (in this case, watching the
demo). FullStory knows it should follow up (and can
likely do so effectively) because it’s detected that the
recipient took a specified engagement action.

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BREAKTHROUGH EMAIL

Hubspot shares the following example of a simple, yet effective cold email
follow up message, written by Bryan Kreuzberger of Breakthrough Email:

WHY IT WORKS
Though the message isn’t anything complex, it gets to the
point quickly, is respectful of the recipient’s time and
includes an extremely low-friction ask.

Perhaps that’s why it led to an 80% email open rate and

$4,386,000 in additional revenue.

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KLENTY

Sales prospecting solution Klenty shares the following example of

an effective follow up template:

WHY IT WORKS
Klenty’s template leverages the power of social proof,
which, OptinMonster’s Mary Fernandez notes, can be
used “as a tactic for increasing conversions by easing the
minds of worried customers.” Anything you can do to
diminish prospects’ resistance helps - and, in this case,
social proof absolutely does the job.

As you’re probably sick of hearing me say by this point, there’s no certainty when it
comes to cold emailing - follow up messages included.

Use the suggestions and sample messages here as a baseline for your campaigns,
but then test different iterations based on your unique circumstances.

And speaking of testing...

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LESSON #7

ANALYZE, OPTIMIZATION & SCALE

WATCH LESSON 7 VIDEO

A good optimization campaign separates mediocre cold email efforts from those that
become truly successful.

Your goal with email analysis is to get the maximum possible benefit from your
cold messages with the smallest possible amount of effort, resources, etc.

By conducting optimization before scaling your campaign, you’ll be able to take

your most effective messages to the largest possible audience, improving your
overall results.

Of course, if email optimization was easy,

everyone would be doing it. The gap between
those using analysis effectively and those who are
just “winging it” suggests that there’s still plenty of
opportunity for most salespeople to improve their
cold email results.

Doing so requires navigating the unique

challenges associated with cold email testing,
while at the same time implementing analytics
best practices that aren’t always easy or intuitive.

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THE CHALLENGE WITH COLD EMAIL TESTING

One of the fundamental building blocks of a cold email optimization campaign

is the A/B test, in which two variations of an individual message are sent out in
order to determine which one results in more conversions.

A/B testing is used frequently in the marketing world to compare the

performance of landing pages and other web elements. In the case of cold
emailing, testing different subject lines, opening lines, CTAs, button texts and
other variables can help your future messages perform better by honing in on
the combinations most likely to produce a response among prospects.

That said, one of the challenges associated

with traditional A/B testing is that you need
a sufficiently-high sample size to prove the
statistical significance of your results.

Statistical significance is your ability to

determine whether or not the results you’re
seeing are due to random chance or to the
variable you’re testing.

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Imagine flipping a coin. With every flip, you have an equal probability of getting
heads or tails. However, if you only flip your coin a few times, you could get a
skewed sense of probability compared to carrying the same experiment out
thousands of times.

The chart below from Basic Mathematics shows the probability of getting heads
over different numbers of tosses, as determined by a computer simulation:

Image Source: Basic Mathematics

Now, imagine that, instead of coin tosses, you’re testing cold email responses.

If you send out four messages and get one response, you might determine
that your odds of getting a response using that variation will always be 25%.

However, because you’re testing such a small sample, you can’t have the
same confidence in your results you’d have if you sent out 100, 1,000 or even
10,000 messages.

That doesn’t mean that A/B testing isn’t useful when sending cold emails. You can
still gain useful insight from split testing, though it’s important you understand how
to collect it effectively and how to make informed decisions based on your results.

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HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR COLD EMAILS:

A GENERAL PROCESS

Since classic A/B split testing measures don’t

apply neatly to cold emailing, think of your
general goal as this: to send small batches of
messages in order to see what works before
scaling to larger audiences. Basically, send
your message to 100 people and work out the
kinks before sending it to 5,000.

Here’s how to do it:

STEP #1 - SET YOUR BASELINE METRICS

Set a baseline for your optimization efforts, depending on the specific type of
conversion you intend to track. We touched on this back in Lesson #1, but generally,
this means tracking open rates, click-through rates or response rates.

There are two ways you can set your baseline metrics:

Base them off of industry standards

Base them off your current numbers

If you’ve been tracking your target metric, you

may already have a baseline in mind. For
instance, if you’ve been seeing a response rate of
less than 1%, that’s a great starting point for your
future optimization efforts.

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If you don’t know where you currently stand, you might find it easier to set your baseline
at industry averages (if they exist in your field). Find a starting point by searching the web
using queries like:

“Average cold email open rate in [industry]”

“Cold email response rate in [industry]”

“Good cold email response rate”

Leadfuze, for example, reports that the average cold email response rate is less than 1%.
A question posted to Startups.co suggests an average conversion rate of 0.5%.

Yet again, I’m going to caution you not to overthink this.

Pick a number that feels right based on what you know of your own cold email
performance and average standards in your industry. You’ll revise it anyways after your
first test gives you real data to work with.

STEP #2 - SET GOALS FOR YOUR TARGET METRICS

Next, you need a goal to work towards. For example, you might
aim to improve open rates by 10% or your response rates by 5%.

Pick a number that represents a modest improvement over your

baseline. As you run different tests, you can make future goals
more aggressive or dial back your expectations if you aren’t
seeing the desired results.

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STEP #3 - DESIGN AND RUN YOUR EXPERIMENTS

When it comes to test design, you have two options: testing large, sweeping
changes vs. making smaller tweaks.

For example, say your goal is to increase your open rates by a huge margin.
In this case:

Testing your CTA won’t be useful, since

prospects don’t interact with it until
they’ve decided to open your message

Changing a single word in your subject

line might make a small difference, but
testing an entirely new structure could
get you bigger results.

Design the experiments that are most likely to get you to your stated goals.
Need big improvements? Test big changes. Need to refine an
already-successful message? Think smaller.

It’s also an A/B split testing best practice to test a single variable at a time.
If you tweak your subject line, your greeting, your CTA and the inclusion of a
P.S. all at once, how will you know which variables contributed to the change
you’re seeing?

If you aren’t sure which single variable to test first, use the questions below
for ideas.

? Questions to Increase Open Rates

Are my cold emails being delivered in the first place?

Am I targeting the right audience?

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Can my subject line be improved? You can:

Test the different variations you developed back in Lesson #2

Test different formats (e.g. short vs. long, question vs. statement, etc.)

Test including or leaving out personalization fields

Test specificity vs. general subject lines.

Am I sending at the right time?

? Questions to Increase Click-Through Rates

Am I using hyperlinked text or a raw URL?

Would using a linked image produce better results?

How am I framing the benefits of clicking my link?

Am I sending prospects to an appropriate landing page for their needs?

? Questions to Increase Open Rates

Should I use a different greeting?

Can my opening line be improved?

Will a different template give me better results?

Is my email too long?

Is my tone off?

Has my copy inadvertently offended my prospects?

Is my CTA ask too big?

Have I clearly conveyed the benefits of my product or service?

Could I share a different piece of helpful content?

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Would a post-script be helpful?

Am I following up an appropriate number of times?

This isn’t a comprehensive list of possible testing factors. Instead, use these
questions to get inspired about all the different opportunities for improving your cold
email performance.

STEP #4 - RUN YOUR TEST

Let’s put all this into practice. Assuming you believe weak subject lines are causing your
low open rates - and that you want to increase open rates by 10% - you could:

Come up with one short subject line variation and one longer subject line

Send 50 cold emails using the short subject line and 50 cold emails using the longer
alternative

After a few days, measure the number of short subject line emails that were opened
against the number of long subject line emails that were opened

Use your email provider’s built-in A/B

testing technology, or record your results
in a simple spreadsheet.

In the case above, variation B met the

threshold for increasing open rates by at
least 10% (as 8% is higher than the
target 2.59%). Variation A did not.

This kind of test can’t be considered

conclusive. It’s not statistically
significant, so you can’t be sure the
results you’re seeing aren’t due to
random chance.

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But it does give you one data point to add to your campaigns to inform future tests.
Run enough experiments like these, and general patterns will emerge that show you the
best cold email approach for your audience.

One opportunity to expand on the data you collect is to actually call up prospects who
don’t respond to your cold email. Steli Efti uses this process and describes it this way:

“Take a sample of the emails you send, and follow up with a phone call. Your
objective in the call isn’t to make a sale, though it could lead to that. Instead, you
want to find out what worked in your emails and what didn’t. You’re gathering
intel.”

In his close.io blog post on the subject, he goes on to explain:

“When you start with a sample of 50 emails a day, it’s an opportunity to drill into
the qualitative side and find out what connects to people on an emotional level.
By making the call, you can gain valuable insights to your sales strategy and
business that are unavailable to even the largest of data sets.”

If you aren’t sure why you’re getting the cold email A/B test results you’re seeing, this can
be an especially valuable approach.

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STEP #5 - SET YOUR NEXT TEST

Once your test has concluded, start the next one up.

You might decide to repeat the test if you have a

feeling your results were more due to chance than the
changes you made. Or, you might decide to test
something different if you’re reasonably confident in
your results.

In any case, keep this rule in mind: always be testing.

Always be working towards a goal. It’s only through
this kind of consistent commitment to optimization
that you’ll get the best possible results out of your
cold email campaigns.

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LESSON #8

EXPERT SESSIONS - VIDEOS

LAURA LOPUCH

WATCH INTERVIEW VIDEO

As a litigation paralegal, a large part of Laua Lupoch’s job was to “get people to do stuff
that they really didn’t want to do,” ranging from hunting down documents to rounding up
witnesses to support their case. That experience came in extremely handy when
launching her next career.

When she decided to venture out into helping businesses with their copywriting and
emails, Laura sent out over 300 cold emails, and within a few months her business has
skyrocketed by 1,400%. She states, “My calendar was suddenly full and at the end, one of
those cold emails ended up earning $20,000 in revenue when it was all said and done.”

Laura knows first-hand that cold emailing can work and lead to lucrative opportunities,
but only when they’re done right.

#1 FOCUS ON YOUR AUDIENCE

Make the majority of your cold emails about the client,

and talk about yourself last. The more your clients see
themselves in your emails and see how your services
can help their specific problems, the more likely they
are to see the value of what you’re offering.

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When Laura writes cold emails, she waits until almost the very end to talk about herself.
She researched the tech and SaaS companies she wanted to work with and used highly
relevant information or case studies to get them interested in her services. Her focus
was entirely on her audience, and the “winning sauce” - as she calls it - earned a 56%
open rate and 9% positive reply rate.

#2 CHOOSE JUST ONE GOAL

Don’t confuse your audience by including too many

goals within a single email. Don’t ask them to follow
you on Twitter, read your blog, and work with you all in
one correspondence.

But it’s not just about the confusion factor. Laura says,
“Every email should have one goal, otherwise it’s hard
to measure success or failure. It’s much easier to
figure out the solution to fix that failure if your email
has one goal.”

#3 GET STRATEGIC ABOUT EMAIL OPENS

Overcome the biggest obstacle in cold emailing by getting

them to open it in the first place.

Laura encourages everyone to look at the ‘From name’, as a

lot of people are reading emails directly from their
smartphones. “You’re scanning through names to see if you
recognize anyone,” shares Laura. If your ‘From Name’ looks
like spam or not from a real person, it’s less likely to get read.

Try testing your send name or using a naming convention

like “Laura from (Company Name)” to add a human touch to
your business.

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#4 FOCUS ON THE RIGHT HEADLINES AND

SUBJECT HEADING

In order to get your reader’s attention, the subject heading or

headline of your email should be highly relevant to their
needs. If you’re too vague or focus too much on yourself right
from the start, the reader is unlikely to open the email (or ?
really care what you have to say).

Laura also suggests using a question in the subject heading ?

to grab attention. "People love to answer questions. We have
?
this innate desire to answer a question. If it's in the subject
line, that really piques the curiosity and makes you want to
open that email."

#5 WEAVE STORYTELLING INTO YOUR EMAILS

Help connect with your clients or audience by

focusing on storytelling in your cold emails. Laura
sees stories as the fabric of our lives. “When you
see a friend you haven’t seen in a couple of months,
the first question you ask is how are you and what
you have been up to. You want to hear the stories of
what they’ve been up to.”

“Start thinking about how you can sell or pitch your

service using the stories of your successful
customers. For example, you could tell the story of
the last successful customer that you helped. You
could tell a story of last client worked with had
10,000 new leads because of the work that you did
with them.”

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#6 FOCUS ON PERSUASION IN EMAILS

There’s another benefit to using storytelling in

your cold emails. It has “baked in social proof”
when you talk about how you helped a past client
or competitor. Your reader becomes engaged in
the story and gets to see a glimpse of your
personality, while seeing who you’ve worked with.

It’s essentially a “humble brag” that draws your

reader into your track record for success, without
coming right out and giving them a laundry list of
your accomplishments.

#7 FIGURE OUT WHO YOUR NUMBER ONE READER IS

Figure out who that one person in

your audience is that always loves the
stuff that you’re working on, and write
your emails directly to that person.
When you know who your ideal,
number-one fan is, you already have
an understanding of what they like
and what they’ll respond to.

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GILLES DC

WATCH INTERVIEW VIDEO

As a growth marketer with a focus on scaling the sales process, Gilles relies on a
combination of sales automation and the human touch to help build, scale and sustain
his business relationships. And although he credits that human touch with actually
building trust in his customer relationships, he uses automation to help segment his cold
email lists and streamline the process.

For example, when he’s targeting SaaS founders, his emails are all likely to have a similar
vibe. But when he expands outwards - say, to accountants - he repurposes the same cold
email content, but uses different positioning to target the new audience.

#1 OFFER VALUE

First and foremost, offer value to entice customers to trust

you and build a relationship with you. You can do that in the
very first email you ever send, but make sure it’s worth their
while. Gilles suggests that one cost-effective way to do this
is to invite them to an exclusive Facebook group where
like-minded business owners can come for advice and
valuable information.

As Gilles says, “The best chance to make it through the noise

is to ask them not to invest more time and energy, but give
something of value.” Remember, this email can be your only
chance to make a good first impression. You need to plant a
seed of value to grow the relationship and start to build trust.

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At the end of the day, Gilles sees cold emailing as a trust-building opportunity that can
help you compete in a saturated sales market. When your sales prospect feels like you
know and understand them, they’re more likely to respond to your cold emails.

#2 KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

It’s not enough to have a valuable product that you think

everyone wants. In reality, your audience dictates what is
valuable to them.

Figure out what you can offer that’s highly relevant and
valuable by doing deep research on your audience. For
example, a software company might jump on a case study
on how your product helped sell more products in their
industry. The more specific you can get with the value you’re
offering, the easier it is to attract like-minded customers.

Gilles says once you’ve established value, you can develop a one-on-one approach with
them to make them feel like you're solving their problems. From here, you can send more
blog posts, invite them to a webinar, or onboard them into a private Facebook Group.

#3 SWITCH TO HUMAN MODE

Automation is key to scaling relationships and

outreach, but isn’t the way to actually build a
relationship. Switch to human mode when building
relationships from the start. Use automation to
enable yourself to talk to as many people as
possible and scale your reach, but don’t forget about
the human touch required to nurture these new
relationships.

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#4 SEGMENT YOUR LISTS

Without segmentation, you don’t have the right personalization.

Reduce the challenges involved in personalizing the outreach
automation process by segmenting your list well.

The thousands of “hellos” you’re sending will be mostly the

same, but you still personalize the process by tightly
segmenting your lists. What you send a software company
should be unique from the cold email campaign you send a
Fortune 500 company. They require a different value
proposition, approach, and personalization.

#5 USE THE RIGHT LANGUAGE

Part of the segmentation and personalization

process is using the right language when
addressing your ideal customer. Founders of a
startup are more likely to respond to a casual
approach and language like, “What’s up?” or
“Cheers!” than an accounting company. In the latter
case, using more formal language signals a level of
professionalism.

Nail down the right language by doing research on

LinkedIn or visiting prospects’ company websites
and blogs to get a sense of their style and language.
From there, Gilles encourages using the right tool,
like MailShake, to segment your list into different
personas, based on their business, personality, and
the language you’re using to help automate the cold
email process.

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#6 RELY ON EMPATHY

Use empathy and put yourself in your audience’s

shoes to figure out what they value, how they talk, and
what they want to hear about. Getting into this
mindset can help increase your open rates and quickly
build trust and credibility with your audience.

#7 BE UNEXPECTED

Be unexpected and infuse more humor in your cold

email outreach. “Using humor works very well for me”
says Gilles. People get generic emails all day long. For
them to read your email and respond, Gilles
recommends putting in a GIF or meme (audience
depending, of course). If you give people something to
laugh about, they’re more likely to engage with you.

HEATHER MORGAN

WATCH INTERVIEW VIDEO

Former economist and founder of Salesfolk, Heather Morgan helps B2B sales,
marketing and founders create better emails. Heather has been doing cold email
since before she knew it was even called a cold email.

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Today, she’s setup 550 cold email campaigns for companies who earn a 15% to 35%
positive response rate.

#1 ADD VALUE BY ANSWERING THE QUESTION “WHY?”

Before you send your next cold email, ask yourself why
anyone should actually open and respond to your email.
You may think you have a fantastic product or company,
but these people don’t know you or your business.

“Make them care by being thoughtful and offering

value,” Heather says. “On average, less than 4 out of 100
B2B sales emails actually get a response. Why is it so
low? A lot of times the results are low because people
are spamming out garbage that are generic or
untargeted and don't add much value or are boring.”

#2 KNOW YOUR BUYER PERSONA

Know your audience and buyer personas by

narrowing them down as tightly as possible and
talk about them instead of yourself. Heather
sees people sending out untargeted, generic
emails - even big enterprises will say their buyer
persona is “marketers.”

That’s too generic. Instead, you need a narrower focus that encompasses job title,
company size, industry and more. Heather likes to “e-stalk” potential customers on
LinkedIn, Twitter and other social sites to look at keywords, tone, pain points, fears, and
thinking about what influencers like to share. She takes all of the research and
information she gathers and focuses on talking about her audience and buyer persona in
her cold emails, instead of just herself.

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#3 STAND OUT IN YOUR SUBJECT HEADING

Getting a cold audience to open your emails requires a

unique or outstanding subject line - typically, one that offers
immediate value or points out a problem.

But Heather’s favorite way to get noticed in an email

subject is to be weird and surprise them, while still relating
to the email body. One of her most popular subject
headings included, “11 chicken eggs” and “Eyeballs” to
entice potential B2B clients to open and read.

! Fear can also be effective in getting a higher open rate, but

Heather warns to be careful and not to piss prospects off
by misleading or tricking them. Instead, consider a subject
heading like, “Issue with (company) purchase” or “Problem
with (company) site.”

#4 KEEP IT SIMPLE

Keep your email simple and focused in order to make them

more effective. Heather recommends that, if you can say it
in a way that’s simpler or shorter, you should do so.

Try to replace jargon with everyday language that everyone

can understand. Think about how you’d explain the product
or business to your grandmother or to a 10-year-old to
simplify your language.

“You need to earn their attention to read the email, and you need to earn their response,”
says Heather. “The more simple and short it is, the better it is and the more they’re going
to remember the email.”

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#5 USE THE RIGHT LINGO

That said, if you’re targeting a specific

industry or client and know the lingo, use it to
help them relate and start the trust-building
process. Use relevant lingo from the buyer
persona you created based on deep online
research.

Just be careful to keep it less about proving

you know the right jargon and more about
talking to your ideal customers in the
language they already use.

#6 THINK ABOUT HOW YOUR CLIENT DRESSES

FOR WORK

Here’s a fun trick from Heather: Get a clearer

image of your client’s personality and needs by
imaging how they dress for work.

If they’re wearing a suit and tie and getting

ready for a meeting, they likely require a more
formal approach to cold emailing. Meanwhile,
the clients wearing workout gear or T-shirts to
work are unlikely to respond to formal language
and expect to be addressed professionally, yet
casually.

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LIANNA PATCH

WATCH INTERVIEW VIDEO

Cold emails can feel, well, cold and lifeless. When handled haphazardly, they also tend
to lack substance and personality. Conversion copywriter and comedian Lianna Patch
noticed this too, seeing a huge need for ecommerce and SaaS companies to punch up
their emails by blending business sensibilities with humor.

“I’ve always gotten a good response from it. The first thing I started writing with humor
was a weekly fashion round-up on Etsy.” Lianna started making fun of her round-up
and got a good response from her audience. “Even back then, I felt there was
something to this.” As she started honing her chops as a writer, she also started doing
open mic comedy and taking improv classes and realized this could be her entire
focus. “It seemed too good to be true,” Lianna says.

#1 DO YOUR HUMOR RESEARCH

Lianna admits it’s tricky to do research about humor into

what your prospects thinks are funny, but it is possible.
She focuses on what shows they watch and find funny,
what their favorite comic strips were as a kid, and what
their favorite comedy movies and stand-ups are now to
get a sense of the style that resonates best with them.

Then, she looks for places to strategically use humor as

a tool, whether for building trust or alleviating tension.
“Humor can build trust and make them believe I’m a real
person and not a robot copying and pasting this stuff.”

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#2 START SLOWLY AND A/B TEST YOUR HUMOR

Lianna cautions that if you’re new to humor writing, you

need to take it slowly and A/B test whenever possible.
“Don’t go balls to the wall with humor. Test a funny subject
line first, especially if you have the opportunity to A/B test.”

She suggests starting out with a joke in the subject line and
wrapping it up in the email. You can also do this in your P.S.
once you’ve warmed them up and built some rapport and
trust in the email.

I’ve used this in my own cold emails and found that infusing some humor at the end
seemed to work better than the subject heading. Our audience liked the line, “It’s not like
building a business is rocket science. It’s harder.”

#3 KNOW WHEN TO DRAW THE LINE

Stop and ask yourself where the line is with your own
audience. Lianna drops “F bombs” in her emails and
blog because that’s how she talks in real life. And a lot
of her clients are also open to speaking frankly and
using a mix of swear words. But there should be a
purpose with using colorful language. “My aim is never
to offend anybody,” Lianna says.

Her clients also have their own lines. Some are weary of
swearing, or don’t want to use silly GIFs. To make sure
everyone is on the same page, Lianna sends along a
sample to pinpoint what kind of tone and humor to use
to make sure her clients are comfortable with the copy
before writing up a series.

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#4 USE HUMOR TO BUILD TRUST

The real purpose to using humor in emails is to stand

out while building trust. For example, when Lianna
writes to a group of tech leaders in software
companies, she knows they’re likely to watch Game
of Thrones and can throw in those examples to
pepper her content with email.

The goal isn’t to exclude people with weird and

hard-to-understand references. But the results can be
huge when you reference the right person. “When the
person who was supposed to get that sees it, they
think ‘oh this is just for me’ and it builds that trust.”

#5 DELIGHT YOUR READERS

Take the time to consider what your customers are seeing in their inbox over and over
again. It’s probably the same type of pitches and relatively dry copy. But humor affords
the opportunity to really stand out.

“My goal is to make people stand out in the inbox. I want to be the most delightful thing
that you read so that you’ll remember me.” Even a simple check-in email can include a fun
GIF to infuse some humor and brighten up your audience’s day.

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#6 STAND OUT IN A DRY INDUSTRY

Lianna sees companies in normally

humorless industries like SaaS
companies making the mistake of
approaching their emails in a way
that’s cold and impersonal, then
expecting a reaction. Lianna says
they’re missing out on a chance to use
humor as a shortcut to building a
rapport and a connection. “If you’re in a
niche where everyone is dry, that’s your
opportunity to stand out.”

Lianna has seen this first-hand with a client that sells storm water
compliance and reporting monitoring software. “They really wanted to brand
themselves as out there and weird and funny.” And their efforts paid off. The
founder reported that people were coming up to them at an industry
conference and asking if he writes those stormwater compliance emails. If
humor can change an industry like storm compliance and reporting, anything
is possible.

According to Lianna, “Humor can save the world.”

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STELI EFTI

WATCH INTERVIEW VIDEO

You might have noticed from all the references to his work throughout this guide, but
I’m a big fan of Steli Efti, the co-founder of Close.io. Steli helps small and medium
sized businesses and inside sales to put out more calls and emails, as well as to open
and close more deals.

#1 FOCUS ON THE USER EXPERIENCE

Product development and cold emailing has more in common

than you’d think. To successfully send cold emails, you need
to start thinking about the user experience. “If you think
about email like you think about product development and
the user experience, that philosophy is really the foundation
for everything I do in my outreach.”

That’s why Steli takes the time to think about who the person
is that’s receiving the email, what their inbox looks like, and
what their experience looks like. He strategizes exactly how to
structure the entire email, while engaging his audience -
without being deceptive

Steli also knows that anything he writes should be worth

reading. “At the end of that email, I want the person to
appreciate how different it sounds and feels.” He credits his
ability to do this to a business process through which he puts
himself in the position of every person he’s trying to meet.

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#2 KNOW YOUR COMPETITION

It’s not enough to just understand your customer.

You also need to understand who your competition
is. This is where Steli sees a lot of sales reps going
wrong. “Where people always fail is not
understanding the person they're trying to reach or
who they’re competing with.”

A more successful cold email Steli received recently came from a web developer that
acknowledged he must get hundreds of emails and just deletes them. He asked for
just three sentences to make his point, and it impressed Steli enough to keep reading.
That web developer understood exactly what his competitors were doing and used
authenticity and empathy to stand out.

#3 LET CUSTOMERS EDUCATE YOU

Instead of jumping immediately into your pitch, take

one moment to thank them for responding and ask,
out of curiosity, what made them want to engage
with you. Steli says you can go directly to your
customers or sales prospects to educate you on
what works and what doesn’t. That includes both
the good and bad to your cold emails and pitches.

“Don’t just sell, learn how to improve the way you sell,
and learn it from your customers and prospects.” The
people you’re messaging will give you a tremendous
amount of insight into the best ways to structure your
cold emails. You just have to ask.

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#4 USE A SINGLE CALL TO ACTION

Not using a CTA at all can negatively impact your cold

emails, but so can using too many. Steli says too many
cold emails leave the reader hanging or leave it
open-ended. Alternatively, he sees how complicated
people make emails by asking for too many things at once.

Don’t ask your reader to watch your video, click on a link to

sign-up for something, visit your website, onboard for a
free trial, or schedule a call - all in the same email. “Give
me one simple, clearly defined call to action that makes
sense for me, not just for you”

Think of your cold email CTA as a way to convince your prospect to hop on a call with you.
“Sell me on how much time the call is going to take and why it’s suppose to be worth your
time.” Steli suggests giving one or two times someone can say yes to, instead of leaving it
open ended and making them scramble to find a day and time to call you.

#5 FOLLOW UP FOREVER

Following up forever can turn a cold prospect

into a paying client, but only if you do it right.
Steli says if he has some kind of connection,
exchange, or engagement with someone, he will
generally follow-up indefinitely until he gets
some kind of response. Meanwhile, your
competition is likely to quit and fade away after
just a handful of emails. Steli’s customers have
seen results as far down the line as the 17th or
23rd follow up email.

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You can also use a 1-2-3 approach to reduce friction. Your prospect might be busy,
waiting for a decision maker, or just uninterested, and feel friction about responding to
your email. Steli ends this friction by giving them three options where the CTA is to hit
reply and type one of the numbers.

The first might be that you know the person is busy and wants you to follow-up by a
certain date, another is that they’re uninterested and never will be, and the third infuses
some humor. In this case, Steli might ask if they’ve fallen down the stairs and need
someone to call an ambulance because they can't reach their phone. It grabs their
attention without being intrusive.

At the end of the day, it’s about the customer and what they need - not about you. Steli
shares, “The whole world doesn’t revolve around you. It’s your job to check in with them
and increase the chances the timing is going to be right.”

TALIA WOLF

WATCH INTERVIEW VIDEO

Talia is a long-time conversion optimization specialist who helps businesses optimize

their entire customer journey in order to create better experiences and grow their
company. She’s found success by focusing primarily on emotional targeting and
persuasion.

Talia also teaches online courses to help you tap into your customers’ minds and figure
out what they want in order to create those experiences for them.

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#1 USE EMOTION TO FIX THE LEAKS

Talia recommends testing your results and getting down to

the emotional root of your customer’s journey to increase
your conversions. But it takes a well-defined strategy to
find the leaks.

At first, Talia tested random elements like CTA buttons,

web copy and anything else she came across. After finding
leaks in her funnels, she could identify the issues, but
didn’t know how to fix them. Even though she devoured
blog posts and resources on the topic, she noticed that all
recommended solutions were based on someone’s opinion
or intuition - and the results were disappointing at best.

As she was looking for a substantial, scalable way to optimize what she was doing on her
ads, emails, landing pages, ecommerce flows, websites and more, Talia realized that it all
came back to emotion. “Emotional targeting is the framework that I built that focuses on
why people buy,” she says. “At the end of the day, the root of every conversion is our
decision making process. If you can tap into why people make decisions, what makes
people buy, essentially you can create a better experience for them.”

#2 FOCUS ON THE CONVERSION GOAL

It takes more than obsessing over your open rate or

click-through to increase conversions. And that goal
should all tie into what your customers’ emotions are
and what they want. “You're not the hero, your
customer is.” No one cares about pictures or awards.
What they care about is what’s in it for them and the
actual value that they get from your product or service.

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#3 ASK YOUR CUSTOMERS TOUGH QUESTIONS

Instead of assuming what your customers want, go out

and ask them. “The amount of people that are making ?
assumptions about their customers is mind boggling.”
And it’s also relatively easy to fix. Go out and do customer
surveys and interviews and ask your customers tough
questions about the things that matter to truly get into
their heads and discover what motivates them to buy.

#4 RESEARCH WHAT YOUR COMPETITORS ARE DOING

Figuring out why customers are buying from your

competitors can shed light on your customers’ pain
points and motivations. “I go onto the competitors’
websites and look at reviews and testimonials. I only care
about that.” Talia doesn’t look at anything else, instead
focusing on why those people are buying from them.
“These are prospects that should be buying from you that
are buying from your competitors.”

Take all of that information about your competitors and

plug it into a spreadsheet. Talia copies and pastes her
competitors’ reviews to see what annoys them and
frustrates them, as well as what’s amazing to them. From
there, you can comb through the data to see what
similarities stand out and can inform your understanding
of your customers’ needs.

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#6 STAY AUTHENTIC

As you piece together what your clients want from you,

it’s also important to stay authentic during your touch
points. Talia sends personal emails to her subscribers
and thinks about what it will look like before she ever
writes it - from the colors to the images. She also thinks
about the one thing she wants her readers to get out of
her email and works backwards. “What is that one thing
that’s going to lead to that goal?”

That’s just one piece to the puzzle, according to Talia. It’s

also important to stay authentic and, when appropriate,
use casual and personable language so that people will
want to keep opening them and reading every week. Give
your audience a reason to read and a single CTA you can
mention several times if you need to, depending on the
length of your copy.

#7 GRAB THEIR ATTENTION AND CONVERT

Studies show customers will go elsewhere if a

! website loads in more than 3 seconds. Talia
points out that loading time is a technical thing,
but also a cognitive thing. “If we don’t see what’s
in it for us in 3 seconds, we’re out of there. It’s
the same thing with an email. You need to grab
their attention and give them a CTA immediately
or it’s not going to convert.”

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#8 FOLLOW UP AND AGITATE THEIR PAIN POINTS

Make your follow up emails about persuading

your readers to do something instead of just
reminding them that you emailed them a few
weeks ago. Asking your audience if they read
your email at every follow- up won’t convert.

Keep the value and focus on the reader and

keep agitating those pain points. Keep the
focus and goals of your email consistent at
every touch point, but figure out a new way to
say it to see what’s going to convert.

That could mean doing new research on your customer, trying out a new tactic and
A/B testing the results. It’s all about doing your homework - and doing it right.

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