How to Write a Cold Sales Email

If you work in sales, then at some point you will undoubtedly need to write a cold sales email. This is especially true for B2B sales professionals, as business professionals overwhelmingly prefer video as their communication method of choice. However, regardless of who you’re selling your product or service to, you should use cold email as part of your prospecting strategy.

Email remains one of the top methods of reaching out to new prospects. In fact, studies show that email is 40 times more effective at securing new sales than Facebook and Twitter combined. Nevertheless, getting prospects to open and reply to a cold sales email is an uphill battle. Only about 9% of sales emails are opened and 1% responded to. As such, you need to know how to write an amazing cold sales email to buck this trend and capture the interest of your recipients.

In this article, we will go over several tips for how to write a cold email for sales, from subject line to final sentence. First, we will briefly answer the question “what is a cold sales email?” so that you understand the purpose of such an email. Then, we will begin our quest to write the perfect sales email with information about the best cold email subject lines. Following that, we will discuss a template for the body of your email. Finally, we will share our top 10 cold sales email tips and focus on what you need to include to catch the attention of your prospect. By the end of this article, you will know how to write an eye-catching  and expertly-written cold sales email.

What is a Cold Sales Email?

A cold sales email is an email sent to an individual with whom you have no prior contact with the intent of selling them a product or service. The “cold” part of cold sales email refers to the fact that this is your first point of contact with a new lead. Thus, the purpose of a cold sales email is to get a new lead interested in your product and eager to learn more.

Because a cold sales email is the initial point of contact, you should not expect to make a sale right away. Rather, a cold sales email should catch your lead’s attention and invite them to follow-up with you for a more detailed presentation about your product.

Best Cold Sales Email Subject Lines

Before you get to the body of your email, you need to write a killer subject line. In fact, 33% of email recipients open an email based on the subject line alone! Clearly, you need to perfect your subject line if you want to increase your email open rate.

Subject lines should be personalized and provide just enough detail to catch your prospect’s interest. Consider the following information on the best cold sales email subject lines, as collected by EmailAnalytics:

• Personalized subject lines get 26% more opens, so consider including your prospect’s name and/or company in the subject line.
• Include urgent words in your subject line such as “alert” or “breaking” to increase your open rate by 1%.
• Use an emotional appeal in your subject line. Emotional emails get 13-15% better response rates. Even negative emotion emails perform better than neutral ones! Consider including an emotion word in your subject line such as delighted, pleased, or concerned.
• Other “success” words in email subject lines include new, apply, opportunity, demo, and connect. These words are successful because they focus on what use your prospect can get out of your email and/or product. 
• The best sales email subject line includes “re:” at the beginning. Open rates for these emails are at a whopping 92%! However, it might seem strange to include “re:” in a cold email. See if you can make it work with a reference to the prospect’s use case, business, or a pressure point. If you can’t fit “re:” into the subject line of your first email, then save it for a follow-up in the same sequence.

Need more guidance? Check out these examples of successful cold sales email subject lines from Covideo:

• {Name}, I think you’re going to like this 
• Capture hot leads for {business name} with this quick tip 
• {Name}, here’s a free E-book just for you
• I’ve been tracking you, {Name}
• Can we team up, {Name}?
• {Name}, take your experience to the next level

Feel free to play around with the above subject lines according to your use case and offered products.

Creating a Cold Sales Email Template

If you’re sending a lot of different sales emails for various use cases, you still will want a general cold sales email template to follow. This way, you can create effective emails for new campaigns quickly. Though the template for each business and use case will vary, here’s a general outline that your cold sales emails should follow:

Hello Prospect Name,

State your purpose for writing.

Briefly state use case and a reason why your prospect should be interested.

Close with a CTA that states prospect’s next steps. 

Closing,

Your name and title

See this template in action:

Of course, you can learn just as much about how to write a cold sales email by looking at examples of what not to do. Here’s an example of a cold sales email that did not lead to conversion. Can you spot what’s wrong with it?

The above email is far too long and chatty to appeal to your busy prospect. Additionally, it takes far too long to get to the purpose of the email and does not present a clear motive for the recipient to respond. If you want your prospect to be interested in your product or content, then you need to specify what’s in it for them. 

Top 10 Cold Email Tips

Now that we’ve gone over how to create a good cold sales email subject line and cold email template, let’s go over some specific tips so that you can write the best cold sales email possible.

1. Use video

Do you know the best way to stand out in your recipient’s inbox? Add a personalized video to your cold email! Video can up your cold sales email game by:

• Boosting open rates by 19%
• Increasing click through rates by 65%
• Improving response rates by up to 200%!

Adding a video to your cold email will make your email more interesting and enticing to
your recipient. It will also let you introduce yourself in a more personal way so your recipient can put a face to the name. When including video in an email, you should still write out the body of your cold email, but include a video embed within the body to catch their eye. It’s best to present important information in both text and video format. For more information on what software to use to embed video in email, scroll down to the next section.

2. Use their name

You should begin your email (or video) with your recipient’s name. Personalized emails get results: they increase response rates by at least 10%. You should include your recipient’s first name at the beginning of the email, at the minimum. You can also include their name 1-2 more times in appropriate places in the email.

3. Briefly introduce yourself

Briefly state your name and company within the email or video so your recipient knows that there’s a human being behind it. You will want to include your company to increase brand name recognition in the future.

4. Focus on their use case

Since this is an introductory email, focus on their specific use case instead of a broad overview of their product. Answer the question, “what can this product/service do for you?”. Keep the answer simple – if they want specific details, they can reply and request more information!

5. Keep it short and sweet

The average person receives 147 emails in just one day! Show that you respect their time by keeping your email short and to-the-point. Nobody has the time or attention span to read a 5-paragraph essay about your product. Keep your cold email to 5-7 sentences maximum.

6. Keep it conversational

There’s a good chance that your sales emails are going to be sent out through an automatic program, but you still don’t want them to sound automated. This connects back to making it clear that there is a human being behind the email you send out. Make it clear that your cold email is the start of a conversation, not an automated sales pitch.

7. Guide them to next steps

You should end your email with a clear CTA that outlines your recipient’s next steps. Do you want to get them on a call? Then share your schedule and a few times that work best. Should they fill out a form for more information? Then make the button linking to this form large and clear. Your recipient should know exactly what they need to do to continue the conversation.

8. Don’t pull out the hard sell

As stated before, the purpose of a cold sales email is to initiate contact, not close a deal. Don’t pull out the hard sell just yet. You want to leave your recipient wanting more so that they follow-up with you.

9. Avoid statistics

Statistics are great for marketing, but leave them out of a cold sales email. Statistics usually reflect a broad user base instead of the specific use case of your prospect. Focus on their specific need instead of pulling out a sheet of statistics.

10. Prepare follow-ups

Chances are your first email is not going to get a response. Many cold emails will get lost in your prospect’s inbox, or your prospect may simply forget to reply. This is why follow-up emails are so important. In fact, 4-7 emails in sequence are best, receiving an average reply rate of 27%. Plan out your emails ahead of time so that each email focuses on a different feature, use case, or hot-button topic. You don’t want your emails to simply repeat each other. The goal of each email should be to provide more information to the prospect and invite them to reply and learn more.

Try Video Email Today

Are you interested in learning more about video email? Then you’re in luck! Covideo is the #1 video email platform available for both desktop and mobile devices. With Covideo, you can record videos, embed them into the body of your email, and send them to your prospects in just a few clicks. Covideo also includes custom video landing pages and clickable CTAs to spice up your video’s presentation. Best of all, you can track every click and view for every video, so you’ll always know how your sales videos are performing.

If you want to give Covideo a try, schedule a demo with one of our video experts today or Start a free trial.