A Killer Cold Email
I got a great cold email the other day which always gets me excited. Love a great cold email. The difference between sending a cold email to 100 people and getting 15 to respond vs getting 3 to respond is often the difference between a business that works and a business that doesn't.
So, let's take a look at a great cold email I got this week that did 95% of the cold email job well and 5% horribly:
Quick breakdown:
"Love the work you do at Tacklebox Accelerator" is canned and auto-generated. That's fine. A compliment, no matter how clearly impersonal, is still a compliment. It's always better than starting an email with something like "I'm working on XYZ." Starting off the email with a "them" sentence and not a "you" sentence increases response rates by 3x. People are shallow and love compliments.
"You must be swamped..." - also canned, also about me, also true. Building trust. I am swamped. Building momentum to keep reading. Go on...
"Thought I'd reach out to see if you need a hand" - getting a bit long, but again - this is about ME not about the sender - they want to help. I'm curious how they'll help me become less swamped, even though “thought I’d reach out” is wasted letters as, obviously, you’re reaching out.
"After 10 years in business, I learned..." This sentence is good. It gives credibility (10 years) and also aligns with my goals. I already believe that "me having time to think" will separate my business. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't have started a business. But, I also don't think everyone knows this about me (probably naively). It feels like specific knowledge of me, which is compelling. Big time momentum.
"Quick exercise..." - I don't love this, and no one will actually do it, but it's the type of thing I recognize has value. So, again, this leans into the specificity piece - people like us do things like this.
"key points..." - another brilliant sentence. These are clearly the reasons customers are hesitant, and they get them out of the way immediately. I'm basically ready to take the next steps. I'm excited, I have the problem, I need a solution to it... and then....
"is this something you might be interested in?"
Oh no!!!!!!!!!!!!
What an awful call to action. They're so freaking close. The next natural next step is getting me started. Something like "respond with the task you most need automated next week" or "here's a typeform that'll ask you about how you spent your time last week and we'll tell you how many hours we would've freed up." Something tangible, but something with little cognitive overhead for me.
Requiring me to think of what to write in an email is a disaster. Getting me started on the product - edge of the wedging they're way in so I feel like they're helping me make progress - is the path. Oh well.
Overall, an 8.5/10. I'd guess the CTA loses them 85% of people they could've had.
What would a cold email from you look like in the exact format of the above, except with a better CTA?