While writing a cold email, a marketer should find a balance between being informative and being brief. That can be quite frustrating, especially when you have no experience with cold letters. Don’t worry though — these tips will help you through. Moreover, you will find several cold letter templates to make B2B cold email writing a lot easier and more on point.
33% of readers decide whether to open an email or not depending solely on a subject line. That’s your gatekeeper — no matter how good the newsletter itself, it may not be opened at all if the subject line is not catchy. Might be a good idea to focus on crafting and testing different subject lines to see what works for you.
Here are some cold email subject line tips to consider:
If you’re feeling frisky, you can even try and use funny subject lines for your cold emails — depending on the industry, they may work.
Suppose you did a good job and your subject line works. It’s time to introduce yourself and make a good first impression. Stay brief and focus on your recipient’s needs — introduce yourself and tell only what your recipient needs to know at this stage.
In the following example, the sender gives the name of the company, their position in it, and a short explanation of why they’re reaching out in the first place. There are links to the company’s website and the pitch, in case the reader is interested.
The recipient likely knows nothing about you, so you need to catch their attention and make a good offer before you lose their focus. That’s why cutting to the chase is important in B2B cold email writing.
That is the reason your recipient is reading this email in the first place. Promise them a sound advantage — it’s better if you do it right in the subject line and follow with the details in the newsletter.
Many kinds of offers can work in B2B cold emails. For instance, if you’re promoting SaaS software, you can offer freebies, special plans, and more. In the example below though, the offer in question is simply a better newsletter service that is cheaper and brings more revenue.
Be brief but not too formal so that your email looks person-to-person and not as if it was written by a stiff salesman. Avoid marketing cliches — your reader comes across those so many times that tends to ignore emails with these harmless phrases. Here’s a list of some popular ones:
Aside from the tone of voice, you can make your message more personal by tweaking the content for each prospect. Instead of sending the same generic cold email to all your potential customers, think of how your product could be useful to each of them — and highlight that value in the email.
Let’s say, you’re promoting a marketing automation tool. Your prospects include a small private dental clinic, an experienced email marketing agency, and a tech startup. These potential customers have different pain points and use emails, SMS, and other marketing channels for different purposes. For example, you wouldn’t tell an experienced email marketing agency that you know how to warm up email addresses — to them, it’s not impressive enough. However, inexperienced marketers from a dental clinic may appreciate this information and the all-inclusive offer with warmed-up IPs and all that jazz.
A CTA in a B2B cold email is what you expect your prospect to do further. You can suggest starting a free trial, contacting you via email or phone, visiting or registering on your website, etc. No matter the goal, make sure you explain clearly what to do next — that’s crucial for boosting the response rate.
Here are several types of CTAs to use in your cold email:
Your prospects don’t know you yet, so they will need proof that your business is trustworthy and resolves the customers’ pain points. Here’s a list of proofs you can use:
However, here’s what you need to keep in mind — you’re not here to brag about how cool you are, and your prospects don’t care if you have 100 customers. While you can mention such figures, keep in mind that numbers alone won’t yield you a response. What is more important than namedropping or showing off your market share is a description of how exactly you can help your prospect.
The blank sheet can be quite frustrating, even if you know what to include in your cold email. So, we’ve compiled a list of 8 email templates for B2B. These templates use different sales frameworks and are appropriate for different scenarios.
AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. That describes the structure of your email: you grab attention, express interest in your prospects’ stuff to keep them hooked, show the benefits to build a desire, and give a clear CTA so your reader knows what to do to satisfy the desire in question.
If you consider this model a good fit for your business, use this template. Keep in mind that it’s a baseline AIDA email where the “attention” part is supposed to be in the subject line — you can change any element. For example, the “expressing interest” part doesn’t have to be about complimenting corporate blog articles.
SAS stands for Star, Arch, and Success. This is a scenario in which you present the star — the hero of your story. The star can be a person, a business, or a project. You follow with the arch, which is a description of the star’s journey, and the difficulties the hero has to overcome. And finally, you show the star’s success.
The SAS model creates a story, and humans love stories. They grab attention and generate interest. That’s why some of the best cold email templates are story-based — like this one:
PAS stands for Problem, Agitate, and Solution. First, you describe the problem, then agitate to underline why this problem is so important, and, give the solution in the end.
Here’s a baseline template based on the PAS framework you can use for your next cold email campaign.
BAB stands for Before, After, and Bridge. You describe point A and point B, which obviously should be a success, and then explain how you got here — that is the bridge.
Check this example of the BAB model cold email. It starts from describing the current state of the recipient’s business, then moves to the “after” state when the issue is resolved, and ends with a bridge which is the “salesy” part of this email template.
You can use this template for product launch emails. But the focus of the email is asking the lead to estimate it and give comments, not to praise and promote the product. That makes a difference: you underline that you value the prospect’s opinion first, and only then you go on about the advantages of your product.
Here’s an example of what this email may look like:
This template can be applied to prospects who already visited your website, which makes them warmer compared to those completely unfamiliar with your company. The key is to avoid being pushy and bring value for those who already showed a minimum interest.
Here’s an example of how to show you’ve noticed a new visitor on your website and yet not appear creepy:
If you know that the lead uses your competitor’s product, use this information to your advantage. Don’t go bad-mouthing in email marketing, but show your UTP and hint at why you might be a better choice.
Here’s a good example of how to do so:
Social proof in email marketing makes you appear safe and encourages the prospect to take action. If you have a good case with a well-known client, describe it in your email to add weight to your self-presentation. Give some figures and promise the advantage lead could get from cooperation with you.
There are some general email marketing tips, no matter which b2b cold email template you choose. Some things make your email less attractive and lower its chances of getting a response. Let’s dig deeper:
Crafting B2B cold emails can be a challenge — we’re making it easier with 8 B2B cold email templates that you can use as a starting point and stop being scared of a blank canvas. Let’s revise some tips to ace your cold emails, respect your readers, and improve the efficiency:
