Learning how to write an effective cold email one that actually generates responses and opens doors is one

of the most relevant, valuable,lifechangingskillsIveeveracquired. Ive used cold email strategies to create partnerships, get meetings that led to sales, get deals started, get hired, and meet amazing people. Were talking high ranking executives, startup founders, and even a couple celebrities. I love cold email. If you learn how to effectively write cold emails,yourentireworldopensup. Thisispowerfulstuff.

Theskyisthelimitwhenyouknowhowtoopendoorsthatwerepreviouslyclosed.

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Understanding cold email strategies is especially important forstartups, individualswithoutbrandrecognition,andbizdevprosthatneedaccess. But99%ofpeoplesuckatwritingcoldemails.Dontbeoneofthem. You see, most of us arent ballers. Im certainly not. Most of us dont have enormous, wellconnected networks with unlimited resources. Most of us dontbelongtocompanieswithtopnotchbrandslikeGoogleorApple. I work at a startup and (typically) those I call have never heard of my company. And they certainly havent heard of me. I had to sell a product that didnt even exist yet to people who didnt know they wanted it. Its reallyhardtogetmeetingswithimportantfolksunderthesecircumstances. But after 1012 months andserioustesting, I figured it out. And I got very, verygoodatgettingmeetingsviacoldemail.Boy,wasitworthit. Over the past year Ive written hundreds of cold emails. Ive tested everythingandknowwhatworks,andwhatdoesn'twork.Well,Iknowwhat worksformeanyway.AndthatswhatImgoingtosharewithyou. There are one hundred ways to mess up a cold email. We need to avoid all ofthose. I am going to lay out a detailed, stepbystep, sentencebysentence blueprint for writing the most powerful cold email; a cold email that will get a response from anyone. This template can be used over and over againespeciallyforbusinessdevelopmentandsales.

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But be efore we e begin, its impo ortant to o understand our r goal. Our O goal isnotto t makeasaleviacoldema ail.Ourgo oalisnot ttocloseadeal,gethired, orfinalizeapar rtnership. .Thatcom meslater.

OURGOALFOROUR O CO OLDEM MAIL

Our go oal is to start s a co onversati ion with a highra anking, Clevel ex xecutive, entrep preneur, or o other importan nt person n and th hen move the interaction in a direction that t leads s us towa ards gett ting our desired d outcome o . In most ne call or r an inpe erson mee eting. (W Which is where w we cases, this means a phon actually make the sale e, or close the deal, d and d talk sp pecifics with w our ect.) prospe Of course, weonly o have e46sentences to get our point p acro oss. But Ill get to thatinabit.

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Sowhatdoweneedtoaccomplishinourcoldemail?Threethings 1)Getthereceivertoopenit. 2)Getthereceivertoread(orskimitattheveryleast). 3)Getthereceivertorespondtoyou. Wedothisby: 1)Showingthereceiverthatweregoingtomaketheirlivesbetter. 2)Keepingtheemailvery,veryshort! 3)Beingdirectintellingthemwhatwedlikethenextsteptobe 4)Makingiteasyforthemtotakethenextstep. Soundssimpleright?Wellitis. If we do the above, well get our meeting, our phone call, our desired outcome. Were going to address each of these items one by one. And Im goingtosharewithyousomeverypowerfultipsformakingsurewereceive a response. There are very specific tactics and strategies that we need to incorporateintoourcoldemailapproachtodothistherightway.

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BUT FIRST, WE MUST UNDERSTAND WHAT WE'RE UP AGAINST

You'regoingtohavetostandoutfromthecrowd...

The most important thing to remember:the person youre writing to is probablyextremelybusy. If they are important enough for you to cold email, they probably receivehundredsof emails every day. Of those, they probablydontopenmanyofthem. Even if they do open your email, they most likely arent going to read it because they dont know who you are. They are going toskimyour email. And even if they do take the time to read through your email and decide that they are interested in speaking with you, it is still just one more task that they are adding to their todo list.Youre asking them to make a commitment. Of course,were going to use some unique tactics and techniques to scoot around these issues.Were going to approach things differently.

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Were going to break through the noise byengineering the entire email interaction to give us the best chance of getting that phone call or in person meeting. That means using less obvious strategies that are counter intuitivetomost.

LET'SGETINTOTHENITTYGRITTY...
Were going to deconstruct and break down every line of an example cold emailandcreatearepeatableprocessthatcanbeusedforanycoldemailto generatearesponse. Forourpurposes,weregoingtobefocusingoncoldemailsfromabusiness development and sales point of view. The template we use will be specifically designed to generate a response and get a meeting with people orcompaniesthatwewanttopartnerwith,orsellto. A few months ago I sent a cold email to the CEO of one of the most respected aquariums in the country. I thought my company (which was a startup)andherwellestablishedorganizationshouldformapartnership. My company creates interactive mobile games that museums, zoos and aquariumscanusetohelpmaketheirexhibitsmorefunandengaging(while alsogeneratingnewrevenueforthevenue).Ithoughtitwasaperfectfit.It wasincrediblyimportanttomethatwespoke.IknewIcouldhelpher. But in reality, it doesnt matter what my company does. This cold email structurewillapplyreallywelltomostcoldemailreachoutswherethegoal istogetmeetingswhereyoucantalkbizdevpartnershipsandsales.

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From this point forward, Im going to use the cold email that I sent to the CEO of this major aquarium as an example reference for the rest of this guide.

Herestheemailexamplewe'llbereferringto:

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LET'SBREAKITDOWN
1)TheSubjectLine
It'scriticalthat we get the subject line right. If your email isnt opened you wont receive a response no matter what. So what do we write in our subjectline?Allthatmattersisthatweaccomplishtwothings: a)Weneedtoshowrightawaythatthisisntamassemail. b) We need to show the receiver that they may receive something of valueiftheyopenuptheemail. Everycoldemailsubjectlinethatwewritemustincludethesetwoelements anythingelseisjustextra. (NOTE:Ouronlygoalsofaristogettheemailopened.Nothingmore.) HereisthesubjectlineIchosetouse: "RE:SawtheProposedStateBudgetCutMaybeabletohelp" By showing that I saw the proposed state budget cut, I demonstrate that thisisnotamassemail.Bysayingmaybeabletohelp,Imdemonstrating that I may have somevalue toaddand it is worthwhile to,atthe veryleast, justopenupthisemailandskimitover. Remember,werestilljusttryingtogettheemailopenednotmakeasale.
(Extra Tactic #1) Also notice that I started with the letters, RE:.This is because our brains are programmed to open emails that begin like this. It implies that you and the receiver have already interacted at some point, which makes it more likely that this email is relevant to the receiver. Normally the RE: signifies that youremail is aresponse, butsometimespeople use it tomeanRegarding.ThatshowIjustifyincludingit.Itsworthadding.Trustme.

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Now, lets say I wanted to meet for coffee with an awesome person that I dontknowandI donthaveanintroduction.IfIsendhimacoldemailIstill need to demonstrate that my email isnt a mass email and that I may have value to add. (We cant actuallyprovethat we have value to add until the bodyoftheemail.) Thatsubjectlinemightlooksomethinglikethis: "RE:LoveyourblogOnesuggestiontobuildyouremaillist" Ifdonecorrectly,thisemailwillbeopened90%ofthetime.Seriously. Therearealotoffinefolksinbusinessdevelopmentthatusestandardized subjectlinesoverandoveragain.Itrytoavoidthosebecausetheydon't accomplishtheitemsmentionedabove.Acoupleexamplesare: 1)LookingtoConnect 2)PotentialPartnership:CompanyA&CompanyB(Whereyour companyiscompanyBandthereceiverscompanyiscompanyA).Im notafanofthisapproach,unlessyourcompanyisFacebook. Nowthatourrecipienthasdecidedtoopenouremail,letsmoveon

2)Thefirstsentenceofthebodyintheemail:
Ifthesubjectlinedetermineswhetheryouremailisgoingtobeopened,the first sentence of your actual email body determines if the reader is going to takethetimetoreadthroughwhatyouhavetosay.

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Inthefirst f oneortwose entencesofourem mail,weneed n to: a)bedirectso s thatth hereceive erknows whywer reemailin ngthem,and w needtotellthe ereceiverwhatsin nitforthem. b)we Ifwedo d thiscorrectly,th hereader rwillread dthrough htherestofourem mail,or atleastskimit. Thesearetheonly o twothings t we eneedtoworryab boutforth hisfirstse entence ortwo.
nkthatrefere encestheite emthatyoumaybeable etohelpwit th,itcan (Extratiip#2)Ifyouincludealin showth hatthisisapersonalized p demail.Notsome s script.

In our example e email, I make it t clear rig ght away y to the receiver that I'm emailin ng her be ecause I want w to discuss d a potential l partners ship, and I think I canhelpherorg ganizationgeneratenewre evenue. Sentences S s 1 & 2:"I saw th hat the new n stat te budget t will res sult in a $ $21K redu uctioninfundingfor f theAq quarium. .Ithinkmy m compa anymay b able to be o help th he aquar rium gene erate an extra $2 25K$30K K in new lyoffsett e earned re evenueth hisyear,potential p tingthatloss." She'sgoing g tokeep k read ding.

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Every sentence has a purpose, which is to get the receiver to read the next sentence. This is an approach that's been used in sales copy forever. We're justapplyingittocoldemail. In the original email, I added a link back to the article where I learned that funding to the aquarium may be reduced. This shows that this email is personal,andcomingfromarealperson.

3)SoftAsk#1(thesecondorthirdsentence):
Now, we need to let the receiver know what we want. Remember, if the person we're writing to can't figure out what we want immediately, our chances of getting what we want drop in a major way. In most cases, were looking for a phone meeting or an inperson meeting. (Thats where we actuallymakethesale,talkpartnerships,orgethired.) Ifitmakessensetotalk,howdoesyourcalendarlook? Idlovetohoponaquickcall(15mins.)Howdoesyourcalendarlook? Areyouavailabletoconnectoverphoneorinpersonforaquickmeeting nextweek? Shouldwetalk? Ichosetouse,"Shouldwetalk?".Thisisoneofmyfavoriteswhenreaching out to prospective partners because it sounds the least salesy and implies that connecting will be mutually beneficial. It's also a softer ask. You can only use this phrase if you can demonstrate that youll add major value in the sentence right before this one (as I demonstrated in my example.) OtherwiseIsuggestusingoneoftheotherthreelinesIsharedabove.

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(Extratip#3):Iliketousethissentencetomakemyselfseemmorecasualandlessthreatening.

Itseasierforthepersonontheotherendofyouremailtoagreetoameetingiftheycantellthat yourearealperson.

(Extratip#4):Specifyingatimelimitforyourmeeting,usingparenthesis,willtakesomeofthe
pressureoffthereceiverandmakeiteasiertosayyes.Thereisamajordifferencebetween committingtoa20minutephonecallandanhourlonginpersonmeeting.

(Extratip#5):Mostimportantpeoplehavetheircalendarsbookedweeksinadvance,so

sometimesyoullhavetowaitacoupleofweekstogetameeting.Thisisjustareality,sodont assumethereceiverisavoidingyouifsomeonewantstopushoffameetingforthreeweeks.

4)TheSafetyNetSentence.(Onesentence)
Thislineisincrediblyimportant.Itincreasesyourrateofsuccess dramatically. OnethingthatClevelexecutives,entrepreneurs,andimportantpeopleare greatatisdelegating.Thesefolksareprofessionaldelegators.Theywantto getitemsofftheirplate.Theywanttoshortentheirtodolist.Theyhave peoplebelowthemthathandleallofthesetasks. Here'sthelinethatI'veincludedasmysafetynet... "Shouldwetalk,oristheresomeoneelseattheaquariumthatitmay makesensetoconnectwithforaquickphonecall(20minutes)?" Now,iftheexecutiveyou'reemailingisonthefenceaboutresponding, wevegiventhemaneasywaytoletoneoftheirunderlingsfollowup withus.

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(ExtraTip#6):IfthereceiverisaCMOandtellsusthatweshouldreachouttoJill,theDirectorof
Marketingwevealreadywon.Jillisalwaysgoingtotakeourcallandhearusoutnowthather bosshasaskedhertospeakwithus.

Butbacktoouroriginalcoldemailtemplate Nowwehavefoursentencesleft.Remember,weneedtokeepthingsshort. Sixsentencesorlessisourgoal.

5)MeatandPotatoesWhatdoesmycompanydo (1or2sentences)
For emails meant to get partnership talks started, or sales meetings, this is wherewearegoingtoprovideanoverviewofwhatourcompanydoes. Keepitshortandbeconcise.Youcanttellthemeverything.Justoneortwo sentencestopiquetheirinterest. Here'swhatIusedinmyexample: "My company, XYZ, helps aquariums generate new revenue and make their exhibits more engaging by creating interactive, smartphone based games that take visitors on a selfguided adventure through yourvenue."

6)SocialProof(1sentence)
Finally, we finish off this paragraph with a sentence that generates social proof.ThisistheImnotgoingtogetyoufiredline.Addinginasentence

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showin ng that youre credible and a have e worked d with other o companies legitim mizesyou. Heres something you must m understand. People are a often scared of o losing obs.They yareoftenscaredtomakedecisions s.Youne eedtosho owthem theirjo thatth heywillno otbeput ttingtheir rlivelihoo odatrisk kbyworkingwithyou. y The firstste eptoreducingthisfearisshowing s that t your recredibl le. We ehavewo orkedwit thcompe etitorA,competito c orBandcompetito c orC. Here'swhatwe eusedinour o exam mple... "Wehavealreadypartnered p dwithXY YZAquariu umandXYZ X Zoo,helping h themgene eratemorethan$XX,XXX $ in njusttwo omonths ssincesta arting, a increa and asingthei irmembe ershipret tentionby y9%." I chose e to men ntion com mpetitors for some e extra ju uice. Beli ieve me if your target learns th hat you're e already y helping their com mpetitors s, they will w make timefo oryou.Mentioning M gcompet titorscan nbevery,verypow werful. Of co ourse, the ere's a right way to me ention co ompetitor rs and a wrong g way. If possible, I like to be more m spe ecific and write something li ike, "W We just n par rtnership launched a new with Competitor A an nd have ncreaserevenues r helpedthemin by X% %". This is i not on nly more effect tive,butshows s mo oretact.

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7)Ask#2(Thefinalsentence)
Nowitstimetoaskforthemeetingagain. Areyou(orsomeonefromyourteam)availabletohoponaquickcall (20minutes)sometimeoverthenextweekortwo?

8)Signature
Itsobvious,butworthmentioning.Youshouldhaveaprofessional signature. Mostpeoplewillmaketheclassicmistakeofusingthefirstsentenceoftheir coldemailtoannouncewhotheyare,whattheirtitleis,andwhatcompany theyrewith.Butyoudidntdothat,becauseyourenotachump. UnlessyouareatGoogle,nooneknowsyourtinylittlestartup.Noone caresaboutyourtitle.Sowedontincludethatinthebeginningofour email.However,wedoneedtoincludeitattheend,forcontext. Sodontleaveoutyoursignature.

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Conclusion
Finally, when you send coldemails, pay attention to the time of day that yousendthemout.Everyonehastheirownopinionsabouttheoptimaltime tosendoutemails.Idontspendtoomuchtimeworryingaboutthetimeof day, but I do make sure to avoid sending out cold emails on Fridays, especially late in the afternoon, and Mondays, when everyone is busy gettingtheirweekstarted.Iaimforthemiddleoftheweek. The ability to craft an effective cold email will open up your world and unlockamazingopportunities.Goodluck!

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