Build my pitch cold email workshop: Email framework best practices edition

Tips for cold emailing: Experts share their secrets to cold email success

It’s no secret cold outreach is difficult. Yet for SaaS sales and GTM teams, it comes with the territory; without it, hitting your numbers is that much harder.

To help sales reps get better cold outreach outcomes, Sean Murray, director of sales development at LeadIQ, recently hosted a webinar called Build My Pitch: Learn How to Write Better Cold Emails that featured:

• Dani Schneider, enterprise sales development manager at MNTN;
• Jack Walter Funk, account executive at Salesforce; and
• Zach Anderson, director of strategic accounts at Memora Health.

Keep reading to learn the key ingredients of effective cold emails along with some actionable cold email tips shared by our panel of experts.

What makes a good cold email?

Toward the beginning of the webinar, Sean shared the framework that inspires his cold email outreach. It’s short and sweet, consisting of five key elements: 

1. The reason you’re reaching out
2. The associated specific pain point
3. How your solution can solve the associated pain points
4. A soft CTA
5. A personalized post script not relevant to the reason you’re reaching out
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Now that we’ve got the basics down, let’s explore some tips from each of our experts on writing successful cold emails

Cold email tips from Dani

• Personalization is key — and personalization should start with the subject line. “If you’re landing in the inbox with the same subject line everyone else is — Hey, quick question — it doesn’t really stand out,” Dani says. “So, for me, personalization is something that I think should never be sacrificed when it comes to looking up your prospects and knowing when you’re going to reach out to them.”  

• Don’t ask quick questions in subject lines. The way Dani sees it, too many sales reps use subject lines to ask quick questions. Rather than following the crowd, she suggests that personalizing cold outreach subject lines increases the likelihood prospects engage with emails.

• Leverage what prospects are posting on LinkedIn. One way to personalize outreach is by seeing what prospects are saying on LinkedIn — their posts, reposts, and comments — and referencing that in cold outreach messages. “If they’re posting it or reposting something or adding to it, they care about it,” Dani says. “Did they react to something that was a thought leadership article? Now, I can take some resources that we have and tie those together.” Pro tip: If someone hasn’t posted in months, think twice about using their posts to personalize cold outreach because they might not be interested in that topic anymore.

• Be authentically you. In an era where decision-makers receive hundreds of emails a day, it’s easier to stand out when you’re authentic. While all of the tactics discussed in the webinar can help certain reps drive sales, they might not work for everyone — and that’s perfectly okay. “If it doesn’t resonate with you, don’t try to force yourself to be somebody you’re not,” Dani says. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all. It’s taking these nuggets and making it your own.” In other words, take all of the tips our experts shared into consideration and adjust them in whatever way you think is most natural for you.

Tips for cold emailing from Jack

• Use no-oriented questions as pattern-interrupters. People are often hesitant to agree to a sales pitch using the word yes because they don’t want to commit. What if you could get people to agree with you by saying no? Jack encourages reps to try out no-oriented questions, like: Would you be opposed to learning more? It’s an easy way to break patterns and stand out more.

• Understand the business you’re reaching out to. Jack also emphasizes the importance of understanding how the business you’re reaching out to makes money. “If you’re reaching out to someone that’s in operations or strategy, how do you help them work on their bottom line?” he says, adding that there’s a big difference between “hey can I get on the phone with you to tell you about what we do” and “can I get on the phone with you and tell you about how I can save you money.”

• Ask “soft” questions. When you’re reaching out to a new logo and don’t know much about them, Jack recommends taking a softer approach. “I think that the ‘Hey, are you in charge of this?’ type of thing is always a good, soft call to action,” he says. “It’s not like you’re saying, ‘Hey, I know that you’re in charge of this,’ and then if they’re not, you lose credibility.”

• Follow up on the same chain. Another tactical cold email strategy Jack uses to achieve cold outreach success is sticking to the same email chain. “If you keep following up on the same chain, and you can see your name — like Kristen (7) — and this is the seventh time you’ve followed up with additional value,” the prospect might be more willing to engage, Jack says, adding that you might want to ask whether you’re reaching out to the best person around the fourth or fifth message. “I think that can sometimes help get some sort of engagement back.” 

Cold emailing tips from Zach

• Be brief. Executives and decision makers don’t have time to read never-ending emails. Since they often communicate in three sentences, sales reps should mirror that style. “You want to sound just like your buyer,” Zach explains. “You don’t want to sound like a seller or a marketer going to your buyer.”

• Make it about them. Instead of talking about how your product or service can do this and that, “you need to figure out what matters to the prospect and then make it about them,” Zach says. “What do they get out of talking to you? What do they get about your solution? What does your solution do for them?”

• Feed their egos. In the event your prospect is featured on a podcast or webinar, an easy way to make it about them is by personalizing your outreach with gems you’ve gleaned from those assets. “I’d want to talk to that person because they took the time to listen to what I want to say,” Zach says. “Everybody wants to feel like what they say is important, so if you can build people’s egos up like that, I think that’s fantastic.”

• Leverage conferences. One way to be relevant and personalize at scale is by targeting people who go to specific conferences that fit your ICP. “If you go on LinkedIn and type in #vibe2024, you’re going to see everybody who posted who’s going,” Zach continues. “Then you can start prospecting and targeting people that way.”

Tips for writing cold emails from Sean

• Find the time to be relevant. In an era where there’s so much outreach going on, cookie-cutter emails simply won’t cut it, according to Sean. “If your email is generic, you’re really not going to see the response rates that you want versus when you do put the time in to find something that’s relevant to that specific prospect,” Sean says.

• Develop your business acumen. The better you understand the organization you’re engaging and how they sell, the easier it is to engage prospects. Sean stresses the importance of “developing that business acumen, understanding the industry that you’re selling into, and understanding their ICP” before beginning a cold outreach sequence.

• Stand out with lowercase text. Most cold outreach email subject lines are written in sentence case or title case. Sean suggests writing subject lines entirely in lowercase letters to stand out. “Pull up your email, check out every single subject line you’re receiving — I guarantee you won’t see any of them that are completely lowercase,” Sean says. “It’s a nice way to differentiate yourself from everyone else.”
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• Make sure you can back up your claims. Your prospects can’t read your mind. If you make a claim — like we can save you money! — you need to explain precisely how you can make that happen. “If you’re going to make a claim like that, you’ve got to have some sort of explanation as to how you’re going to do it,” Sean says. “Because you can’t just assume that the prospect knows what your company does.” Since talk is cheap, an easy way to back your claims up is by using social proof — like case studies and customer testimonials. 

Take your cold outreach skills to the next level!

To learn more about how to write cold emails that convert, check out our recent blog post: 7 cold email templates and frameworks: How to write an enticing B2B message. While you’re at it, watch the full webinar above for even more tips and tricks from our experts. 

To see how LeadIQ can improve your reps’ cold outreach strategy, schedule a demo today.