It’s 2021 and everyone hates emails apart from the “this meeting could have been an email” people. Often the conclusion of these meetings is “just tell me my objectives and leave me in peace”. The problem is that these people are so bad at crafting emails and slack messages that their leader has to call for a meeting/zoom call. A major assumption that everyone makes is that “my work is very important and everyone already knows what I am trying to convey”. This is where they need to learn how to write an effective cold email. Cold emails are not just for salespeople or newsletters, they are for everyday communication with internal and external shareholders. In the next few minutes, you are going to learn how to craft emails that take away the Monday morning blues. The recipe is to write every email as a cold email.

Subject of an effective cold email

How often you do see the email notification and swipe left? You haven’t even seen the message in the email. Effective cold emails have a subject that makes you want to click on them. Subject is the CTA that is tracked by email trackers and CRMs.  Here is a tip, make your subject mobile friendly. The first five words of the subject will decide the open rate of the email. The subject has to be crisply summarizing the email body. E.g.: 

  • Improve your CTA/productivity
  • Reduce your cost/TAT
  • Resume for XYZ role

In addition to the subject of the cold email: So your email open rate has improved but you are forgetting one major aspect of the human psyche. They are not going to remember your email two minutes after they have opened it. They are not going to remember your name either. What they will remember is the name of the organization that you belong to. So add the name of your organization in the subject. 

  • Improve your CTA/productivity | TalesOfSS
  • Reduce your cost/TAT | TalesOfSS
  • Resume for XYZ role | Saurabh Singh

A further addition to the subject of the cold email: Now the person reading your email may be able to search the email that you have sent. It would be a great achievement if you sent the email to just one person. But you sent the same email to countless prospects. How are you going to recognize who has replied with just the subject? Its very simple. Add the receivers organizations name in the subject 

  • Improve your CTA/productivity | TalesOfSS | Target organization
  • Reduce your cost/TAT | TalesOfSS | Target organization
  • Resume for XYZ role | Saurabh Singh | Target organization

Body of an effective cold email

After the subject template is decided, it’s time to write an email body that is visible on the first screen of the mobile app. While the aim of the subject is to improve the open rate, body of the cold email is to increase your reply/response rate. No one is going to scroll down if you can’t get your point across in the first 7-8 lines of the email body. Also if you share your intentions in the first few lines, the other person might ignore them if it’s not highly relevant. So you have to play safe. You have to reel in the reader. Also, do NOT add more than 2-3 links otherwise it’s going to the spam folder. Follow these five pointers of an effective cold email and you would improve your chances of getting a reply.

  1. The best way to do so is to introduce yourself in one line. This can be an intro template of your organization or yourself (if you are an influencer).
  2. Next is to tell the reader how much you know about them. Once again this can be a one liner about their organization or about the person. 
  3. After that, you mention why are you writing the email in a subtle way. This can be done by referencing an article you read about the reader or a research that might be of relevance to the reader. Even if it’s not relevant, the reader is already intrigued by your attempt to catch its attention. It’s very likely that if the email is opened, the next lines would be read.
  4. Finally, you make your pitch. Tell the reader what you are offering and how it would *insert subject line here* in a detailed manner. 
  5. End the email with a call to action. The call to action can be let’s connect on a call, download this e-book, fill this form/survey, etc. Do NOT add more than one call to action in your email. Too many would just confuse the reader. You want them to read the email in a coherent manner with a single call to action. 

Signature of an effective cold email

Are you serious? Why are you even reading this sub-heading? Don’t you already know what to mention in your signature? In case you are intrigued, the signature is very simple and standard.

Regards

-Your name
-Designation
-Your organization name (hyperlink to the webpage you want the reader to be directed to)
-Your email ID (because the reader will forward your email to someone else)
-Your contact number

That’s it. Follow these basic guidelines and increase the open rates of your emails. Turn your cold emails into effective cold emails. It is also advisable to create an email journey with 7-8 emails with a schedule of 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 day gap for each subsequent email in the email journey. If you were looking for a standard template, here’s some news for you: If the email is not customized, you are not going to get a reply. Within the customization, you can play around with a few standard sentences, but you need a customized cold email for each target persona (not every person, but for every persona)

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Note: In case you are looking for a Product Management course, I would highly recommend joining this cohort-based course – ISB Executive Education – Product Management program

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Categories: Product Management