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Imagine you discover a perfect cold email that not only gets skyrocketing open and reply rates but also gets your ideal clients booked, ultimately closing the deal!
Sounds like a dream? But it became a reality for many users who primarily use cold emails to generate business.
We discovered some jaw-dropping stats when studying the results of 5M+ sequences at Saleshandy. For example, many cold emails generated real business with an average of 70% open and 50%+ reply rates!
When we enquired deeply through one-to-one conversations with these users, we found that some even get a 100% booking rate! Moreover, every week, these stats led them to getting higher conversions.
This blog will discuss what cold email structure they used to achieve these stats. Also, what made the structure of their emails so perfect for winning clients?
Let’s go over each section in detail.
Write catchy openings to hook the audience
We can use the cliche but relevant saying that the first impression is the last.
Getting noticed from a sea of emails flooding your recipient’s inbox is difficult. So what stands you out from others?
The subject line
There is no doubt that it is the subject line.
We closely looked at these subject lines and what made them highly successful. Here we have picked an example of an email that received an 83% open rate.
This email is from one of the Lead Generation agencies who use Saleshandy and pitch their clients with outreach solutions. This email opening has outstandingly worked for them.
Here’s another example from the same agency. This subject line got them 100% 🙀 open rates!
When prospects read these subject lines, they feel familiar with their use case and goals. In addition, it makes them think that you have done extensive research before contacting them. Here are 65 ideas for the best subject lines to write effective openings.
The pre-header
One more factor often overlooked is the importance of the pre-header.
Since most prospects open their emails on their mobile phones, a catchy pre-header is crucial to catching their attention. In addition, pre-headers are great for supporting subject lines. Here are some winning pre-headers from successful cold emails.
Key takeaways:
- Interest: Create a subject line that your prospects want to reply to.
- Curiosity: Don’t reveal everything. Push them to open your emails.
- Merge tags: Be sure to use merge tags in the message line to keep it personalized.
- Pre-header: Keep a supporting pre-header with a quick CTA
Personalize the intro for each prospect
If you don’t want your first impression to be fake, you must sound completely relevant and offer what you promised in the subject line.
This principle wonderfully worked for these cold emails. The following cold email aimed to target founders of Marketing Agencies. It breaks the ice with a highly personalized intro line that the readers can immediately connect with their personal goals.
We can see from the above cold email that the subject line creates interest, curiosity, and familiarity with the prospects’ goals. And the intro line complements the prospect’s pain points.
This combination helped Alex, the owner of an advertising agency, close clients with 65% conversion rates!
Ensuring every prospect on your list has a relevant intro line is essential. This blog can help you create icebreakers for cold emails if you need help.
Key takeaways:
- Commitment: Fulfill what you committed in the subject lines.
- Familiarity: It should be a reflection of what your prospects do.
- Personalization: Your intro line should reflect your prospect’s goals or pain points.
Make your pitch concise and effective
Cold emailing is always full of possibilities for experimentation. So you have to keep testing and move ahead with the winning one. No one pitch is perfect.
While searching for cold email structures, we discovered a variety of pitches. These suggestions and conclusions will help make your pitches more effective.
Keep it simple and direct
Often, long cold emails fail to create an action, and your recipients might close your email after reading the first two lines. Therefore, cold emails must be brief, or they will fail to achieve their purpose. Delivering value touch and pain points within 50-120 words is essential.
In cold emails, your prospects tend to have an attention span of just eight seconds, so always be straightforward and aim for a reply rather than being inconclusive and generic.
Here is the comparison of two cold emails. As the first email contains more than 120+ words and is quite generic, it only received 2% reply rate, despite getting a 60% open rate due to a good subject line.
The second example, however, generated a stirring reply rate of 45%! It’s the power of concise email that makes it so effective. What made it work?
- Cold email is short, clear, and to the point
- Prospects can quickly grasp the value
- In the CTA, it validates the pain point and asks for a response
Making use of humor
Humor can sound like an unprofessional pitch, but we have seen cold email campaigns that booked over 60% of their meetings through humor.
Lyra, a founder of a sales agency, used funny statements extensively to target salespeople in large organizations. As a result, she received a 56% response rate and closed 3-4 clients every week.
Using GIFs in follow-up emails
We also found that those who used GIFs consistently in their follow-ups closed more clients at the third and fourth follow-ups with a higher response rate.
For example, here is a follow-up email with GIFs to remind prospects about previous emails.
For many users, following up with GIFs has seen the highest conversion rate among follow-up emails.
Key takeaways:
- Length: Your cold emails should be concise and clear to the point.
- Formats: To see the results, you can experiment with different formats.
- Taste of prospects: Do a little research about how your prospects would feel about your cold emails.
- Value: Keep your pitch focused on your prospects.
Offer compelling and valuable CTAs
The rush to pitching often ignores the prospect’s actual interest. Therefore, keeping a solid call to action is recommended to determine whether your prospects are interested in your offer.
Here are some examples of CTAs where the prospects take action to gain value and, at the same time, we get to know the prospect’s interest.
Let’s have a look at these CTAs.
As you can see, every CTA is straightforward and offers something of value in exchange for knowing that the prospect is interested in receiving it.
A simple signature to bid goodbye
There is nothing better than a signature that is both catchy and simple. Regarding signatures, it’s best to avoid including links; if it’s imperative, don’t exceed more than one.
Having a signature helps your visitors gain trust through your social presence, as they can check you out on the web to verify your claims. Also, signing off with a funny message works! It adds substantial value to your CTA.
Key takeaways:
- In exchange for an action, offer value
- Don’t directly sell your service or product
- Keep it short and to the point
- Keep a simple signature to gain trust
Let’s recap
We discussed how successful cold email outreaches are structured and how you can apply the given suggestions to achieve your goals. Finally, we can summarize the whole discussion in bullet points for a quick go-through.
- First impressions are everything, so grab your prospects with a relevant and curious opening.
- Create a tailored introduction line with interesting prospect information, and make them feel like it is for them.
- Pitching should be concise and tested to determine which works best. Then, keep trying different formats until you find the one that works.
- Make your CTAs and signatures compelling, and know whether your prospect is interested.
We’ll continue to share successful cold email examples with you to help you make outreach more effective.
If you have any exciting stats and strategies you follow that work, please share them with us. We would love to read and share them.
