How to write sales emails that convert [with cold email template]

Creating effective cold emails that convince prospects to schedule the first meeting is a bit like getting a first date. You need to capture your potential date’s interest in a crowded “market,” engage in a personal way to stand a chance at that first date and show you’re the real deal.

While it’s important to grab your prospect’s attention with personalization, you must use other cold email strategies to make your message stand out among the hundreds of emails your prospect likely receives each day. Yes, hundreds — the average office worker gets over 120 email messages every day. 

And the challenges don’t stop there. Business is changing and so is the way your prospects manage their emails. You can almost guarantee any decision-maker will read your email in an elevator or in line at Starbucks (if they read it at all).

The best cold email is one that has a good response rate and converts prospects. That’s why I’m sharing our nine best tips (and a few samples) to make sure your cold email outreach builds a strong foundation, increases reply rates, and brings new leads. (If you want a cold email template to get started right away, then skip to the end.)

1. Focus on the pain points keeping your prospect up at night

Map out what your target audience cares about, including common pain points and what resonates with them. And don’t be afraid to get personal. If your ideal customer is a sales manager, talk about your perception of their goals and the high pressure they face to make sure their team meets those goals. You can even go as far to say you understand their job could be on the line if their team doesn’t achieve its goals.

After that, introduce your product/service and convince them that joining a phone call or webinar with you is one step closer to eliminating these problems and reaching their goals.

Hot tip

When pitching a meeting, understand your prospect’s pain points first. Otherwise, they won’t even consider giving you their time.

2. Automate your cold email campaign

Before you start sending cold emails or LinkedIn messages, use a CRM platform like Salesloft, Outreach, or HubSpot to save your templates so you don’t have to waste time re-writing them. Pull up your saved email templates within your inbox and easily personalize them for each ideal customer. 

It’s helpful to set up your templates before you start your cold email campaign, because these sales automation tools also help you track how well your emails are performing. You can use the data to make changes, conduct a/b tests, and optimize your emails as you go.

3. Skip the cheesy subject lines

The first step to conversion is getting your prospect to actually open your cold email. With crowded inboxes, most sales reps don’t even make it that far. In 2021, email open rates were only about 20%. Don’t try to come up with an overly clever or cute cold email subject line. For most recipients, that’s just noise (and an email to avoid). 

Make a better first impression by creating a subject line that really targets your prospect’s needs — and sets you up to show how your product/service meets those needs. Here are a few subject lines that our own sales team found interesting:

• kNOw relationships, kNOw sales

• Friction is not ƒμN… well, you know what I mean.

• Treat yourself to a better conversion rate.

• Struggling with [pain point]? You're not alone

4. Cut to the chase

Use your intro email copy wisely. As a B2B sales rep, you understand your prospects have one thing in common regardless of industry: limited time. So why waste it with fluff and formalities? Do that and your cold email is already off to a bad start. 

Avoid opening lines like “how are you doing?” and “hope this email finds you well” because they don’t matter to you or your prospect. Get to the point. Your prospects will appreciate that you’re respecting their time.

Knowing that mobile is becoming a top way business professionals engage, you need to make sure your cold email is easily scannable. Writing apps like Grammarly and Hemingway can review your emails and show how to make them concise and engaging. For a more low-tech approach, ask a teammate to review your email — or simply read it aloud to hear if it sounds natural.

5. Make it easier for your prospects to convert

To increase conversion rates, use only one call-to-action which, in this case, is to schedule a phone call or webinar. Make booking an appointment easy for your prospect by using meeting scheduling software for sales teams. A scheduling platform automatically connects with your business calendar to detect your availability in real time, allowing you to share when you’re available in an email.

Without a scheduling tool, you risk engaging in the typical “When are you available?” back and forth, which could lead to an unnecessary exchange of emails — and decrease attention and interest from your prospect.

Hot tip

Use a CTA like “Let’s schedule a call to chat more about this” and link it to your scheduling page. Putting your availability one click away helps capture your prospect’s attention while they’re interested.

I prefer scheduling meetings with prospects as soon as possible, so I also limit my booking availability to the next five days. If you have a hot prospect who wants to talk immediately, then have a one-off meeting link ready to share at a moment’s notice.

6. Make it personal (but only if it’s relevant)

Instead of personalizing based on things that aren’t relevant to your reason for reaching out — like knowing your prospect lives in New York and bringing up how nice it is this time of year or knowing they graduated from UNC and mentioning their latest basketball win over Duke — focus on the prospect’s company’s business needs and what matters to them in their role. A little research can go a long way toward persuading your prospect to schedule a meeting.

7. Answer “What’s in it for me?”

Whether your intent is to get your prospect on a discovery call or go straight into a demo, this first email is your best chance to sell that meeting. Why would they spend 20–30 minutes of their time with you on a cold call or webinar? 

If you’ve done your research and know their persona, you already understand the current challenges facing people in similar roles at other companies. That empowers you to tell a prospect how your call will share insights about the market and your product/service that can help them achieve their goals.

After all, hitting their goal is what truly matters to them. Make sure your email copy contains a value proposition tailored to that goal.

8. Offer credibility

Why should your prospect believe what you have to say? Powerful metrics and relevant content that show your expertise go a long way in a cold email. Including them shows you’ve done your research and have empathy for your prospect and their situation. 

Proving their product’s value is a top challenge to moving deals forward for 44% of surveyed sales and marketing pros. You need to position yourself as an expert on your prospect’s needs before they will even consider speaking to you. Be prepared to include metrics relevant to both the market and your prospect specifically. Also, share a good example of how your product/service has helped a similar client (and build some social proof in the process.)

Hot tip

Adopt an email marketing strategy and keep your email short by linking to an overview sheet or case study. If you want to reinforce your personal branding as an expert, add your LinkedIn page or a business-oriented social media account to the contact information in your email signature.

9. Don’t sell yourself short

Telling potential clients things like, "I only need 5 minutes of your time" isn’t ideal. Yes, prospects are busy and you want to respect their time. But you don't want to cheapen your offering — a call with you delivers real value. 

Instead, frame your request along the lines of “To do this right, we’ll need 20 minutes to discuss how [X product/service] meets your specific needs.” This approach sets realistic expectations for time investment while reinforcing that you have real, valuable insights to share.

Bonus: Try this cold email template to book more meetings

Say you’re looking to sell to sales professionals. Based on the list your marketing team provided, you know they are sales managers of teams of 10 or more within a software company. Through additional research of the audience, you know that sales managers have a few things in common:

1. They want their team to be more efficient and spend the majority of their time selling.

2. They must empower their team to meet their quota or else their job could be on the line. 

Here’s a cold email example that uses the insights and tips above:

E-book: The art of cold outreach

Get top sales pros' best strategies for cutting through the noise and booking more discovery calls.