We’ve been giving you the blueprints to become a cold contact champ in our recent Art of Cold Emailing articles here at Pipestry. In Part 1, we taught you how to develop your buyer persona and research your prospect. Part 2 was all about building the framework of your cold emails and knowing yourself and your business well enough to be able to sell it in your sleep. Now you’re ready to write, and today we’re talking tone and feel, and showing you how to craft an email that feels personal and gets to the point.
Email Tone and Look
First, let’s talk about email tone. If you’re in the habit of using the third person, it’s one you’re going to have to break. When it comes to one-on-one contact with a potential prospect, third person writing feels deeply impersonal and generic. Neither of those things lead to more sales; in fact it’s the fastest way for your email to elicit and eye roll and a trip to the trash can.
As a leader in sales prospecting services we have always believed that you want to speak to your potential buyers in your emails the same way you’d speak to them face-to-face. Every email is an opportunity to make someone’s day a little brighter and make a positive impression, so try writing your email with a positive, good-humored tone. Don’t be aggressive or obnoxious, and don’t ever trash talk your competitors. You may think dumping on your competition leaves room to sell yourself, but in actuality it’s bad form and will only reflect poorly on you.
It’s also important that you come across as an equal, that is founder-to-founder, manager-to-manager, or successful person-to-successful person. You may be the expert in your field, and you may know all there is to know about your services and skills, how you can benefit a company, and how you can solve a buyer’s pain points. And you may want think by demonstrating how smart you are, you’re somehow demonstrating some form of value. But you’d be wrong. Really wrong. The second you posture and try to prove yourself, you sound like a condescending know-it-all. And no one wants to work with a know-it-all. Show some humility and speak like an equal.
And speaking of tone, don’t forget to personalize your emails as much as possible (without spending an inordinate amount of added time doing it.) Customization can often be the reason people feel obligated to respond. You address them by name or toss in some personal facts, and you just made a connection that they’ll be hard pressed to ignore.
The best part is, these types of personalizations are easy – Things like name, company, location, and buyer persona. You can always dive a little deeper and add in more personalized pieces if and when you have the time and energy, for example sharing a timely fact or article.
The email look of your email is important too. Don’t send these cold emails out from platforms like MailChimp or Constant Contact; their use of HTML gives the feel of bulk email, and that destroys all your efforts to create personalized content.
Be sure to use plain black sans serif text with a well-formatted email signature, and as a general rule, you should never use more than six sentences in your email. Remember – Decision makers receive hundreds of solicitations per week and read a lot of it on their phones while on the go. Be sure that every sentence is well thought out, adds value, and is easy to read. Nothing superfluous or inessential.
These emails are also not the time to use bullet points. You may think they will give a more organized and concise look to your copy, but they’ve actually been proven to result in lower response rates because they give the impression of bulk email. Furthermore, links outside of a simple signature have also been proven to distract readers from your call to action (CTA) by taking them away from your email instead of encouraging them to stay and respond. One more thing to remember – don’t use attachments or large images. They could result in your email ending up in your recipient’s Spam folder instead of their inbox.
So just to recap:
Email Tone
– Conversational
– Come across as equal
Email Look
– 3-5 sentences max
– Space sentences evenly apart
– Make sure it looks good on mobile
– Always use plain text
Tune in next week for Part 4 of our Cold Series where we will be discussing how to actually dive in and begin to craft the perfect components for a killer cold email!