7 Things About Cold Email That Make Me Cringe
I love cold email but when I see it done poorly, I can't help but cringe…hard.
So it would be great if we could stop doing this👇.
1/ Asking directly for a sales meeting 👎
I don’t know you, never heard of your brand — so sure let me take 30 minutes of my time to be SOLD to…
2/ Misleading subject lines 🤥
If you start our relationship by tricking me into opening your email, how trustful do you think I’ll be?
3/ No unsubscribe link 🧐
If you don’t allow people to unsub, people are going to put your sequence to spam. Good luck with your sender score!
4/ Pitching 😒
I know you’re eager to get a meeting, but pitching your product like I was supposed to be impressed doesn’t work. How about earning that right to pitch and giving me some value first?
5/ “Knowing my problems” 🤓
Pretending to know what is a problem for me and what is not, is presumptuous. And you’re almost always wrong.
6/ Stating the obvious 😩
Don’t say that you’re following up because I haven’t replied to your previous email and because I must be busy. I know I haven’t replied & I know I am busy.
7/ “Name dropping” 🤔
What’s really the point of trying to reassure me with brands and names I have never heard of?
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Yeah, you might get 2/300 people to say yes doing this (while pissing off the rest). But is this really the best marketing you can do?
Btw if you want to learn how to be great at cold email (and other channels), check out the content on my blog.
Thanks for reading! Would love to hear what you think in the comments.
Good stuff / points. I think the biggest takeaway for me is to be genuine/sincere in my actions and to remember the golden rule. Thanks for the reminders!
Thanks for your comment! :)
If you don’t allow people to unsub, people are going to put your sequence to spam. Good luck with your sender score!
Sequence and cold emailing is probably the worst combination you could go for. IMO there should never be a sequence, automation of the first outreach sure, but an ongoing sequence? No way.
This is an awful idea considering you are basically now saying that the personalization you are adding will inevitably be 'FIRSTNAME' + 'COMPANY' which isn't personal.
Having an unsubscribe button means that these people are literally added to a list with robotic emails now being sent out to them. I would stay well away from cold emails and sequences.
I agree, ideally, there shouldn't be a sequence. But in reality, most people follow up with an automated sequence. And it sucks even more when, as a recipient, you have no way to getting out of it.
It would suck as a recipient to know that you are quite clearly in an automated sequence by clicking unsubscribe. Technically speaking they should have never been subscribed to anything in the first place so this might cause even more distrust.
well it doesn't have to say "unsubscribe" like you would find in a newsletter. It can be more subtle like 'if you're not interested, no pb, let me know by clicking here' (unsub link at here) . But again I know very few people who do cold email on a regular basis without automation.
I'm gonna start cold emailing soon :) The "unsubscribe" is one thing I hadn't thought of :)
As a side note, I've made an app for cold emailing - basically, I will do one email at a time, not mass mailing.
What do you think? Is this a good strategy?
Thanks for your comment! I am just not sure what you mean by one email at a time. Could you elaborate? Cheers
Hi Badis,
I mean, I won't do mass mailing. I will send one email at a time :) Is this clearer?
I see. Tailoring each message is definitely the way to go yes. Better send 5 great emails/ day than 100 average ones. So yeah great strategy I'd say :)
Cool, thanks :)
Great considerations, but what's the solution?
Thanks for your comment! :) In short, offer value, make it human, earn the right to pitch. I'll explain much more with examples in a piece I am publishing soon here: https://join-implement.com/ Where are you at in your cold emailing journey? Have you been doing this for a while? Just curious :)