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How to Get 90%+ Email Open Rate & 60%+ Email Reply Rate | Templates included

Are you tired of sending emails that get replies like "No" "Unsubscribe" "STOP" if any reply at all?

Since the start of the year we've sent over 40K cold emails and crafted a template that has yielded up to:

  • 92% Open rate
  • 63% Reply rate

This post is particularly useful for anyone who has a list of prospects they want to cold email and ensure they get results.

TLDR => templates at the bottom

Though I suggest to take 2min to read through the following lines if you don't want to mess up your outreach.

PREPARATION

1/ Deliverability
First, verify your deliverability (aka do your emails actually reach your prospects' inboxes or do they land in spam, worse do they bounce because the email addresses you have are not valid...).

What to do:
MXtoolbox - to check your domain health
UseBouncer or NeverBounce - to check your email list before sending

2/ Custom Variables

You have to ensure you at least have

  • First Names
  • Company Names
  • Roles
  • Industry
  • Location

Most emails only personalize the "First Name", and think they're on top of the game when they add “Company Names" to their arsenal.

Well, 90% of sales already do that with little results. The 10% remaining are those going the step further :)

3/ Goal

Use email to connect with people. Not to sell. The sales can only happen when you first connect with someone.

In a world of Business to Business sales, we tend to forget that behind each business lies a human.

PERSONALIZATION

It's all about standing out from the crowd. If you cold-email someone, you can be sure you're not the first one to do so.

You will not only compete with others, but also with any kind of notification we all receive: texts, calls, instagram, facebook messenger, twitter, linkedin etc...

The key is to:

  • leverage creative subject lines (see in templates below)
  • "icebreakers" on your first lines (because that's what someone can read without opening your email)

We're giving one type of icebreaker on the template. Its goal is to talk about the prospect before you talk about yourself.

Everyone starts with the standard: "Hello X, my name is Y and I do Z".

We suggest to only talk about yourself when you first acknowledge the prospect with something specific to them.

The talking ratio should be 80% about them 20% about you - with the first sentences being about them

AUTOMATION

If you send each email 1 by 1 and copy paste the text. Please stop now.

There's far more productive ways to do so. Email Automation tools I'd recommend:
lemlist.com
reply.io
outreach.io

You can also use CRMs like HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce...

THE TEMPLATES

You will find 1 email template (with 4 subject lines) and 1 LinkedIn opener template.

Link below:
https://www.thescalelab.io/templates

And yes it's FREE.

Happy Emailing - let me know what results you get :)

  1. 2

    Not to be a hater but these results are absurd. Something is fishy. Including the replies.

    I'm only saying this so people who don't have sales experience and want to do outreach don't feel like they're failing because they see unrealistic metrics being hyped up. I work with technical founders all the time who don't have sales experience and the worst thing you can do is give them with unrealistic expectations. If it was this easy to get replies and opens, you'd already know about it.

    I've been doing sales for a long time and you're not going to hit either of these numbers, especially with a generic template where you fill in mail merge fields.

    1. 0

      @StartupSales thanks for calling this out and sharing your concerns.

      It's actually not that uncommon to reach those numbers. It's always a matter of how you approach it and how much effort you put into it.

      If one hopes to just copy paste, send and done then I believe this person is not valuing their sales enough. It's really about getting one step further and matching the effort you need to put in with the results you expect.

      To set the expectations right, here's what's necessary to get there:
      1/ It's essential to do your homework before you send any emailing campaign so you can cover:

      • Deliverability (will 100% of your emails hit the inbox?)
      • Preparation (do you have the right data ?)
      • Personalisation (how do you utilize that data?)

      2/ The template is about personalization and helping you make the best first impression, which will lead to higher results.

      But if you haven't checked your deliverability and if you're unable to get the right data, there's simply no shortcut.

      3/ Start with low volumes so you can do your homework more smoothly.
      => It's easier to do the homework on 50 prospects than on 500.

      And in my opinion it's better to make a good impression on 40 out of 50 prospects (80% positive v.s 20% negative)
      Rather than 50 out of 500 (10% positive v.s 90% negative)

      Similar amount of leads generate but one approach is significantly improving your brand, while the other is severely harming your brand. Quality v.s quantity.

      I can only say: try for yourself :)

      And if you get lower or similar numbers than what you usually get, please hit me up.

  2. 1

    This only works in low volume. Email outreach takes 1000's of outbound.

    1. 0

      Hey @gator70 I partly agree and also disagree here. Let me elaborate.

      The goal of the template shared is to focus on the quality of your outreach and that covers multiple points:

      • Deliverability (will 100% of your emails hit the inbox?)
      • Preparation (do you have the right data ?)
      • Personalisation (how do you utilize that data?)

      The more volume, the less you deliver and the more difficult it gets to prepare and personalize.

      Our approach is to focus on low volumes from which you get high response instead of doing high volume from which you get low response.

      It's about making the best first impression with anyone you engage with, which becomes very hard when you go for high volumes, hence many default to being ok receiving "No" "Unsubscribe" or even no response at all.

      But we see this as too many missed opportunities. Just a different approach.

      Thanks for sharing though :)

  3. 1

    Have you tried this across regions or one specifically? In Mexico is very difficult to cold-email people largely because the low-trust culture.

    1. 1

      Hey @akimura while we haven't tried in Mexico specifically we have done so across US/Canada, Europe and Asia.

      The template is in English, I would presume it would be better to use in Spanish?

      If you try please let me know what you get, quite curious :)

  4. 0

    Great content, Youssef.

    Bookmarked ✅

    1. 2

      Cool! Let me know when/if you have tried the templates.

      1. 1

        I will, just requested then :)

  5. 0

    This is helpful! Thank you :)

    1. 1

      My pleasure, let me know how it worked for you :)

  6. 0

    Nice Results man!!
    Do you have a way to also build contact lists?
    Thanks

    1. 0

      If you're looking for purely list building I would suggest to pay attention to the quality of the data you will get.

      Some good sources can existing databases such as Lusha, Zoominfo

      Or have a provider build a list on your behalf. You can look at www.coldlytics.com

      It's also something we can do for you: www.thescalelab.io/list-building

  7. 0

    Thanks for that!
    I particularly enjoyed the short subject lines.

    1. 0

      Thanks @Kream ! It's all about keeping it short and personal :)

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