This is my New Cold Outbound sequence. Tear it apart 🤕
Hey!
I've been working on a new cold outbound email sequence for my company https://walkthrough.ai. It's a series of 5-emails that I'm sending to Project Managers/Directors at Series A and B SaaS companies (Growth stage).
My last sequence had an abysmal open rate (less than 1%) and no replies. Before I shoot this one off, I'd love some feedback on my messaging and strategy (constructive...or not 🤷🏻‍♂️).
With that said, here it is!
Email 1: Day 1
Subject: using how-to guides to get more users
Hi {{first_name}} - at my past two product companies, 50% of web traffic came from product and help docs/videos. It was all organic SEO traffic.
Most companies struggle with consistently producing product how-to and help guides - despite their massive impact on top-of-funnel traffic, customer conversions, and customer activations.
I'd love to chat if you experience this at {{company}}. At walkthrough.ai, we create videos and written product guides (a.k.a "Walkthroughs") that convert customers, like this example,
Is this relevant?
Happy holidays!
Sebastian
schedule me [link]
Email 2: Day 3
Subject: Re: using how-to guides to get more users
Hi {{first_name}} - following up on my last email. I'd love to connect and learn how {{company}} creates product docs and how-to guides.
Please let me know when works best for you or feel welcome to grab some time on my calendar!
Thank you,
{{sender_first_name}}
schedule me [link]
Email 3: Day 5
Subject: Re:Re: using how-to guides to get more users
Hi {{first_name}},
Can we chat about having walkthrough.ai create how-to video guides and product docs for {{company}}?
Please let me know! I'm confident we can produce amazing training content for your customers, driving a huge impact on organic SEO traffic.
Thank you,
{{sender_first_name}}
schedule me
Email 4: Day 8
Hi {{first_name}}
I'd appreciate the opportunity to show you how powerful and skilled walkthrough.ai's team is at producing how-to video guides and product documentation.
Send me a popular product FAQ or user journey for your app. I'll produce a complete walkthrough (video and text) that guides a customer through completing it.
It will be yours to keep, with no strings attached!
What do you say?
Thank you,
{{first_name}}
schedule me [link]
Email 5: Day 10
Hi {{first_name}},
I wanted to follow up with you regarding the opportunity I mentioned in my previous email to create a complimentary how-to video guide and product documentation article for {{company}}.
Creating these types of materials can be a big undertaking, and I would love to schedule a time to discuss how we can work together to make this process as seamless and efficient as possible.
Please let me know if you would be interested in scheduling a chat, and we can work out a time that works best for you.
Best,
Sebastian
schedule me [link]
That's it. Would love to know if anyone has some cool strategies or hooks on how to improve subject lines, in-body CTAs, include meeting link/don't, and so on.
Hi Sebastian!
These look great overall, and I have an additional tip to help improve your response rates too.
I've discovered this tip from Marketing Max, and it involves directly starting off your first email with a question regarding your business or site's topic, and how that particular person approaches this. I've seen lots of marketers and founders try this out, and a lot of them got much higher response rates to their emails. Sometimes they went from a response rate of 1-2% to 10%+ response rates after trying this out.
So you could ask something like:
"How long does it take to create product guides at [company name]? How do you generally approach creating product guides? Would love to hear your thoughts!"
That's just a quick example haha, but you get the idea. Asking these questions first-off would be a great way to kickstart an interaction. Then once the conversation starts from there, your current emails that you've written above would be excellent!
I think making it the first line of the email and directly starting with the question might help potentially, rather than later on in the email, as I see in some of your examples. Again, it's just my two cents on this, but hopefully it helps some bit :D Wishing you the best with Walkthrough.ai, looks like a fantastic product!
Thanks, Silvi! That's a cool tip and makes sense. I'm sending out a new campaign today and am going to drop a question in at the top of the first email. Thank you for the thoughtful answer!
No problem, Sebastian! Hopefully it helps improve the response rates a bit for you