Case Study: What I Learned From Sending 110 Cold Emails

With cold emails, you have one shot (plus a couple of follow-ups). That means you really have to nail your messaging.

Here’s the cold email example and a breakdown of his used principles:

1. Subject Line- It works because it’s also lightly personalized and has an emoji to make the point and keep it human.
2. Ice Breaker- Alleviate the awkwardness of cold outreach with humor.
3. Light Personalization- Always address people by their name.
4. Awkward Intro with a Punchline
5. Relevancy- I serve B2B SaaS clients, and my list only contains businesses that fall within that category.
6. Social Proof/Credibility- Because most people in the industry have heard of Sumo or AppSumo, I use some name-dropping to build credibility.
7. Mission & Intention- I state my mission “a crusade to end poorly written articles and bad marketing advice” and my intention “writing a killer blog post for the prospect's blog.”
8. The Wit- This part isn’t absolutely necessary. But injecting some humor/wit is always a good thing.
9. Call-to-Action- I often use “shall we connect?” as a CTA because it’s non-intrusive and easy to respond to with a yes or no.
10. Self-Deprecating Title- Aside from the semi-serious job title “B2B Content Marketer,” the other two titles are just plain silly. It shows that I don’t take myself too seriously and hopefully makes the prospect laugh, or at least smirk.
11. Opt-out- Some people get annoyed with cold emails. Give them the option to opt out. I love this feature on Lemlist!

The Results:

• 707 emails delivered successfully
• 45.5% open rate
• 1.7% response rate

source: Sumo