The written word holds unimaginable power over us. In the world of marketing, that power multiplies a hundredfold. Some specialists are busy writing papers for money; others are working on effective lead magnets, blog posts, or ads. Yet, we often underestimate the benefits of a high-converting email copy. That old-school marketing channel can become a gold mine when used right.
The 3800% ROI of email marketing is cold cash proof of that truth. But cold emails, especially in the B2B space, can be a tough nut to crack. With a 21% cold email open rate, it’s slim pickings for a lot of businesses out there.
So we’ve rounded up 15 of our best templates for you to take inspiration from.
In this article
Practices for Writing Winning B2B Sales Emails
Before we start, a few tips for writing better B2B cold emails to get the most out of your email campaigns:
Reach out to relevant decision makers
B2B purchase decisions are usually a multiplayer game. You have to make sure you’re talking to the right person before you go all in. Look up your leads on LinkedIn, on their company website, and always, always verify their email before reaching out to them.
The more work you put into researching your leads and finding the correct email address, the less trouble you have closing the sale. You can also minimize friction down the line by simply asking your prospect if there’s another person in the company you should be speaking to.
Write catchy subject lines
There’s a lot of pressure on subject lines to make a sale and sometimes, that can backfire. Instead of sounding too preachy and overpromising, try to set a smaller, more achievable goal for your subject – getting your lead to take a look at what’s inside.
You can do that by creating curiosity – ‘How to Avoid the {problem} Trap’ or by creating urgency – ‘Almost Too Late for {getting benefit}’.
Lastly, most email clients display around 30-40 characters when viewed on mobile devices. So keep your subject lines under 5 to 6 words for maximum visibility.
Focus on crafting intro lines
Intros form the bridge between your subject line and your main email copy. If you’re tired of saying, ‘Hello, hope you had a good weekend’ or introducing yourself every time you send out a cold email, then you can start your email with:
- A compliment. You can personalize it to the lead themselves or their organization.
- A reference to a recent event. Like a movie release, or a trade conference or a client meeting. Anything that can be the launchpad for your pitch.
- A statistic. It can be a general industry statistic, or something specific to their company or a competitor.
- An image. Readers are naturally drawn to images, and colors used in the image significantly impacts behavior, mood, or reactions. For example, images with blue logos or blue hues influence a person’s physiological behavior into feel like they can trust and depend on your brand.
Keep your email copy short & personal
Nobody wants to open a marketing email to find out that it’s from the next Charles Dickens. So swap out those long, winding sentences for an email copy that’s as close to your natural speaking style as possible. With most users reading emails on their phone, short, conversational emails with 50-125 words enjoy the best response rates.
Use the second person to make your leads feel like you’re talking to them, not writing at them. Your copy also has to be personalized enough to make them feel you’ve done your research and are speaking to them, not them and five hundred other people on an email list.
Give social proof
Your prospects don’t know you. They have no reason to trust your promises of 10x sales or 40% faster sales pipelines anymore than they trust the emails telling them they’ve won a $5 million lottery and asking for their bank details.
You can remedy this glaring lack of trust either by name-dropping some of your biggest clients, in moderation; or by linking to case studies, user testimonials, influential user-generated content, anything that verifies your claims. Product reviews are a must-have for most customers.
Ask pointed questions
We live in the world of instant foods and vending machines, where convenience reigns supreme. If your open rates are okay, but you can’t get a response out of your prospects, it might be because your questions don’t have easy answers. Take a cue from multi-million food conglomerates and offer your prospects the simplicity they do.
Don’t ask your leads, what’s the biggest problem your company faces? Instead, give them a finite set of 3-4 options to choose from. Because all you’re asking of them is to punch in a number, something that takes seconds, it might tilt the scales in your favor. To keep the conversation going, end your email by promising them a customized solution when they reply.
Add a single powerful CTA
An ambiguous CTA is the worst thing that can happen to an email. After they’ve read your email, do you want prospects to sign up for a free trial, set up a meeting with you next Tuesday at 2 PM or 4 PM, or read an article that’ll help them decide which of your products fits their requirements?
Make sure your CTA is to-the-point. Instead of a lengthier sentence like, ‘Set up your free consultation with our marketing expert today’, go for something more crisp, like ‘Book a free consultation’, either using a CTA button or providing a link to your Calendly.
Don’t forget to sign off your email
A warm, well-written sign-off is a great way to remind your lead of the people behind the business and establish a connection. Since it’s the very last thing they read, it’s also important you get the tone right.
In an introductory email, a simple ‘Best’ or ‘Sincerely’ works well. But if you want to make it more personalized, consider a compliment like, ‘Enjoyed your tweet on scripts for cold calling. Enlightening!’ or a light-hearted ‘Happy Monday! (asking for too much?)’
Don’t forget to add your social media links to your email signature with name, designation and organization.
Create a follow-up sequence
Out of sight is out of mind. So stay on top of your leads’ minds and their inboxes by sending out a follow-up email every few days or so.
Creating campaigns for your follow-ups can save you the effort of manually having to track who’s opened your email and when, and then sending them an appropriately-timed email.
Follow-ups require finesse and can’t just be a politely-worded version of ‘Why won’t you talk to me?’ Aim at adding value through each follow-up email you send, and keep a cap on the number of times you’ll reach out to a lead before cutting your losses and moving on.
Test your results
Confidence is a good thing. But thinking that your prospects think and feel exactly the same way as you isn’t. Nor is treating all of them as some sort of homogenized entity that will respond uniformly to your email.
Run A/B tests on different combinations of subject lines, copy length, CTA and time of sending with your campaigns. Testing for one thing at a time will give you insights into how different factors, like designation or demographics, play a role in determining how a lead reacts to your email. Even if you don’t hit gold, you will at least figure out what to not do.
For testing, you should pick a good tool with which you feel comfortable conducting mailings to different groups of customers. It is important not only to send emails to numerous people quickly, but also to get information about the success of such mailings. Using Atompark’s email studio, you can both collect and verify a list of your customers’ email addresses and send them in one click and get data on the effectiveness of the campaign. Thanks to this software, you will be able to conduct A/B testing in a few clicks and reach as many customers as possible.
15 Winning Cold B2B Sales Email Templates
1. The No-Nonsense Pitch
This email uses an ingeniously simple format to pitch the product to a cold lead that can be easily applied to just about any business. It goes like this:
- Step 1: Personalized greeting
- Step 2: Intro + Icebreaker
- Step 3: Product intro
- Step 4: Product Benefits
- Step 5: Social proof
- Step 6: CTA
If you’re just starting out, or want to go back to the basics, this template can serve as a great base.
2. The 60-word Pitch
This one’s a more concise version of the pitch. It also asks open-ended and close-ended questions. It starts by asking the prospect’s opinion about the client company’s operational style. Then neatly transitions to the product benefits for the client in a question that’s hard to say no to.
3. The Ice-breaker Email
Cold emails can be pesky, so make sure you’re getting off on the right foot by getting the apology out of the way first.
Also, keep it short.
Finally, ask if you’re speaking to the correct person right away to minimize wasting time.
4. The Social Proof Email
It’s social proof galore here. It’s based on the understanding that leads might not believe every claim a marketer makes. The case study and client testimonial links are excellent for trust-building from the point of first contact.
5. The Flatterer
What better than a compliment to initiate a conversation? This template uses the subject line (1) and the intro (2) to drive home the sincerity of the compliment.
In (3), it offers value in exchange for a response and ends the email (4) with a simple question that can be answered in yes/no.
6. The ‘Hey, bestie’ Email
The first thing to notice here is the instantly familiar, casual tone the email uses. It consistently aims to establish a more friendly and personal connection with the prospect, one-on-one. B2B emails quite often are devoid of fluff and to-the-point, and this email does a great job of carving a separate niche for itself in the lead’s inbox.
7. The Problem-Solver
Another approach you can take to improve your response rates is to point out a problem that is an industry or position pain point. This email amplifies its focus by mentioning the problem the lead might face twice – once in the subject itself and then again in the email body.
8. The Problem-Solver – Case Study Version
When you’ve had stellar results with a client, it makes sense that you’d want to make that particular case study the focal point of your email. The more recognizable the name, the better.
Whether it’s an industry stalwart or a competitor, reading about another company’s success achieves two goals at once – it translates your product benefits into tangible results and second, it awakens your lead’s competitive spirit.
9. The Value-Add Email
This one’s all about grabbing eyeballs. In the first step, it invokes the name of the prospect’s competitor and gives details about how well they’re doing. For most people, this is reason enough to read the email. Step two, it draws them in. Step three is unarguably the hardest, but that effort is precisely why a lead will not just glance at the email, but pore over every word.
10. The Personalized Review Email
The personalized subject line commands attention, but the main draw is obviously the personalized video review. It plays into the hyper-personalization trend that prospective clients are likely to appreciate. Also, bonus points for proactively including a meeting link as the final CTA.
11. The Personalized Review Email – Co-Conspirator Version
This one’s a combination of the two emails above. (1), (2) and (3) don’t just talk about the competitor, they also point out flaws in their strategy, and offer help in beating them.
(4) offers a valuable resource and (5) delivers the final blow with a CTA that at this point, the prospect finds irresistible.
12. The Enticer
This email sets the tone right by starting with praise for the prospect’s business. The key takeaway here is how it holds back the third tip to keep the ball rolling. But this only works if your first two tips are top-notch. Notice the polite sign-off? A good move, considering the tactic might come across to some as a little shrewd.
13. The Behind-the-Scenes Peek
This is a great choice if interest generation is your goal. Part 1 starts with a great intro, rouses curiosity and promises prospects a sneak peek at a work-in-progress product.
Part 2 is all about relatability. It takes the ‘I understand because I’ve been through this’ angle to establish a connection.
14. The Benefit Break-down Follow-up Email
A lot of times, even when you’ve got a solid product, it’s difficult to bring leads around and see its value. Listing the benefits of your product in a language your prospects speak can help bridge this gap.
15. The Freebie Email
Here’s the thing about freebies. Everyone loves them. But this template also personalizes the subject line to recognize a recent company milestone. Most importantly, the freebie is relevant to the email copy. Its obvious advantages for the lead make the messaging resonate even more.
You can use Hunter’s directory of email templates as a source of inspiration to write B2B cold sales emails with higher engagement rates and ultimately, more sales.
Conclusion
This is by no means an exhaustive list. Once you’ve played the field a little, you can make many more versions of these basic B2B cold sales emails. You can try the Storyteller Email, the Star Product Email, the FOMO Creator Email, or something entirely new. Just don’t forget to follow up and run tests on your campaign to understand what works best for your business.
