One of the first duties I took on when I first moved from client-side to Head of Client Strategy at Sponge NB was being ‘head of grumpy passive/aggressive/sarcastic point-making’. It’s a role I was born for.
One of the first targets I aimed my razor-sharp spittle at was the language being used in some of the outreach emails. I pointed out that by sending:
“Hello, and thanks for taking the time to read this email! I appreciate you are a busy person, so I don’t take lightly the fact that you’ve taken the trouble to not only open my email, but also to read my email and…” etc. you are basically guaranteeing that I never get past the first six or seven words before hitting delete.
I recently read a strong blog on SalesFolk from Heather R Morgan (@HeatherReyhan) that explained why bullet points are never a good inclusion in cold emails as they dilute the value proposition and sacrifice one compelling benefit for a list of ‘things’ that scream MASS MARKETING.
I also feel that overly long emails have a similarly negative effect in the same way someone who politely says “I’ll take a look at your creds” isn’t expecting to wade through 67 pages of Powerpoint animations.
Remember: with a cold email, the recipient didn’t ask for it and would most likely be happiest if they never received one ever again, so treat their time with respect and get to the point very quickly.
I’m not going to give you our most effective version of an outreach email (you’ll have to call us for a chat to get that freebie!) but try to explain in the first sentence why THIS email is in front of them. If you do nothing but explain what’s in it for the prospect and then sign off, your email will immediately be much better than the other million sales emails that got sent that day.