Cold Email Copywriting Tips And Best Practices

Are you tired of sending cold emails but only receiving silence in return?

If your answer is Yes, then you are not alone.

Statistics show that an average professional receives 121 emails daily; according to Sales Handy, out of 100 cold emails, only eight get a reply.

These stats show that there is high competition in cold email marketing, and you need to understand the right techniques to help you craft cold emails that stand out, engage your audience, spark their interest and engage them to respond.

Are you now worried or confused about where you can learn those techniques that will transform your ordinary cold email into a powerful engagement tool?

If yes so,

There is no need to be worried or confused because today, I will share a comprehensive guide with you whether you are an entrepreneur, seasoned marketer, copywriter, small business owner, or anyone who wants to improve their outreach skills.

In this guide, you will learn best practices, actionable tips and techniques, formulas, and common mistakes to avoid, which will help you craft a powerful cold email copy that is a powerful communication asset.

By the end of this guide, you will be able to tailor cold emails that get opened and generate responses.

Are you ready to take your outreach to the next level?

If yes so, let’s begin.

What is Cold email copywriting (and Why does it matter?)

In digital marketing, cold email writing is an effective strategic approach for sales outreach and business development.

We usually craft a cold email copy to address the specific interests or needs of the recipient with whom you don’t have any prior experience.

There are several benefits of cold email copywriting:

With the help of best practices in writing the subject line of cold email copywriting, you can achieve a good open rate of 20% to 40% according to your industry.
Cold email copywriting best practices help you craft highly personalized email copy that helps to get a high reply rate compared to generic email.
A well-crafted cold email copy enhances the brand reputation and builds trust.

Factors that affect cold email copy performance:

Three main reasons can hurt your cold email copy performance:

Poor audience targeting can hurt the performance of cold email copy. Your copy must be highly laser-focused on the specific audience you are targeting.
Lack of clarity in email copy and bad placement of call to action can also hurt the performance.
Lack of personalization can make your email copy generic and be in the trash.

Prerequisite to Effective Email Copywriting

In this section, I will discuss the essential prerequisites with you. By completing this section, you will have the foundational knowledge you need to have to increase your chances of success and do your work effectively.

So, let’s discuss each prerequisite one by one:

Understanding Your Target Audience

Before crafting a single line of your cold email copy, ensure you deeply understand the target audience you are writing to.

Because without properly understanding your target audience, you can’t make well-crafted cold emails.

Remember that understanding the target audience isn’t just about knowing who they are. You must also clearly understand your target audience’s pain points, preferences, and needs.

Let’s discuss how you can identify your target audience for your cold email copy:

Identify your Ideal customer profile (ICP)

First, make a list of who your ideal customer is and make the document, and on that document, note down three important things.

Demographics: it includes Age, Gender, industry, location, and profession.
Psychographics: This includes your ideal customer’s attitude, values, and lifestyle choices.
Pain Points: Note their pain points, their challenges and problems, and how your solution can address them.

To conduct this research, use tools like Google Trends, forums, social communities, survey forms, etc.

Once you have made your ideal customer profile, then move to the next step:

Audience Segmentation

Divide your audience into segments according to specific criteria such as company size, industry, job, etc. This practice will help you to tailor personalized cold email copy to each segment.

Create Buyer Persona

Create profiles of your ideal customers for different segments. You could include fictional characters such as “Ali “, A tech-savvy guy” who is 24 years old and working at the firm”.

Mention the challenges and goals you find about tech-savvy guys. This practice will help you to make your cold email copy highly relevant and personalized.

Set Objective / Goal For Your Cold Email Copy

After understanding your audience, you need to set a specific goal/objective for tailoring laser-focused copy. This will help you make a measurable and highly focused copy.

Without setting any objective/ goal, you can not refine your strategy because you can’t evaluate the performance of cold email copy.

Let’s discuss how to set a goal/objective for your cold email copy:

Step 1: Start with the end in mind what primary goal you want to achieve, whether you people to submit a lead form, make a purchase, visit a page, schedule a meeting, etc.

Step 2: Ensure that your goal/objective should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART).

Step 3: Set your Key Performance Indicator (KPIs) set metrics to consider, such as open rate, click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and response rate. This practice will help you to assess the performance of your copy.

With the help of these 3 steps you can identify the goal/ objective of your cold email copy.

The Anatomy Of Perfect Cold Email Copy

I will discuss the essential components of cold email copying with you in this section. By mastering the art of writing those components, you can significantly improve your chances of getting a response.

So, four essential components of cold email copy are also known as the Anatomy of perfect cold email copy:

Subject line.
Opening.
Body Copy.
Call to action (CTA).

Let’s discuss each in detail:

Craft Perfect Subject Line

The cold email subject line is a first impression of your email and is the deciding factor that makes prospects consider whether to open an email or ignore it.

Ensure your subject line of cold email copy is intriguing, concise, relevant, and personalized, encouraging your ideal customer to open your cold email.

Key Strategies To Tailor Subject Line

Characters Length: Make sure that your subject is concise. Aim for your word length to be 6-10 words long.
Personalization: Incorporate the name or company of the recipients to grab attention.
Create Urgency: Build a sense of urgency by incorporating time sensitiveness that encourages your potential customer to take immediate action.
Spark curiosity: Ask questions or mention any shocking statement without being misleading that piques the recipient’s interest.
Relevance: Make sure your subject line should be relevant and specific.

Tailor attention-grabbing personalized opening

The opening line of your cold email copy is very important because it sets the tone for the rest of the email.

Ensure your opening line makes your recipient feel valued, and encourage them to continue reading your email copy.

Here, personalization is a key factor because by making your opening line highly personalized, you can establish a connection and effectively capture your recipient’s attention.

Tips for writing personalized openings:

Highlight something specific about your recipient. It could be their recently published article, industry achievement, or news about their company.
Keep your tone user-friendly; begin with a warm greeting and acknowledge shared internet or common connections.
Maintain the relevance by relating your outreach to the recipient’s pain point or current project.

Make Value Driven Body Copy

The body of the cold email copy is the heart of your message. It is the palace where you briefly outline the purpose of your email. In simple words, it is the place where you emphasize what’s in it for the recipient.

Tips to write attention-grabbing body copy:

Address the main pain or problem your recipient faces or their desire to fulfil.
Focus on benefit mentions the positive result of the recipient’s experience after getting rid of their problem or pain.
Ensure smooth readability and clarity using bullet points and short paragraphs.
Mention your customer reviews, testimonials, or any award or recognition to build credibility and foster trust.
Mention relevant data or statistics, if available, to support your claim.

Craft Clear Call to Action (CTA)

Call to action is the last touch point of your cold email copy, where you guide your recipient on what to do next.

Ensure that your Call to Action aligns with your cold email copy objective: resource downloading, sign-up form, visit your website, etc.

Your CTA should encourage your recipient to take immediate action.

Tips to tailor attention grabbing Call to Action (CTA):

Use direct language by using action words and clearly state what you want, as instead of writing “Let me know if you are interested”, write “Could we schedule a meeting of 20 minutes next Monday?”.
Create a sense of urgency to encourage the recipient to respond more quickly.
Use only one call to action in order not to confuse your recipient.

Best Practices to Boost Your Cold Email Copy Success

In this section, I will discuss actionable tips that will help you enhance the performance of your cold email copy, make it effective, resonate with your audience, and encourage them to take action.

Ensure Clarity And Directness in Your Value Of Proposition

Your prospect should understand “what’s it for me, ” meaning your email copy must communicate measurable benefits and address your prospect’s needs.

Remember, the value of the proposition is core to your cold email copy because it gives your prospect the reason why they should care about your offer.

How to do it

Mention the pain or problem your prospect faces that you can overcome.
The number mentions the statistics or data demonstrating the value you deliver in your cold email copy.
Instead of focusing too much on features, focus on core benefits.

Strategically Leverage Scarcity And Urgency

Create a sense of urgency by strategically hitting your prospect’s Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) emotion. You can encourage them to take immediate action by creating a sense of scarcity.

How to do it

Create a sense of exclusivity by mentioning that you offer something unique that only a few people can access.
Mention the time-sensitivity or deadline of your offer.

Avoid Spam Trigger Words

Some phrases and words can cause your cold email copy to be flagged as spam and reduce your email’s deliverability rate.

So, if you want your copy not to land on spam, you have to avoid these practices:

Avoid overly your copy with words that are associated with spam, such as “Winner”, “Urgent”, “Guarantee”, and free.
Do not use ALL CAPS or use excessive punctuation.

Ensure to maintain your tone professional, and to ensure you are not doing any practice that can make your copy spammy, use spam checking tools such as SpamAssassin before sending your email.

Proofread And Edit For Perfection

One awkward phrase or grammatical mistake can hurt the performance of your email copy because it damages your professionalism and credibility.

So make sure to proofread and edit before sending your email.

How to do it

If you have someone else’s colleague or partner, tell him/her to proofread your email copy.
Use tools such as Grammarly to ensure there are no grammatical mistakes.
Ensure that all links in your copy are working.

Test And Refine For Great Results

Testing helps determine what works best for you, and it is essential to get the best possible results.

How to do it:

Test one variable at a time, such as formatting, tone, and copy length.
Measure the performance of different variations of subject lines to which one is getting the best open rate.
Test different CTA’s to see which gets the maximum number of clicks.

Analyze every metric and refine your copy over time.

Don’t Be Salesy To Early

Don’t direct sales from your first email; instead, focus on starting a conversation and building a connection because being a sales too early makes your copy pushy and impersonal.

Follow these practices to craft the perfect email that helps you build a connection:

Keep your copy conversational to foster a sense of connection.
Engage them by asking thoughtful questions and showing genuine interest in their challenges.

Proven Formulas For Better Results

In this section, I will discuss two proven cold email copywriting formulas that help you get better results than a typical cold email pitch.

With the help of the formulas I will share, you can use them to strategically structure your cold email copy for maximum effectiveness.

Let’s discuss each formula one by one:

AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action)

AIDA stands for (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) and is one of the most versatile and fundamental frameworks used to design communication. It is most effective to make a cold email copy that progressively engages the recipient.

Let’s discuss this formula in detail.

Attention

Ensure that your cold email copy immediately grabs your recipient’s attention from the beginning because the first impression is very important. Here, the recipient decides whether they will read your email or delete it.

In the attention phase, focus on the subject line or engaging opening line of your email copy to ensure they hook your recipient immediately and catch your recipient’s eye.

In attention, focus on incorporating these factors strategically: curiosity, challenges, and pain points or problems that grab your recipient’s attention.

Interest

After grabbing the attention, focus on further establishing clear relevance here. The only thing that works is to talk about their interests to keep them engaged.

The best way to do this is to laser focus and specify the problem they are facing and how your product or service can help them to get rid of them.

This phase incorporates past customers’ success stories, real-world benefits, or statistics to build interest.

Desire

After building interest, transform it into building genuine desire by introducing the clear and direct value of the proposition.

In this phase, picture the positive change your recipient will experience after using your product or service.

Focus on highlighting the unique features and benefits of your product or service.

Action

Lastly, conclude your cold email by mentioning a call to action here to build a sense of urgency and emphasize that it is the right time to take and grab this opportunity; otherwise, they will miss a big opportunity.

You might conclude: “Schedule a free demo today to see how our app can boost your productivity.”

PAS (Problem, Agitation, Solution)

Another well-known formula used to structure attention-grabbing cold email copy is PAS, which stands for (Problem, Agitation, Solution).

With the help of this formula, you focus on pain points or problems by leveraging psychological triggers.

Let’s discuss this formula in detail:

Problem

Start by focusing on the problem your recipients are currently facing and show that you understand the challenges they are dealing with.

Agitation

After identifying a problem, focusing on the consequences they will face if they don’t solve it means amplifying the problem. In this phase, make sure to build a sense of urgency. At this point, your recipient must think I must eliminate this problem.

Solution

After amplifying the problem, then, lastly, present the solution in the form of your product or service and make your focus on proof points and specific outcomes.

Conclusion

The success of a cold email copy depends on the approach you use while crafting it. A small mistake can hurt the performance of your cold email copy.

So, to tailor a copy that stands out in the crowded inbox and resonates with your target audience, you need to follow the best practices I have shared with you in this guide.

In this guide, I have discussed it with you.

The fundamental thing about cold email copy is what it is and why it matters.
Prerequisite that you need to understand before starting work on cold email copy.
Anatomy of cold email copy subject line, opening line, body copy, and call to action and how to craft them effectively.
Two useful formulas will help you structure your cold email copy, driving attention and encouraging recipients to respond.
You should follow the best practices, and you must avoid mistakes.

So that’s it for now. Apply the knowledge I have shared with you and tailor a cold email copy on your own.

Lastly, if you are confused, ask in the comment.