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Are You The One Sending Those Dull Generic Business Emails?

Forster Perelsztejn Nov 29, 2018 — 10 min read

The 3 cold email campaigns you're going to read about come from actual Overloop customers. You will discover how cold emailing worked for a staffing company, an online marketing agency and a SaaS (Software as a Service) companies.

Here at Overloop, we make it a point to educate our customers on how to write great cold emails because automating something that's bad makes it even worse. It matters to us because our success depends on their success. Also, we secretly hope that we'll get fewer bad cold emails by contributing to making things better for everyone in business.

1. Pre-trade show campaign

This customer of ours offers staffing services to companies looking for waiters or hosts/hostesses for specific events, administrative reinforcement or field marketing. They put their customers in touch with handpicked freelancers for a relatively cheap price and offer an online platform to process the financial and administrative aspects of the relationship.

This brilliant campaign they launched a few months ago specifically targeted companies taking part in a trade show in Paris, which they used to their advantage to grab the prospect's attention and give a unique sense of relevance.

Here are the results they obtained:

The campaign

EMAIL 1

Why it's great:

They mention the company of the prospect in the subject line and their name in the email, which is good in terms of personalization. They know who they're writing to, and at what company.
They grab the attention of the prospect by mentioning an event they'll be attending
They explain what it is they do and link it to the aforementioned event
The call to action is very easy to respond to

What they could have done better:

Some social proof (happy customers), certifications or experience would have been nice

EMAIL 2

Why it's great:

They don't "just check in", they assume that their product is of value so they go in assertively, assuming the prospect didn't get a chance to check out their message
The call to action is clear and easy to respond to. Also, they're asking for a call on a short notice so the prospect can squeeze them in.

It's worth noting that this email generated 36% of the responses in this campaign.

EMAIL 3

sumo

Why it's great:

They elaborate ont he benefits of working with them while keeping it short

What they could have done better:

Since they were elaborating on the price, they could have provided more value by giving a concrete quote

EMAIL 4

Why it's great:

Humor is always appreciated. Also, everyone likes puppies!

What they could have done better:

Playing the last resort card works better when you've actually provided a lot of value to begin with, which is not the case here. Maybe if they had presented a case study or some testimonials, they could have used the puppy card to reap more replies in this last email.

Final note:

No doubt this was a great campaign, with a high level of personalization and attention grabbing in the first email. I can't help but wonder if they'd have managed to boost these already exceptional results by providing more value in the follow-up emails.

2. Blitzkrieg campaign

In this instance, our customer, which is an online platform offering conversion optimization tools, decided to go in with a very short campaign aimed at a big number of prospects. And even though it seems counterintuitive, they generated some pretty amazing results:

The campaign

EMAIL 1

Why it's great:

They assume -because they probably can't know that- that their prospect isn't using an A/B testing tool. And since there's a high chance they're right, it's a good attention-grabber.
They get straight to the point about what it is they do.
The call to action is clear and easy to respond to.

What they could have done better:

They could have personalized the approach better
They could have linked their product to the prospect's actual challenges
Some social proof would have given more leverage (but since they're a famous company, it's less important)

EMAIL 2

Why it's great:

They address the prospect's challenges and refer to their company by name
They elaborate on the benefits instead of simply mentioning the features

What they could have done better:

Benefits are always better quantified. For example: "Our customers managed to increase the number of subscriptions by 25% in 3 weeks."

Final note:

We generally recommend to set up longer campaigns as it can take time for prospects to perceive the value you an offer them, and this customer could probably have reached 50% in reply rates if they had gone deeper. But still, the results are here and what they lacked in content, they made up for in segmenting and targeting.

3. Product-focused campaign

This SaaS company was lucky enough to only be from two towns over to send their sales team over for a special coaching session on how to best use our tool and how to cold email like bosses. As a SaaS company ourselves, it was easy enough to give them some good insight to help their sales grow.

This is one of the campaigns that ensued!

The campaign

EMAIL 1

Why it's great:

They mention the company of the prospect in the subject line which is great for open rates
They mention the location of the company, its industry as well as the prospect's job title, which is an instantaneous attention-grabber. It also demonstrates research which is awesome.
They get into one of the companies challenges and ask a relevant question.
They get into the features and benefits of the product.
They offer an in-person presentation and clearly ask for a call

What they could have done better:

They could have included some credentials (social proof, experience, certifications…)

EMAIL 2

Why it's great:

They don't "just check in", they assume that their product is of value so they go in assertively, assuming the prospect didn't get a chance to check out their message
The call to action is clear and easy to respond to, and they mention the location of the company again.

EMAIL 3

What they could have done better:

The email doesn't bring much value and stays focused on the product and the meeting they want to obtain. They could have provided case studies, success stories, testimonials or concrete examples of how to use their product.
Adding a 4th or even a 5th email could have allowed them to increase the reply rate.

How to write great cold emails?

In the end, it all boils down to following these points:

1. Grab your prospect's attention

Don't go for a lengthy introduction; mention something specific and/or personal -something they did or wrote for example- that will get your prospect's attention.

2. Make it clear why you're reaching out to them

Get straight to the point! Also, the reason why your reaching out to them personally is equally as important as the reason you're reaching out at all.

3. Present the benefits of dealing with you

Why should they do what you're asking or get in business with you? What are they getting out of the relationship?

4. Show some proof/credentials

Unless you're a big name in your industry, your prospect probably doesn't know you and has no reason to trust you or your business. Drop names of happy customers they can relate to or experience you have!

5. Call to action

The very thing you've been working towards: getting your prospect to take an action that'll make the process move forward! Make it easy to understand and act on, and limit yourself to only one CTA!