{"id":3245,"date":"2017-04-13T16:19:28","date_gmt":"2017-04-13T14:19:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/?p=3245"},"modified":"2025-01-21T10:26:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T09:26:41","slug":"cold-email-cliches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/cold-email-cliches\/","title":{"rendered":"Cold Email Clich\u00e9s, or What Your Prospects Have Seen Too Many Times to Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve been into cold emails<\/span> for some time, or if you get hundreds of cold emails<\/span> into your inbox<\/span>, you are probably able to quote some clich\u00e9 phrases and structures showing up over and over again for years. I described\u00a0just a few of them below. Check if you know them. Check if you use them. Check how to replace them, which may probably boost your reply rates.<\/p>\n

What is this post for?<\/h2>\n

First things first: I do feel\u00a0a strong urge to simply tell you:<\/p>\n

Those structures simply got and worn-out, so stop using them! So many email<\/span> senders\u00a0have been using them that nobody cares anymore. When I see them in my\u00a0inbox<\/span>, my first impression of the\u00a0person who’s trying to contact me drops way down in no time. And as a recipient of such messages, I usually can’t resist the need to press ‘Delete’ right away.<\/em><\/p>\n

But that’s just me. That’s just my opinion. You can consider it, or not.<\/p>\n

After all, it’s not about what I think or feel. It’s about what your prospects think and feel<\/em> while reading your emails<\/span>.<\/p>\n

I don’t know your group of prospects. Nobody really does, except you. It’s you who should know them best.<\/p>\n

You should know if they might get\u00a0annoyed by the same email<\/span> template coming from a\u00a023rd company that’s been trying to contact them. Or maybe they don’t get that many cold emails<\/span> after all, and even the well-known templates will still work for\u00a0them. It’s for you to test and find out.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen cold email<\/span> campaigns that I would never expect to bring any positive results. And yet, they worked just fine for a specific group of prospects.<\/p>\n

That’s why I want to make sure you correctly understand my motivation here. There are two reasons I decided to write this post, so…<\/p>\n

Please share your thoughts with me<\/h3>\n

1. I’m wondering, if you also feel that some worn-out cold email<\/span> pieces just don’t work anymore. Or maybe some of them still work for you. Either way, let me know in the comments under this post.<\/p>\n

2. I’m curious about other examples of such cold email<\/span> clich\u00e9s. I’m going to mention just a few here, but I bet there are more of those and that each of us can think of at least one or two other than those below. Please share them\u00a0in the comments section.<\/p>\n

Ok, now we can move on to the\u00a0clich\u00e9s.<\/p>\n

The \u201cAppropriate person\u201d \u2013 subject line, intro\u00a0& CTA<\/h2>\n

This is mostly taken from the assumptions made years ago by the creators of methods like Predictable Revenue<\/em><\/a> or\u00a0 Breakthrough Email<\/em><\/a>. Although those frameworks may still work pretty great, the very email<\/span> templates used within the frameworks have been sent so many times that they may simply get ignored nowadays.<\/p>\n

The subject line:<\/p>\n

“Appropriate person”<\/em><\/p>\n

The intro:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am writing in hopes of finding the appropriate person who handles <XYZ>?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The CTA:<\/p>\n\"Kreuzberger\n

Here’s how this works for me: when I see the subject line, I know right away what I’ll find inside. I know that I’m going to see a sales<\/span> pitch. I know what they will expect me to do in the CTA. It feels like an old trick and I don’t want to get tricked, so my reflex is to ignore, or even delete, the email<\/span> immediately.<\/p>\n

Will this structure work in some cases? Maybe. I guess it could work, if your prospects are not\u00a0very much into sales or marketing, and if they are not getting many cold emails<\/span>. Or, if the pitch that is tailor-made for them got sent at just a perfect time, that is when they are actually looking for a solution like yours right now, I believe this one might work.<\/p>\n

What to use instead?<\/h3>\n

Experiment with a different subject line. Keep it short, but try something more specific. I guess simply not copying the subject\u00a0may\u00a0help in this particular case.<\/p>\n

If you do want to focus on finding the person, use different words at the very beginning. Adjust the tone to your prospect group. Ideally, add some personalization at the beginning to show the reason why you chose to contact those exact people and not someone else.<\/p>\n

In the CTA, test out staying on emails<\/span> for the first touch. Why ask about the calendar right away? Perhaps the first step would be to verify, if your addressee will get back to you to confirm that they are indeed the appropriate person to talk to. And maybe the second question could be a part of your follow-up? In this particular form, the CTA sound a bit like I’ve no choice: it’s either-or. This feels kind of pushy and some of your prospects may get annoyed by that.<\/p>\n

Let-me-introduce-myself\u00a0 kind of an intro<\/h2>\n

This is probably the most common intro structure I see in the cold emails<\/span> that get to my inbox. I guess it proves that many of us feel that if we’re writing to someone who doesn’t know us yet, the first thing to do is to introduce ourselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name is John and I work with…”<\/em><\/p>\n

“My name is John and I\u2019m a…”<\/em><\/p>\n

“My name is John, my team and I …\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

From my experience, the chances that someone reads on after such an intro are very poor. Think about the message here. The first thing that comes to one’s mind after reading those lines is: ok, I don’t know this person, this person doesn’t know me. So why should I actually read on?<\/em><\/p>\n

What to use instead?<\/h3>\n

Instead of introducing yourself in the intro, you can make the intro about your prospect<\/a>. Tell them why you chose to contact them. What did you find about them that made you send that email<\/span>? Why did you choose them to reach out to instead of\u00a0millions of other people?<\/p>\n

If you want your prospects to read your email<\/span> and reply, you want to get them thinking: ok, somebody actually\u00a0noticed my work! This person actually did their homework before sending this email<\/span>, she seems reliable, she’s not pushy, I could actually reply to this.<\/em><\/p>\n

Just make sure you let them actually think about themselves and their company in the context of your value proposition. Don’t make them think about you in the context of your company. It may seem kind of selfish and irrelevant to them.<\/p>\n

Check how I started a cold email that got 50% reply rate >><\/a><\/p>\n

\n