{"id":501,"date":"2015-11-19T10:00:40","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T10:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/?p=501"},"modified":"2025-01-21T10:28:12","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T09:28:12","slug":"10-golden-rules-of-cold-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/10-golden-rules-of-cold-email\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Golden Rules of Cold Email"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing a cold email<\/a> is easy. That\u2019s what people think \u2013 I mean the people who never tried writing one. It\u2019s not easy for many reasons, but especially because we have to remember about so many things at once while writing it. Actually, we have to remember about at least 10 things. I call them the Golden Rules of Cold Email.<\/p>\n

Whether you’re sending cold email for some time now, or you’re just starting and have never sent your first cold email campaign yet, you should know them by heart. Here they are, in our blog post.<\/p>\n

Rule #1: Keep it short<\/h2>\n

That\u2019s almost boring, right? If you have ever read any post on how to write cold emails \u2013 it\u2019s always there: keep it short. No more than 2-5 sentences. That\u2019s all you need. Nonetheless, most people who tend to send me cold emails never heard of the #1 rule. Either that, or they simply decided to ignore it (which is a huge mistake).<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it works: People don\u2019t like long emails. People usually don\u2019t read long emails. People never read long emails from strangers. People cannot possibly reply with anything but \u201cleave me alone\u201d to an email they didn\u2019t even read.<\/p>\n

Rule #2: Keep it logical<\/h2>\n

From the very beginning, which is your From line<\/a>, till the very end, which is your signature<\/a>, our message has to be logical. It has to make sense. If our email is reasonable, it shows we\u00a0are a reasonable person. Let’s always make\u00a0sure our addressee knows why we\u00a0reach out to them, what we\u00a0are actually offering, and what the next step is.<\/p>\n

Each part of our message has to logically match the other parts. If the addressee feels for a second that something\u2019s not entirely right here, this may be a sufficient reason for them to delete our message.<\/p>\n

Rule #3: Make it valuable<\/h2>\n

Whatever we write about in our email, it has to be valuable to our addressee \u2013 that is of course, if we want them to reply. Our introduction<\/a>, as well as the very pitch<\/a>, have to be relevant to the prospect. So if we offer them some kind of a solution, let\u2019s make sure it\u2019s solving a problem they may actually have.<\/p>\n

Only if they feel like they can actually gain from starting a relation with us, they will consider hitting us back with a reply.<\/p>\n

Rule #4: It\u2019s never about you<\/h2>\n

Our prospects are not interested in the story of our life. They are interested in the story of their<\/em> life. Everyone likes to read about themselves. Our cold email cannot be about us or our solution, because honestly \u2013 no one cares. They will only care if it\u2019s about them and a solution to their own<\/em> problems.<\/p>\n

We should always keep the focus of our message on our recipient \u2013 never on ourselves. Even in the pitch, where we\u2019re explaining what it is that we are actually offering. We can only write about ourselves in the context of our recipient. So if you\u2019re still sending emails including a list of features \u2013 quit it right away.<\/p>\n

Rule #5: Know your addressee<\/h2>\n

That\u2019s the main difference between quality email outreach and spam. We need to know who we are sending the message to. I don\u2019t mean know them personally \u2013 that\u2019s why we call it cold email: because we haven’t\u00a0contacted our addressee before. But we have to know who they are, how they work, how they speak, what they love, what they hate, what their problems are. Only this way, we can make our cold email valuable for them (see Rule #3).<\/p>\n

Rule #6: Do not sell<\/h2>\n

The cold email is not supposed to sell. We don\u2019t want to close a deal with a cold email. We want to start a relation with our prospect. So if our email in any of its parts sounds even a bit salesy, we should revise it.<\/p>\n

Rule #7: Be human<\/h2>\n

We need to forget about trait formulae. Stop being a sales rep for once. Stop being a robot once and for all. Just be human and write like a human being.<\/p>\n

We need to keep the tone light and remember that we\u2019re addressing another person. If we know who they are, we also know how they speak, and we need to speak the same (see Rule #5).<\/p>\n

Rule #8: Always follow-up<\/h2>\n

One message may not be enough (usually, it\u2019s not enough). Some people will be too busy to reply to us, and they they will simply forget about the email we sent them. Some will actually not reply to our first email on purpose, just to check if we care enough to follow up with them. That\u2019s why, follow-up is necessary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Following up, we show our addressees that we are persistent and we really care about starting a relation with them.<\/p>\n

If you’re not doing that, or still sending your follow-ups by hand, give Woodpecker a try>><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rule #9: What works for others will not necessarily work for you<\/h2>\n

Before we copy and paste a ready-made template and hit send, we should stop and ask ourselves if it really fits our audience<\/a> and the real purpose of our email. Each of us targets at\u00a0a different group of prospects. Each of us wants to achieve a little bit different goal with our cold email. Each of us speaks the way that is characteristic to him\/her.<\/p>\n

So why would we ever copy and paste a ready-made template without asking questions? If we know our group of prospects (Rule #5) and if we want to speak like a human being,\u00a0not like a machine (Rule #7), we should write our emails on our own.<\/p>\n

Of course, we can see what worked best for others and check out\u00a0the most effective templates. That always helps and brings some new ideas. We can even use a similar structure, tone, and psychological mechanisms to reach to our prospects. But the very message should be unique because it\u2019s supposed to be tailored for our recipient.<\/p>\n

Rule #10: Check if you would reply to it yourself<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s crucial to put ourselves in our addressee\u2019s shoes for a moment and check if we would be willing to reply to the email we wrote. That\u2019s a very simple, yet a very effective test each of us should carry out before sending\u00a0our messages. The easiest way is\u00a0to read\u00a0our email\u00a0out loud to ourselves and see if it sounds human, if it doesn’t sound salesy, if it has the tone we meant it to have.<\/p>\n

Final words<\/h3>\n

If you don\u2019t abide by the rules, perhaps that\u2019s why your cold email outreach is not as effective as it could be. Check your emails against those ten rules and try to figure out what still can be improved in your cold email campaigns.<\/p>\n

P.S. If there are other important rules you think are crucial and I didn\u2019t mention them here, feel free to share those in the comments below.<\/p>\n

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