Cold Email Secrets How to Get 43% Open Rates Without Spamming

:: 00:00:00

Speaker 1

Email is a great way to get new clients, and it can be tempting to think there's an easy button where I'm just going to drop thousands of leads into this email machine and it's going to spit out things, and I'm just going to have results. But the thing is, most people underestimate what it takes to get a high volume, cold email machine running really well.

:: 00:17:14

Speaker 1

It's a lot of optimizations, a lot of iteration in the vast majority of people, frankly, don't have the patience to stick with it long enough. And if you do it right, personalized, low volume cold emails will actually get you significantly higher conversion rates and a lot more value from whatever list you're working, which is really important if you have a small market or just a small marketing list to go after in the first place.

:: 00:41:23

Speaker 1

So if you have really high value clients that you want to go after, or you do have a small list to market to or small market to actually go after it, personalized, low volume cold emails can be a really good moneymaker for you because they stand out in your inbox and I'll show you how. And they even create a sense of reciprocation, because when you show somebody that you've actually done the research and personalize a message, something goes off and says, it might be worth a response, or at least a lot more people will respond to that than they will a message that they think was written by an AI bot.

:: 01:09:20

Speaker 1

And right now, I'm using a strategy that's got 43% open rates on cold email, and I'm going to show you how I'm doing it step by step. Let's dive in. So I'm sharing my screen here. And what we've got is a document that I have linked to in in the notes below. So feel free to go grab that and just make a copy.

:: 01:24:15

Speaker 1

And it's going to go through the checklist. I'm going to walk through all of this. But the first thing I want you to grab is Sam McKenna's perfect email. And it says Sam Wykeham. It stands for Show Me You Know Me. Basically, this is her approach. And I'm going to give, you know, give kudos and credit where credit is due.

:: 01:41:02

Speaker 1

Sam McKenna is the founder of Sam Sales, and she's got some great resources on email. Some of these that I've I've hijacked, as you can see, and then, you know, share share these with you. I link to this so you can go ahead and grab this yourself. So this is going to be that document. And I'll walk through some some pieces here and how we're we're structuring the personalized cold emails.

:: 01:59:11

Speaker 1

And I've got an example here in the and the other document that I will walk through as well, there's some down here that you can that you can leverage. Now basically what you want to do is you want to start with a process that allows you to really quickly get the information that you need to personalize the email, and I'm going to show you where to personalize it here in just a minute.

:: 02:15:01

Speaker 1

What I have is, is a basic checklist. And the checklist for me is I'm going to start with the LinkedIn profile. If I'm going if I'm selling B2B services, I'm going to start with the profile. And I'm going to look at the headline I'm going to look at. All right. Is there anything interesting in here. I'll hop down.

:: 02:32:06

Speaker 1

Always read the about oftentimes you'll get some unique experience or maybe some overlap. Like if I was, I was targeting myself. Maybe there's some US chamber, alumni, or maybe I had some experience with private equity or, you know, we moved to Baja. So there's some there's things that you can pull from the about page if they if they've done that, you can look at the services that they're selling.

:: 02:53:00

Speaker 1

If they have those, look at the featured section, like that's showcasing if they're really active on LinkedIn or if they're like creating content, they're going to have stuff in the featured section that you can look at, you can learn from, you can engage with, in my case, I just got the newsletter, so maybe I'll hop over and sign up for the newsletter and see what the past issues of the newsletter were.

:: 03:13:24

Speaker 1

I'll look at the content. Now. If I'm looking at content, I'm going to actually I'm going to look for something that I can engage with. Right. Like I'm, I'm, I'm going to look here and, you know, maybe read the last post and, you know, like it, make a comment. You know, maybe I find what you maybe I find another one that I can engage with.

:: 03:30:14

Speaker 1

What I wouldn't do is just go through and like, like 20 of them, right? Like, sometimes I get notifications that say, you know, so-and-so likes, likes, likes like, liked like like I think it's gonna help your, your rapport or your your status. I'll go ahead and hop in to, to 1 or 2 of those. And if you see an opportunity to to engage, go ahead and do that.

:: 03:47:06

Speaker 1

The other thing that you're looking for in the content is what is their messaging like. Is there anything in the messaging that you can leverage? In your in your personalization, like as you're looking for things to, to use, maybe they're sharing like a recent podcast that they were on. Maybe they're sharing a recent YouTube video that they released, maybe they shared, you know, something that's going on with the company.

:: 04:06:02

Speaker 1

So like actually read it and see if there's some, some opportunities to, to leverage that content. Then I'm going to look through the, you know, the experience and companies, again, I'm, you know, maybe I had I know somebody at one of these companies, maybe I worked at one of these places. Maybe I know somebody that worked on these places.

:: 04:22:12

Speaker 1

This may give me some, some additional information to to utilize in my, in my messaging where they go to school, like, did we go to school together? Who knows? Any any other activities or things that they've got going on. You may even look down at the, the recommendations, right. Like if they've got, you know, ten, 15, 20 recommendations, maybe you comment on, you know, the number of recommendations that they've got on LinkedIn.

:: 04:46:03

Speaker 1

So go through them, go to the profile first. Then the second thing I'm going to look at is I'm going to look at the company. I'm going to look at the company page. Okay. Now, if I scroll down here, you know, there's we've, we've got a couple different company pages. So maybe I look over here and on the company page, let's see.

:: 05:03:14

Speaker 1

I'm gonna I'll look at home, you know. Is anything anything interesting here? Any click on about how they presented the locations, do they have. Now I'm also look at content. Is there recent content that I can engage with or that I could reference when I'm when I'm writing a message? Any interesting news releases, any latest performance metrics, like, you know, what are what is the company saying, if anything?

:: 05:31:11

Speaker 1

Are they hiring? Who are they hiring for? Perhaps, you know, you're you're reaching out to the executive that has a bunch of job recs out right now. And that's the only thing that you can find to, to to use in the, in the messaging, click on the people and see, you know, who else is, is real related to the company, who else is either at the company or engaged with the company or has been in the past?

:: 05:56:07

Speaker 1

You can scroll through some of these things. I mean, these don't tend to be terribly helpful for me. Yeah. You can just look at, you know, basic insights, things like that. Okay. So I look at the company profile and I am looking for anything that I can use in a personalized message that would be relevant. Help me get an open rate, then, you know, use some common sense, like we're just looking for the person, right?

:: 06:17:07

Speaker 1

Like Google the person, take a look around. Do they have anything on social? Are they really active on medium today. You know, share something along the way, do they come up under different searches. Right. Like today, you know, have a side hustle that they, that they're selling or they're, you know, they're offering services or consulting. So the little person call the company and see if there is, if there's anything in the news or, again, press releases or just the, the general ecosystem that can give you an idea of how the company is doing, where they're headed, or how this this particular person that you're reaching out to is affecting change at that company.

:: 06:52:14

Speaker 1

Then, I'm going to take a look at, at AI. Right. And so I'm actually going to hop over here. And if I go to, perplexity, that's just a tool that aggregates searches. I'm sure I'm vastly understating what it does as a, as a tool, but it's like Google search on steroids. So if I was looking for me, we'll see if I, if I show up.

:: 07:14:09

Speaker 1

Now it's out there. It's searching. It's looking okay. You some LinkedIn stuff. Yeah. It's got some some pictures over here. You know, high performance growth consultant. Okay, okay. So it gives me some additional background, on me, helps. Okay. Got it. Self-employed offers audits, coaching programs, consulting. Achievements. Now, I have a lot of content out there.

:: 07:41:05

Speaker 1

So, you know somebody your your prospect may or may not show up, but there are a lot more people that are that are content creators now. So hop into a tool like perplexity and see what you can find. I'll put a link to this in, in the show notes as well. And that's basically kind of how I go about finding the soundbite or the thing that I'm going to reference in the next part of this, which is, personalizing the message.

:: 08:03:28

Speaker 1

Now, what we're going to do is I'm just going to tackle the personalization and the template all at once. Now I am using this is, Sam's format and you can see how she structures the customization. This is where you're going to customize the subject line. And there's a piece that's, personalized at the beginning. And then there's going to be a piece that is your, your template.

:: 08:24:22

Speaker 1

Okay. So you're gonna leave space here to personalize it. And then you've got the piece that's templated. Then the email itself, for sentence. Pretty powerful. We've yet to be properly introduced, but I'm Sam McCann of, CEO of Sam Sales. She has some, some good tips in here. And then you're going to extend on the element of personalization and then segway into what you actually wanted to talk about.

:: 08:48:18

Speaker 1

So, you know, I would extend, as I do in my template, I would extend on, on this here and add a sentence or two. And then I would segway or transition into what I actually wanted to talk about. And, you know, I could talk about this all day. The real reason for my outreach is so this is where you transition into the actual value problem.

:: 09:08:08

Speaker 1

What she has here is, you know, essentially the problem and the pain that, that that's associated with it. Now, if you know your ICP really well, you should know what are the problems and the pains that they're, they're experiencing right now. That's going to, to make this really relevant. Otherwise you just personalize this into something.

:: 09:24:25

Speaker 1

They're like, oh, that's not us, and you've wasted your time. So know the problems and pains that you're focused on. Then the value prop, you know, we can xyzzy and address that. Objection. So take your, your top objection and, and get ahead of it and address it, which actually shows even more that you know them as well as you do.

:: 09:45:08

Speaker 1

Right? Because if you can predict the what they've done or the mistakes that they've made in the past, this makes this message even more relevant and gives you more authority. Then you've got the close. This is where you're know, you specify a call to action and you show that you're respectful of their schedule. So, you know, do you have time in the next week or two to learn more?

:: 10:01:00

Speaker 1

Don't send the calendar link. Don't chase them with specific time frames. And do make it broad like make it make it convenient for them. Don't necessarily make it super convenient for you. There are some examples here, that you can you can access directly if you want. And here's how we've taken that structure into the into the emails that that we're sending.

:: 10:19:13

Speaker 1

And you can see this is the space for for personalization. So you know, depending on what I found it might say Bar Beach if I was emailing myself like, you know, sales from sales from a beach, something like that. U.S. chamber alumni, anything that that calls out and what you want here is something that only you could know through personalization.

:: 10:39:20

Speaker 1

Only a human being could actually be sending this message, like, that's what this has to say, because that's going to create the curiosity that's going to intrigue them into saying, well, I need to know a little bit more about this person that said Bar Beach or something here. Then I actually use her exact template. We've yet to be introduced.

:: 10:58:24

Speaker 1

I'm Ray Greene, CEO at MSP sales Partners, and here's where I would say, hey, listen to your podcast on or I loved your post on or whatever it was that I found that I can that I can reference. I would write 1 or 2 sentences here, okay, like I wouldn't don't get don't get carried away. Don't write three paragraphs like you just essentially have to to acknowledge, as she says in the in the not quite acronym here.

:: 11:22:19

Speaker 1

And the initials show me you know me, right. Like show me that this is worth my time. You've invested some time into learning about me before sending this email. Okay? Like you have my attention now. I could talk about that forever, but the reason I was emailing was that as an MSP and increasing new client sales is likely a priority for you.

:: 11:39:27

Speaker 1

Most of the MSPs we work with are asking themselves, what do I need to do to get more new clients? Many of them are investing a fair amount into marketing and research, but new clients just aren't where they need to be. Value prop. And I could I mean, theoretically I could, I could shortness. That's that's three lines. We could get that down to two.

:: 11:55:18

Speaker 1

But this is the, the template that we've got now. We specialize in auditing. Sales for MSP is the same way. You probably assess networks. A deep dive into what you're doing now and building plans to get you to the next level. And we've got solutions to help you implement everything that we recommend. You may have tried some MSP coaching programs or sales trainings before this is the objection.

:: 12:15:21

Speaker 1

Right? So it's it's it's problem it's value statement or value prop. And then the objection you may have tried some MSP coaching programs or sales trainings before. Many of them are great, just not tailored to your unique business like our audits. The services are. And I built these around 15 years of sales management experience. And from coaching 250 MSPs over the past few years, interested in learning more?

:: 12:36:18

Speaker 1

Right. I'm not going to put a link here. And what I'm doing here is addressing the objection and highlighting what I consider to to be part of our unique value proposition. Right? Our USP. Are you, interested in learning more? If you have some availability in the next week or two, just pass along a few times at work and I'll be happy to send an invite over.

:: 12:56:08

Speaker 1

So again, it's convenient to them. I don't include any links. It's really presumptuous and almost no one is going to to click that link and and book with you. So ask a question and get them engaged and get them to to opt in. And then you know that they they send you the times and you can can take it from there.

:: 13:13:02

Speaker 1

So that's it. A pretty simple way of going about this. It does take some time, but the conversion from spending that amount of time in the extra few minutes to personalize a message is going to help me get monumentally more value out of a list than if I just drop it into something with automation and just fire off something really generic and really vanilla to everybody.

:: 13:33:05

Speaker 1

So feel free to grab this framework, this checklist. Don't forget to grab Sam's, overview. And, you know, her process for for putting these things together. There's some additional examples in her document as well. In fact, I actually use this same format, same structure and everything to open up the door to a CRO in an organization that I was trying to to partner with on something.

:: 13:53:01

Speaker 1

And it was it was fairly unique. I'd sent a message on LinkedIn, hadn't heard anything back. So I use this exact same thing, did some research, and I found some unique stuff. So here's what I did. I follow this process. Follow the checklist. I found some interesting stuff, including the fact that the person I was trying to reach out to had a company, had a small business that he sells vintage watches.

:: 14:13:29

Speaker 1

And so that's what I that's why I found that out. I said, okay, vintage watches plus company name here. I said, hey, Jeremiah, reach out on LinkedIn, but I'm sure you get a million DMs as I do. Candidly, I did a little research to see how I could say this is an I written a spammy, cold email and found Meta's first Fredo, one of our 150 shared connections from trying to leverage some some personalization there, too, as well as a huge timepiece fan, has come close to getting me to get my first legit one.

:: 14:39:24

Speaker 1

Still on the fence, but we have a broker now. The reason I reached out on LinkedIn was this is the exact same thing. So it works. I promise you, you just have to invest the right time, look for the right things, structured this and I assure you that you're going to get a lot more value on the list that you're working in higher conversion rates and frankly, shorter, warmer calls because people would rather talk to somebody that has done a little bit of research and strikes up something that feels marginally personalized on the initial outreach.

:: 15:05:21

Speaker 1

So I hope this has been helpful. If it has, go ahead and subscribe to the channel for more business and sales tips. Else.

:: 15:15:24

Speaker 1

You.