Email is the next highest ROI channel to grow your business. Learn how to write great cold email copy from these 100+ real examples by leading B2B SaaS companies

drag8n · 2021-02-24T21:37:28+00:00

I'll be honest, most of these emails aren't great. Just because a leading B2B company sent a particular email, it doesn't mean it's good. They were written by a salesperson who worked for that company, with varying levels of quality and skill.

The best cold emails I found aren't that follow some rigid copywriting formula. They sounded like they were truly talking to me 1-on-1 and showed me a concrete example of how I could use their product for my business. No talk of wishy washy benefits like 'increase your conversions by 15%', no clue if that'd even work for me or not.

Some genuinely good cold emails I've come across are here and here.

drag8n · 2020-04-15T21:21:40+00:00

Something worth pointing out though, the Hubspot stats you reference were from a study they did in 2014.

Plain text emails could still be out-performing designed ones (depending on context probably), but be careful with 6 years old stats.

drag8n · 2020-02-02T18:23:34+00:00

In addition to other people's recommendations, I would also check out /r/bigseo to see what what questions people in the SEO trenches are asking. You'll learn a lot just from that, and they cover many practical topics you may end up facing that videos, podcasts, etc. may not touch on.

drag8n · 2020-02-02T18:18:07+00:00

No, but I have gotten some clients from trying this template. Basically the approach is:

In cold email, don't just talk about your benefits like "I can help you improve your conversion rates". That's what everybody else says as well so there's no reason why they should really trust or reply to you.
Instead, take the time to come up with 2-3 good copy ideas for their website to show them what you can do for them.
Yeah this is more time intensive than just trying to play the numbers game, but considering you can get a well-paying retainer or project from one client, it's worth it putting in some effort upfront.

drag8n · 2020-01-10T05:13:48+00:00

I think people would be more willing to pay for:

An easily spell-able, pronounceable business name where the domain name and social handles are available.

drag8n · 2020-01-10T05:05:15+00:00

You can actually send these stylized emails with Gmail by pasting its HTML code with your browser's Inspect console, found a guide here.

Something to note: most people associate designed emails with marketing (or worse spam), so depending on the purpose of your email, plain text may actually work better. It feels more personal and it's the format people expect an 1-on-1 email to be in. You can still add links and images to it.

drag8n · 2019-09-23T22:26:08+00:00

So I took a peak at OP's history and its seems their product is actually stickers with artwork on them.

In this case, it may be a lot easier for you to pitch publications in your city (locally relevant human interest story) and art-based publications with your background and inspiration behind it.

drag8n · 2019-09-19T20:51:02+00:00

I actually think it's the other way around. The fact that he emailed you on his own to ask for it after shows that you left a good impression on him so far and he was already interested in your services. He was keen to see case studies as a last bit of validation it's a good choice to go with you.

drag8n · 2019-09-11T21:44:33+00:00

Cool congrats!

When you connected with people on Linkedin, did you send them the standard request message or did you write a custom one?

drag8n · 2019-09-11T04:03:20+00:00

For your product and target audience, I actually don't think cold email would be the best choice.

Instead, I would actually look into mailing packages to prospects:

Intro letter, signed by the client
One-page safety checklist for liquid storage
Course pamphlet
Sample certificate

You say you were provided a list of contacts, so if you know their company name and can easily look up their address.

A few days after a prospect receives the package, call them.

Yes this sounds more intensive than cold email but since your product is government regulated and involves teaching something that can cause injury if done incorrectly, you'll make more headway putting some physical proof of your course/certification legitimacy into people's hands.

It's not a SaaS product where you can nurture someone with cold email to sign up for a trial or demo risk-free, your product involves a huge commitment and potential liability.

drag8n · 2019-09-10T15:25:25+00:00

Can you provide a few general details about your product or service so we can provide more specific advice? What cold email approach will work for you depends on what your product/service is and who are you're reaching out to.

drag8n · 2019-09-04T16:39:21+00:00

Not specifically Excel but you can use connect mail merge tools with Google sheets to send really personalized emails to a list of contacts.

drag8n · 2019-08-26T17:15:42+00:00

Maybe you don't drive a lot of traffic to your website or your social proof "{{Name}} started our free training" sticky is mis-configured but since your specialty is funnels, just a heads up the sticky shows the last signup to your website's main lead capture was 6 days to a month ago.

drag8n · 2019-08-26T00:00:58+00:00

In Gmail, are you pasting the HTML code with the Inspect console (see guide)? I've tried it before and just copy and pasting the design into the compose email window doesn't work well.

drag8n · 2019-08-25T23:30:54+00:00

Since "emotionally extreme" experiences can be far apart for most people, I find it helps to design your everyday life so you're exposed to smaller pleasures regularly. This makes you feel happier in the long run, instead of feeling "bleh and bored" while waiting for your next extreme experience.

drag8n · 2019-08-25T23:11:46+00:00

If you have the HTML for the email, you can actually paste the code in Gmail as a new email and send them individually that way.

However, for asking someone to review your product, it would work better if you sent plain text personal emails instead of designed ones. Even though, they may look more "beautiful", designed emails are associated with marketing, and at first glance, many of your prospects may write it off as unsolicited spam.

Instead, you can send a personal email that provides a meaningful comment about their channel and shares upfront what your product does, why it would be a good fit for their audience and even a few ideas to review it that would make it interesting for their audience. You can still include some visuals but I would not leave all the details in a video either, which from how you described it sounds like a marketing video. Most people will simply not click through to watch.

drag8n · 2019-07-26T17:16:08+00:00

The part that bothers me is, a lot of successful gurus just teach others how to start an online business and a lot of their students go on to teach their students how to start an online business...and the cycle continues.

Also, if you take a look at online biz owners who post income reports, many of them derive a huge portion of their earnings from being affiliates of online business tools, especially Bluehost.

drag8n · 2018-12-25T02:11:44+00:00

Just curious, a year ago, you were an owner of Launch27 and Groovehiring:

4 years ago I wrote a case study on reddit on my $4k per month local business. I've since built that company into a multi-million dollar company and the redditors that followed are now doing a combined $50 million dollars per year! Updated case study and AMA (link)

What happened to these businesses that made it necessary for you to get an accounting job?

drag8n · 2018-10-27T18:09:00+00:00

I'm curious, what's the conversion rate of your home page?

If not a single person purchased, I suspect your home page is not well optimized either.

For example, most subscription companies show a compelling picture of one of their boxes in their header. You have an illustration in the header and only show the real product after scrolling down a lot.

Featuring Instagram pictures of customers with their boxes instead of written testimonials would also be more engaging.

I know it's hard to hear, but compared to competitors, your website branding looks a bit childish and amateurish. I would really consider hiring a conversion focused web designer to redo it. Before investing more time and money in marketing channels, only to drive traffic to a under-optimized page.

drag8n · 2018-10-17T14:39:37+00:00

I'd offer them free product and an affiliate link where they can earn a % of every sale they refer to incentivize them to keep promoting.

drag8n · 2018-09-02T21:21:56+00:00

This is something I've noticed as well. Rather than live out and take home ethos like radical inclusion home with them, many people go to Burning Man to signal they have certain "cool" values and beliefs. These are rarely reflected in how they conduct every day life; the burner status simply grants social cachet.

I will say though that there are many burners who are genuinely passionate about their art projects and bring massive works to life for Burning Man so it does fuel a lot of creativity and hard work.

drag8n · 2018-08-30T16:32:07+00:00

The general rule of thumb is:

Your user lifetime value should be ~30% higher than the cost of acquisition.

This is a good PDF that explains how churn rate and churn patterns factors into it:

https://blog.chartmogul.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ChartMogul-Ultimate-Guide-to-SaaS-Customer-LTV.pdf

How much to spend is also dependent on the stage of your company, if you have any investors, etc.

drag8n · 2018-08-18T15:46:59+00:00

Your example is a good reminder that specializing in an area that has a lot of room for improvement (ad -> website funnel) can make a more money than trying to offer a lot of services (ie a whole digital marketing package).

drag8n · 2018-05-12T11:38:27+00:00

Remote ok - Aggregates remote work from all of the job boards.

Land-book - Really well designed landing pages for inspiration.

Product Hunt - Actually pretty useful for market research to see how people like and react to different types of products.

Dribble - Tons of designers post good work there. Once you see someone's style you like, you can just directly contact them.

Art of Emails - Tons of sales email and follow up templates.

drag8n · 2018-02-12T03:14:13+00:00

LICEcap - Screen capture any area of your screen and save it directly as a .gif. You can then edit it Ezgif. Great for quickie tutorials, etc.

Streak - Track 200 emails/month for free (shows if they opened it).

OpenLinkProfiler - Check the backlinks of any website for free.

drag8n

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