The Ideal Email Structure - Cold Emails in 2024

Sending cold emails is like reaching out for a virtual handshake in today’s business landscape. Whether you’re seeking new connections, clients, or partners, that initial email holds the power to open doors to exciting opportunities. It’s a bit like your online first impression, and nailing it is key. But don’t worry; we’re here to make the process smoother. We’ve got some fantastic cold email formats up our sleeves. Whether you’re shooting off that first email to a complete stranger or reconnecting with someone you’ve met in person, we’ve got you covered.

In this guide, we’ll go over two sides of a major differentiator: Cold Emails without prior contact history and Cold Emails with a prior in-person meeting

• Cold Emails without prior Contact History
• Cold Emails with a prior In-Person Meeting
• How to Improve your Cold Emails
  • Solving low email open-rates
  • Solving low email response rates
• Use Mailmeteor to send Cold Emails & Automated Follow Ups
• Email Templates

Cold Emails without prior Contact History

Cold emails sent to individuals or businesses with whom you have not had any prior interaction is a proven strategy for generating new opportunities.

Writing these emails requires a unique skill, as you will essentially be introducing yourself as well as what you are offering to recipients who may have no prior knowledge of your existence. To make a positive impression and increase the likelihood of a response, your email must be clear and concise, where the recipient has no doubts about your intention by the end of the email. Here is a breakdown of this template:

• Subject Line: Addressing a specific problem in the recipient’s industry and promising a solution makes it more likely for the recipient to open your email, especially if they have faced the problem in the past.
• Salutation: Starting with formal salutation addressing the recipient by their name makes the email more personalized, you can also use their name in the subject line to make it more likely for them to open your email. But if there has not been any prior contact, using their name might throw them off instead.
• Problem Identification: The beginning of the main body of the email identifies the recipient’s problem and explains how it can affect their business. This helps establish your expertise in the industry and the value that you offer to the recipient.
• Solution Proposal: The email then presents a specialized solution developed by you, explaining how it works. The features listed should be a short and concise summary of what you offer, these should ideally be cherry-picked to address the recipient in question.
• Call to Action: This template includes a link to a live demo page of the solution; you can also replace this with a blog post where the recipient can find out more about the solution you are offering.
• Deal Teaser: The email ends with a teaser about a special deal, prompting the recipient to respond. If you have any hard numbers you can offer, this is where you do it.
• Closing: The email closes with a salutation, followed by the sender’s name, company, and phone number. This makes it possible for your prospective client to contact you over the phone instead, it also adds an additional layer of authenticity to your email.

Keep in mind that your prospects probably receive a lot of emails trying to sell them something. Standing out from the crowd in cold outreach is important, but doing so will require you to concisely establish your expertise, your prior experience, as well as your ability to solve their problems for them.

Cold Emails with a prior In-Person Meeting

On the other side of the spectrum, you might be reaching out to someone who you recently had an in-person interaction with.

Consider it best practice to mention where you met, it serves as a foundation for the rest of your message and lets your recipient identify you personally. You may also share exact details from your conversation if relevant. Since you have already had an interaction with the recipient, the purpose of these emails is usually to schedule a meeting to discuss plans or endeavors. Let us break down this template as well:

• Subject Line: The subject line refers to a previous meeting to provide context for the email, this also makes it almost impossible for them to skip over your email as long as your previous interaction was positive.
• Friendly Salutation: Beginning the email with a friendly greeting and addressing the recipient by their name makes the conversation more personal in nature, while the rest of this email sticks with a professional formal tone.
• Opening Sentences: Being polite gets better results and expressing your well wishes for the other party before you get to business is exactly that. You should also establish context for the email by reminding them about your meeting, mentioning a specific topic or incident will set you up as someone who pays attention to detail.
• Drop a Compliment: In the case of this template, we are acknowledging a specific insight from the other party. This warms them up and makes them more receptive to our request in the next sentence.
• Suggestion for Collaboration: By using words like collaboration and partnership, you acknowledge that the other party will also benefit from the outcome of this conversation.
• Call to Action: Once more, we are vocal and obvious with our call to action. You should always ask a direct question that can only be answered by a response to the email.
• Closing: We end this email by expressing anticipation for a response, and just like last time, we provide our name, our company’s name, and a phone number as an alternative means of communication.

In contrast to the previous cold email, this one does not necessarily need to establish your expertise. Because we are assuming that your prior interaction took care of that. If that is not the case, then your email would actually be a combination of the two we have shared over here. Hopefully, to solve a problem that the recipient mentioned in a prior meeting.

How to Improve your Cold Emails

It is possible to track various metrics of the cold emails that you send; you can track how many people opened your emails, and how many responded. You can also track if someone clicked on a link in your email by sending everyone a unique link.

While these metrics might not seem enough, we can still use them to improve campaigns.

Solving low email open-rates

Low email open rates can be a frustrating challenge for email marketers. After investing time and effort into writing the perfect cold email, it is heartbreaking to see it go unnoticed. Here are some effective techniques to tackle this issue head-on:

• Improve the Subject: Craft attention-grabbing subject lines that pique curiosity or offer value. It might be a clever idea to separate your recipients into groups depending on their age. This will let you write more casual and trendy subjects for your younger recipients while sticking with a more formal tone for the rest.
• Personalization: Addressing recipients by name and tailoring your subject to them will boost your open rate tremendously. It is not uncommon to split your recipients by industry or even by sub-niches within an industry.
• Timing: Send emails at optimal times when your recipients are likely to check their inboxes or notifications.
• A/B Testing: Experiment with different subject lines to see what works best. Even if you are only sending email to a few dozen people at a time, try out two different methods and improve on the more successful one.

Solving low email response rates

The success of a cold email campaign hinges not only on getting your recipients to open the email but also on generating meaningful responses. It is all too common for well-crafted emails to land in inboxes, get opened, and then do nothing but gather dust, without any indication that they have made an impact. Here is what you can do in this situation:

• Clear Call to Action: Make it easy for your recipients to understand what action you want them to take. If you are vague with your request, do not be surprised if they do not understand what you need.
• Do not Waste Time: Keep emails concise, focused, and engaging. Human attention is a scarce commodity in the current day and age, at any time, you are competing with a handful of different entertainment mediums ready to grab your recipient’s attention away from you.
• Follow-Up Strategy: Send polite follow-up emails to prompt responses without being pushy. Bonus points if you can automate this process instead of doing so manually.

Use Mailmeteor to send Cold Emails & Automated Follow Ups

Mailmeteor is a powerful email marketing tool that allows you to send cold emails and automated follow-ups easily. It lets you create and send personalized emails to your target audience, helping you reach potential clients and prospects effectively.

It streamlines the process of sending cold emails & automatically following up, increasing your productivity tremendously and letting you focus on what matters most, the email itself.

Here are some of the different ways Mailmeteor can help you in your cold email campaigns:

• Personalization: Tailor your emails with custom variables to make them highly personalized. Mailmeteor does so by connecting with your Gmail & Google Sheets, so you can continue working with tools with which you are familiar.
• Automated Follow-ups: Send automated follow-up emails to improve your response rates, set it once and forget about it.
• Email Tracking: Track email opens and clicks to gauge engagement and to collect valuable data to improve your future campaigns.
• Scheduling: Write your emails today, send them out at lunchtime tomorrow, Mailmeteor will take care of everything for you.
• Templates: Use pre-designed email templates for efficiency or write your own with custom variables to fill in from a mail merge sheet.

Mailmeteor simplifies the process of sending cold emails and automated follow-ups, making it a valuable tool for sales, outreach, and marketing professionals.

Email Templates

You may use the below sample for reaching out to potential prospects for your business without prior contact:

When contacting someone you physically met at an event or other functions, you may write something along these lines: