10 cold email templates to maximize your reply rates

Cold emails are the modern sales team’s bread and butter. The digitization of sales means it’s easier than ever to engage with large numbers of prospects incredibly quickly - but it’s also very easy to waste this opportunity.

Because cold emailing isn’t a numbers game; it’s a relevance game.

In order to maximize your chances of getting a response, you need to adopt a strategic approach in your cold emailing whilst being disciplined about your deliverability best practices.

In this blog, we’ve collected our top tips for creating effective cold sales emails, plus some tried and tested templates we’ve seen get great responses in the past. With a little time and effort, you can make your email templates irresistible to prospects.

The goal of cold emails in B2B sales

Everyone is familiar with cold emails, but plenty of people - including the people that send them - seem to forget what they’re actually for.

Cold emails serve as the initial touchpoint in the sales process and should be designed to capture the attention of prospects and prompt them to engage further. 

This is important because it dictates which metrics you should be looking at to measure the success of your cold email campaigns. That is to say, you’re not just looking for a high open rate. What you really want is a high reply rate.

When we break things down, you can see that the key objectives of cold emails in B2B sales are:

1. To generate interest: Cold emails should pique the curiosity of recipients and compel them to learn more about your product or service.
2. To establish your value: Effective cold emails communicate or at least suggest the value proposition of your offering in relation to the prospect’s pain points or challenges. This is not the place for a long-winded sales pitch.
3. To start conversations: The ultimate goal of cold emails is to initiate a meaningful dialogue with prospects, so you can move them along in the buying journey.

Whilst your call-to-actions might vary (e.g. signing up for a trial, booking a call, responding to a question), the important thing is that you make the next step as easy for the prospect as possible to. The more obvious it is what action they should take if they’re interested, the more likely they are to convert or respond - and to do so quickly.

Cold email best practices

There’s no “one-size-fits-all” template for successful cold emailing, so you’ll have to experiment and refine your templates over time. Nevertheless, there are some general best practices you should always keep in mind:

1. Craft compelling subject lines

• Subject lines play a crucial role in determining whether a cold email gets opened or ignored. Opt for concise, attention-grabbing subject lines that spark curiosity and compel recipients to click.
• Avoid using urgent language, excessive punctuation, or emojis if you think they’ll detract from the professionalism of your email.
• Leverage personalization or dynamic field to tailor subject lines to the recipient's interests or pain points, increasing the likelihood of engagement.

2. Provide value from the outset

• Offer immediate value in the initial cold email by sharing valuable content, insights, or tips relevant to the recipient's industry or challenges.
• Briefly highlight the unique selling points of your product or service and articulate how it can address the specific needs of the recipient's business.

3. Strike the right tone

• Use a conversational, personable tone that resonates with the recipient.
• Avoid sounding robotic or overly formal as it can deter prospects from engaging with your message.
• Experiment with unconventional elements - such as memes, gifs, jokes, or anecdotes - to inject personality into your cold emails and foster a connection with the recipient.
• Try to steer clear of using excessive jargon that makes your offering sound inauthentic or difficult to understand. Keep your language simple.

4. Back up your claims with social proof

• Incorporate social proof, such as client success stories or testimonials, to validate the efficacy of your offering.
• Keep social proof concise and relevant, focusing on outcomes achieved for similar businesses or industry peers.
• Provide opportunities for recipients to explore further by including links to case studies or customer testimonials that showcase the value of your solution.

5. Leverage automation for scalability

• Sales engagement platforms like Amplemarket can help streamline and automate your cold email outreach efforts when you’re engaging multiple leads at once.
• Scale your personalization using dynamic fields that automatically adjust content to individual leads.
• Use data-driven insights and analytics to refine everything about your cold email strategy - from content to message length to sending time - and optimize your engagement rates over time.

10 cold email templates to get a response in 2024

The more data you have on your prospects, their pains, and their buying intent, the more relevant you can make your cold emails!

Below we’ve shared some of our favorite cold email templates for various scenarios, allowing you to find an approach that really hits home with your target audience.

1. Share a useful resource

Hey there, {{first_name}}!

Guessing you’re always looking for hack to make dealing with [pain point] a little easier.

Our data science team has just put together an insightful report on {{industry}} trends for 2024 and I thought they’d be useful for you. I've attached the PDF for you to check out.

Would love to hear your thoughts, especially if anything in particular stands out!

2. Congratulate on a recent promotion

Hi {{first_name}},

Saw that you’ve just taken over as {{job_role}} at {{company}} - congrats!!

I was wondering if you might now be re-evaluating {{company}}’s current [solutions for pain points]. The reason I'm asking is I’ve been speaking to other {{job_role}}s and this is often a key priority for them.

Do you have 10 minutes for me to show you how we’re helping {{industry}} companies [achieve success metric]?

3. Share a case study

Hi {{first_name}},

I’ve been speaking to a lot of {{job_title}}s in {{industry}} recently and one thing a lot of them are trying to tackle is [pain point]. Does this ring true for you?

As it happens, [your solution] just helped {{customer1}} [achieve success metric] in just 6 months. You can check out the full case study here!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the case study and explore how {{company}} could achieve the same.

Would you be open to learning more?

4. Respond to a website visit

Hi {{first_name}},

Figured you might be interested in learning a little more about [solution/relevant feature] to tackle your [pain point]?

Thought I’d send over a quick video to give you a super quick overview of the solution in action!

[Video]

Would love to hear your thoughts!

5. Leverage interest in a competitor

Hi {{first_name}},

Full disclosure {{first_name}}, I noticed you [interaction type] with {{competitor1}}'s content on LinkedIn.

I take it you're exploring solutions to [pain point] for your team at {{company}}. Is that right?

If you are checking out solutions, I thought you might value looking into [your solution] - think of us like {{competitor1}} but with [value proposition].

Teams using [solution have been able to achieve [example success metric].

Do you have 15 minutes next week for a quick call?

6. Reference recent funding round

Hey {{first_name}},

Just saw {{company}} scored {{funding}} - that’s awesome. Congrats to you and your team!

Figured now might be the time when you’re scaling your [processes] so your {{department}} team can smash the next goals on your horizon.

You might be interested in this: {{customer1}} achieved [example success metric] using {{your_company}}’s [features] to [tackle pain point].

I’d love to hear more about your story so far and what’s next for {{company_name}}. Would you be open to a quick call next week?

7. Engage LinkedIn followers

Hi {{first_name}},

{{your_name}} here, {{job_title}} at {{your_company}}. Just wanted to reach out and say thank you for following us on LinkedIn :)

I'd be happy to give you more insights into what we're doing to help companies like {{customer1}} achieve their {{industry}} goals in the current economy if you're up for it!

Would this be worth exploring for your team at {{company}}?

8. Leverage company growth (companies currently hiring)

Hi {{first_name}},

Noticed you're looking to grow your {{department}} team.

This is the kind of situation where I’ve see a lot of other {{job_title}}s re-evaluating their tools to both ease the onboarding experience and help new hires [achieve relevant goal] faster.

If this is the case for you, I would love to show you how companies like {{customer1}} have used {{your_company}} to scale their {{department}} teams. Our solution… [value proposition]

Would this be relevant to you right now?

9. Reference relevant technologies

{{first_name}} - noticed you've been using {{technology}} at {{company_name}} for some time.

Are you exploring other tools to [tackle pain point]?

[Solution] is helping companies [tackle pain point] by [value proposition]. {{Customer1}} achieved [example success metric] integrating {{your_company}} with {{technology}}.

If you'd like to see how we do it, let's set up some time for a call! This is a great way to streamline your workflows even more with {{technology}}.

10. Reconnecting with prospects who previously ghosted

Hi {{first_name}},

It’s been a while! I know you were in touch with [me/my colleagues] some time ago about how [solution] could benefit {{company}}.

I’m not sure if your team has already implemented something for [pain point], but how about a quick walkthrough of how [features] could [improve team’s performance]?

Otherwise, let me know when you’d prefer to revisit this!

Look forward to hearing from you.

Personalize cold emails at scale with automation

There’s no single cold email template that will bring you replies 100% of the time. Nevertheless, the best cold emails do all share one thing in common: they’re all hyper-relevant.

The better you can tailor your messaging to speak directly to your prospect’s needs, the more likely you are to strike a chord with them and get a response. The good news is that, thanks to sales engagement automation tools, personalizing emails doesn’t have to be a time-consuming and inefficient process.

Amplemarket makes it easy for you to create and refine your cold email templates for specific audiences and individuals, and allows you to scale this process with ease. Sign up for a demo to learn more about how you can transform your cold outreach success with just one tool!