Email is one of the most powerful growth engines for any B2B SaaS trying to ramp up sales.

However, not many companies get it right.

Part of the reason is that sales teams end up focusing on lead volume instead of quality leads and email personalization. We found that quality always trumps quantity. A lower volume of emails with higher personalization brings more qualified opportunities.

In this article, we will show how to write great cold emails, without having to spend 1 hour on every single email. We’ll show you a framework to help you find and connect with potential customers in a highly personalized and scalable way 🚀.

Not convinced yet?

Cold email personalization: Why should you care?

How many emails do you receive in your inbox? Lots of them. How many do you read and respond to? Not many. It’s hard to stand out in today’s noisy environment.

If you want to schedule dozens of qualified leads per SDR, you need a formula to repeatedly stand out from the crowd. A formula that makes replies like these (👇) feel normal in your day-to-day life.

So what’s the secret to being the first one in months deserving a reply? 👀

Our research says the secret for successful outbound sales lies in 3 main factors:

1. Targeted relevance  
2. Outstanding personalization  
3. Scalability

Don’t worry. We’ll show you how it works - all secrets uncovered.

The formula to write highly personalized cold emails at scale:

Amplemarket customer Startup Hypeman developed a framework for personal and compelling cold email templates. The process is divided into 6 steps:

1. Personalization with good reason  
2. Natural segue & did my homework  
3. Problem  
4. Approach and solution  
5. Proof  
6. Intent-Gauging Call to Action (CTA)

In one sequence, Startup Hypeman achieved a 91% open rate and 20% reply rate, including one customer who was so impressed they posted about it on Linkedin.

1. Personalization with good reason (be relevant)

Rule #1: Don’t start by presenting yourself.

Starting your emails with a great first sentence is crucial. Prospects will pay attention to your email if you hook them quickly, if you don’t, they will miss the point and archive your email.

The goal is to grab their attention with something specific you know about all prospects. These data points are everywhere, all you need is to connect the dots.

For instance, grab the attention of VPs by mentioning they recently changed jobs. This shows them you have a reason for reaching out. This type of information is usually one of the strongest buying intent signals that someone is looking to shake things up internally.

Examples of great attention grabbers:

 “Hi {{first_name}}, I was doing a bit of research on {{company_name}} and saw that you have just recently joined (...)”    

“Hi {{first_name}}, I saw you commented on {{original_poster}}’s LinkedIn post (…)”

2. Natural segue & did my homework

To make sure you have their attention, show them you did your research carefully.

Transition and connect the hook you used in the first sentence with the problem you are trying to solve. Don’t forget to create an intriguing message and make it all about them.

Examples of great connectors:

 “Is this change of jobs also an opportunity to review your tech stack?”    

“I completely agree with what {{original_poster}} mentioned about the fact that {{topic}}. I would even add that at {your_company}}, we solved that challenge. (...)”

3. Problem

Now, that you have the prospect’s attention, make sure your message is compelling by mentioning a problem they care about.

Keep in mind that not everyone in your audience cares about problems in the same way. For instance, C-level executives have different problems than middle managers or individual contributors.  

Use this knowledge to adapt your message accordingly. The same can also be true for different industries, managers at different locations, etc.

👉 Read this article to see how you can do this with if/then statements in cold emails.

4. Approach and solution

Segue with a clear and concise value proposition. Leave the details for the call if the prospect is interested in a specific issue.

This is an example of how we present Amplemarket to some of our prospects:

 “At Amplemarket we combine world-class prospecting software (think zoominfo+lusha+leadiq combined) and multi-channel outreach (email and Linkedin) all in a single place to help gain precious time back so they can double their quota.”

5. Proof (optional)

Social proof has a positive impact on your conversion rates. One of the easiest ways to do it is to show relevant examples of existing customers. Example:

 “Just wanted to tell you that we already have several companies like Deel, MoveWorks, and H1 using the product and with really positive results (sales reps spend on average 2x more time on the phone closing deals instead of doing pre-call email and are able to reach out to 3x more leads)”

6. Intent-Gauging Call To Action (CTA)

Finish your emails with one simple call to action. The “secret” is to always A/B test different calls to action. Sometimes a simple question like "What do you think?" or “Does this sound interesting to you?” works better than trying to immediately schedule a call. Or vice versa.

Example of a GREAT Cold Email:

How to Leverage a Hobby: Cooking

👉 Curious to know how we find relevant prospects and craft personalized messages like these? Check out the tool powering our success here.

Wrapping Up…

In this article, we’ve given you a framework to help you better personalize your cold emails at scale.

We hope it helps the same way it has been helping our SDRs to schedule about 50 opportunities a month. We're constantly testing new hypotheses to see what works for outbound sales and regularly share the insights with thousands of sales & marketing leaders.

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