Cold Email Made Easy: $635k in Pipeline
feat. TechSalesGuy
A couple of weeks ago I walked through some hilarious outbound email examples that showed that a lot of sales orgs are:
Leaning on AI too much
Not hitting on the problem/persona (ie targeting)
This week, wanted to share some best practices on how to structure a cold email. None better to walk through that today than TechSalesGuy.
TechSalesGuy leads and builds business development teams for a startup SaaS company. He also consults for other SaaS startups and service businesses to help develop and/or refine their cold outbound campaigns.
In other words, he know’s his stuff.
You can sign up to his newsletter for more cold outreach, outbound, and startups tips here:
Today, we’ll breakdown how to craft a relevant, eye catching email that drives responses and resonates with your target prospects.
Enter TSG:
What we’ll cover:
How to construct a cold email campaign
The Pain Based Email
The Bump Email
The Offer Email
For some context, I was working with a founder who had exhausted their SEM and referral channels so wanted to build up their outbound.
We haven’t touched on cold calling but note that it’s something I would prioritize incorporating into any campaign because:
phone should be your highest converting channel
cold calling takes less time than you think
dialing is more cost effective than email
The campaign below helped to drive $635k in pipeline and landed $215k in enterprise customers. Here’s how I approached developing each email:
How to construct a cold email campaign:
This is my go to for kicking off an outbound sequence or sending one-off.
Four sentences. That’s all you need.
Signals to use - hiring, growth, job changes, product launch etc.
Ideas to try - reference their boss, investors, competitors etc.
The Pain Based Email
You build more credibility by talking about problems, then promising solutions.
Especially in cold emails when you haven’t earned any trust…yet.
The first email often has the highest open/response rate, so it’s a bit longer.
Here’s a structure I follow:
Sentence 1: reference a common challenge related to persona (credibility)
Sentence 2: responsibilities/obstacles that often get in the way (relatability)
Sentence 3: simple phrasing of what you do / how you help (value)
Sentence 4: desired outcome you can help them achieve (credentials)
Sentence 5: casual call to action (CTA)
The Bump Email
Use problem language and make it emotional by referencing their fears/FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt).
Here’s how:
Sentence 1: the #1 problem or concern your buyer persona faces
Sentence 2: create FUD around what the cost of doing nothing can be
Sentence 3: how you can help, use problem based language
Sentence 4: simple call to action (CTA)
The Offer Email:
Make the “yes” easy. The more you can derisk next steps, the better chance you have at moving the ball forward.
Here’s an example:
Sentence 1: relevant question related to your buyer persona
Sentence 2: repeat value proposition or test a new one
Sentence 3: **insert offer**
Sentence 4: simple call to action (CTA)
P.S: drop your calendar link. This is how most of our convos got scheduled.
Use this framework to help with landing, expanding, and driving more pipeline whether you’re an SDR or AE.
My Biggest Takeaways?
Keep it short and simple: 4 sentences, like a tweet.
Make the “yes” easy: less thinking, easier to just commit
Cold calls: objective facts around this being the highest converting channel, I’ve written about this before.
Hope this helps and you enjoyed reading.
Don’t forget to check out TechSalesGuy’s newsletter for actionable tips on cold outreach, outbound, and startups.
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As always, thanks for reading. Hope you all have a great New Year, see you all again in 2025.
If you have any questions or thoughts, shoot me a DM or email andrew@hackingsales.xyz.
-Andrew K
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