Opportunity Creation Through Cold Email

I was recently reflecting on the last year, particularly the new skills I’ve picked up, and wanted to touch on one of the more valuable ones – Cold email outreach. Cold email has been one of the most valuable tools I’ve learned, and although I still have a lot to perfect, the deals and relationships I’ve built from sending simple, personal emails to prospects far outweigh the time investment I’ve put in.

I sent my first cold emails when I was 16, way before I knew what the term “cold email” even was. I was sitting in my high school chemistry class, extremely bored as usual, and had been trying to figure out a way to get some sponsors for snowboarding. I’d seen all my friends start to land cool sponsorships with big companies who’d regularly send them free stuff, and I wanted that for myself. I had already landed a sponsorship for Jadyn from GoGoSqueez the previous year, and was motivated to try and get one for myself as well!

Initially, I sent some really long emails, but learned pretty quickly that the shorter ones seemed to get more responses. Those emails went a lot like this:

I sent emails to everyone from small clothing companies to massive brands like Patagonia. After about a month of sending out emails, I began to get some responses. Most were “No”, but after I got my first “Yes”, I was hooked. I got a local clothing company to send me some free t-shirts. Then, Hi-Chew told me that although they weren’t technically sponsoring people, they’d send me a package of free stuff. Finally, I got a response from Jones Soda Co, who would end up being one of my biggest supporters for multiple years!

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In 2022, I found myself learning copywriting from Neville Medhora’s Copywriting Course, and was especially interested in trying out cold email. I sent out several dozen emails while improving my copy with each one I sent. I started out very small, sending just one or two emails a day. After just two months of sending emails, I had eight people schedule meetings with me, and gained three new clients as a result!

Here’s some important things I learned:

• The shorter the email, the better. My first emails were about 8-10 sentences long, and now they’re usually just three or four.
• The subject line “Quick question” beat out everything else in terms of reply rates.
• The first line needs to be personal – it’s the first thing they see in an email preview, and differentiating yourself from spam emails is vital.
• Ending the email with a single question or action item increases response rates.

After jumping on a sales job in April, my email outreach for my marketing business was put on hold, but that didn’t mean I stopped cold emailing. This email landed me a meeting with a restaurant group’s national marketing director, who I was able to one-call close after scheduling a meeting.

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With some time on my hands in between sales jobs, I’m planning on continuing to improve my skillset, and this is one area that I’m looking forward to devoting some more time to.