How to Choose the Best Cold Email Template

It’s no secret that cold email templates can make you more efficient at sending cold email campaigns. B2B email templates should be used as a starting point to help speed up the process of sending cold emails, but there’s a balance to be struck between sending templates of cold email outreach campaigns and 100% personalized emails, which are effective but take more time to create. 

For best results, B2B email templates should never be pulled from a site and sent as-is —you should adapt the actual email you send to fit the tone and style of the sender. This is part of the personalization process, but it also helps ensure that you’re not making the embarrassing mistake of sending the same sales email template as a competitor. 

With careful consideration, design changes, and message changes, the right cold email template can be the perfect skeleton to get your cold email received and effective in boosting sales and gaining more prospects. TruVISIBILITY's email app has templates and every tool you'll need to build a great cold email. You can try it out for free below.

Table of Contents

• What Is a Cold Email?
  • Is it Different from Spam?
• Why Your Business Needs Cold Email Templates
• Choosing a Cold Email Template for a Cold Email Campaign
  • Cold Email Subject Line
  • Cold Sales Email Design
• Common B2B Cold Emails
  • The Compliment or Help Cold Email
  • The "What You Should Fix" Email
  • The GIF or Video Email
  • Good Reviews Email
  • The Friendly Yet Relevant Email
  • The No Extra Work Email
  • Partnership Email
  • Link Bulding Email
  • Newsletter Reply Email
• Email Template Examples
• What's Next in Marketing Emails?

What Is a Cold Email?

Cold emails expand the horizon of reaching your potential leads anywhere across the globe. It is a continuous and friendly process of turning your cold leads into potential customers.

when you email someone you don’t know for some particular reason is cold emailing. Such emails aim to build a relationship with the prospective customer and move them to the next step in the sales funnel.

An easy and quick example of a cold email might be in your inbox right now, where the sales rep might have reached out to you for a product demo or wants to connect with you for a particular reason.  

Unlike normal email templates, cold ones do not rely on too many blocks or widgets but instead rely on the message the business needs to relay.

Is it Different from Spam?

Cold email and spam are polar opposites. Here is how they are different:

Spam:

• They use a fake name.
• Doesn’t include contact information.
• Isn’t personalized (the same email is sent to several people).
• Isn’t meant to start a conversation; rather, it’s usually targeting a direct purchase.
• Has a commercial motive.
• Gets filtered out by a spam filter almost automatically.

Spam is an example of a one-to-many email. A cold email isn't spam because:

• It addresses the recipient directly.
• It has a highly specific and relevant request.
• And it mentions a common contact.

Why Your Business Needs Cold Email Templates

Aside from building brand awareness, cold emails are important to get leads and boost sales for your business, especially B2Bs. Networking is important for getting a job, making friends or connections, and building a list of leads and customers for your business. It might not always be possible to meet face-to-face, but that shouldn’t limit you from connecting. Hence the cold email.

You can use cold email as a tool to reach out. You can share a short introduction about yourself and your company like you generally would communicate if you met in person. And if the recipient likes your honest effort, they might connect with you and help you expand your network.

The biggest advantage of cold emailing is that it is highly targeted. That means you’re only focusing on an audience who are interested in your product/service. You can reach out to the prospects and make them aware about your product/service, hopefully having them open more product emails from your company.

Why you need templates, cold email especially, is because there are many different types of call-to-actions needed depending on whether the company is a software as a service company or another type of service. Targeting businesses, which cold emails are primarily meant to do, requires a different approach to the subject of sales.

And to close a sale, your CRM should be up-to-date and your messaging be more sensitive and patient. A template for your cold email will land in the inboxes of the right prospects instead of having you waste time trying to win over a mass market of people to buy a new product.

Choosing a Cold Email Template for a Cold Email Campaign

How do you choose a template for a cold email campaign? It's vital to review templates that may fit your business message. You also want to decide what type of cold emails you will use before choosing a sales email template.

The message is a huge part of your cold email, but so is the subject line and email design. The design for cold emails is also something to keep in mind even if most cold emails have a simple design with not many widgets involved. However, both design and subject line should be coherent and relate to one another. 

Cold Email Subject Line

Will you have your business name one of the first words of your subject line or just have a quick, enticing question or message to get leads to open your emails? 

A great subject line will be clear, show the value proposition, and have a touch of personalization. You can do this without specifically putting the recipient's name in the cold email subject line.

The main thing you need to make sure you have in your subject line is address the value you are providing. There are ways to do this, such as asking a question, pointing out the pain points and addressing what the contact may need, or simply follow the sales email templates you have on hand. Here are some subject line examples:

• "Let's talk about messy printer ink"
• "Hey [Name], check out this offer"
• "Request to connect"
• "Have you been to [local establishment] yet?"

Cold Sales Email Design

There are a few features to keep in mind when designing your cold email templates. Let's go over a few that can make or break the effectiveness and reply rate of your emails.

Slim Email Body

You don't want your email to have long paragraphs explaining just how great your company is. Simply put in bullet points about your message in short sentences. Or place a sentence or two into separate paragraphs. Yes, it may seem weird to have each sentence as its own paragraph, but it's just easier to read!

Personlization

When someone you have met after a long time remembers your name, you get a good feeling. The same psychology works with emails as well.

Janice won’t like to talk to someone who calls them “Hey, Prospect” instead of “Hey, Janice.” Though it's not often thought of for cold emails to be personalized, it's a growing trend that is showing more effective since the cold email template you find will likely appear much like a letter to begin with. Personalizing the email is more important than most businesses know in making an effective cold sales email.

Follow-up Step

Make sure there's a section of your designed templates that has a clear step to follow after the email. It can be a link, button, or written out steps of your prospective customer or lead should take.

It is inevitable to get the deal closed with just one email. Prospects consume so much content these days that they have a short memory span for all the content they see online. Emails are no exception. That is the reason we need follow-ups.

Thanks to modern-day cold emailing tools, one can add follow-up steps with conditions and closely analyze the success. Such conditions could be, "Reply to this email" or "Click here to claim your free gift card".

Addressing the Right Target Audience

You obviously designed a product (whether it's a software or not) that is meant to be enjoyed by your buyers or audience. 

In your cold email outreach, target the most likely audience to show interest and take action.

You can segment your target audience in different groups as well. 

• Companies - IT companies, SAAS based companies, etc
• Position - CEO, Vice president, Board member, Program Leader, Programmer, etc.

Similarly, you can also segment your contacts in terms of the number of team members, organization size, etc. It completely depends upon you and your product how you want to do it. With some A/B testing (another reason you may want more than one cold email template), you can find which personalization gets the best response and from which contact group.

After creating these segments, make sure you write a customized cold email copy for every single segment accordingly. The tone, structure, format, etc., should be customized according to the audience in that segment.This will make you more relatable and increase the chances of them clicking your call-to-action button.

Adding Extras

In addition to targeting the right audience, a company will often think about extra features their audience may respond to best. These can include a fun gif to grab attention to younger audiences, for example. But the feature must also go with the company's brand.

If a gif, image, or meme has a funny or "punny" message, it may not coincide with the company if it is a serious financial business. Audiences who appreciates puns may be more for ecommerce businesses that sell fun products like toys or even make-up and special products for women.

Best Time to Send

Studies show that the best time to send emails, on average, is at 10 AM. Of course, that is just because this is the time of day when most emails are opened. You will want a great email template with a cold email subject that is enticing enough to compete with the other emails sent around this time of day.

But what day of the week do you send? B2B emailing is most effective on Tuesdays and Thursdays. These are the days when business executives are likely to open and see your email.

Prospects are also more likely to interact or click on a link within your email because Mondays are generally too busy and Fridays are days when the end-of-week slump hits those hard workers who are ready for the weekend. Wednesdays are also days when business execs are doing productive work on their business other than reading your email.

If sent on the right day, the tine you send an email can vary for your company, but checking the open rates for different times can help ypu pinpoint what time to generally first send them (vs when to send to non-openers). Even if someone doesn't open this cold email, you just need to make sure they don't hit that unsubscribe button.

Common B2B Cold Emails 

If you have a business to business service or company, cold emails are one of the top ways to boost brand awareness and boost sales. The purpose for each cold email is different, and each type may seem like a shot in the dark to gain strong leads and loyal customers.

Assuredly, your business name will get out into the world with cold emails, so it's important to know your options to get more people to open your emails. Here are some inspirational cold email ideas that boost your reply rate, sales, and open rate.

The Compliment or Help Cold Email

Here are the points why this email resonates:

• He started out by telling me how awesome the recipient, and who doesn’t want to hear that?! A compliment that is indirect and concise goes a long way.
• In two sentences he summed up his entire operation and made it 5th-grade-easy to understand their model and how one could benefit from working with them.
• He set the expectation of how much time one would need to invest to learn more about how the businesses could work together.
• We love being helped and we love doing the helping. It makes both people in the transaction feel important.

The "What You Should Fix" Email

These features are directed more for a Saas company, but they can be used for sales for any type of business.

• The subject line is personalized and establishes a link between people from both companies.
• The first sentence establishes a clear link between you and the company.
• Matt inserts a humorous line, which is always good if it’s short and in good taste.
• He gets to the point and singles out your company while teasing the "why".
• He offers value and personalization by mentioning improvement possibilities.
• The call to action is clear and easy to respond to.

The Gif or Video Email

This template has approximately a 16% reply rate as the last message in a sequence. Very often these emails will result in a meeting or to being forwarded to the decision maker of a company.

It’s important to show some personality in your emails to remind people that there is a human on the other end of that thread.

Good Reviews Email

This template works great as a first time in the commercial segment, largely because of how specific the identification of the pain point is. And the customization is on point.

Screenshots are a fantastic way to show that you have done your homework. It also communicates a story quickly for a prospect, allowing businesses to glaze their eyes over blocks of text.

Including some of their competitors who are customers of the company, is another great way to grab their attention. Just make sure this is a quick mention and not the main subject of the email. Connections are good for sales, but don't overdo it.

My approach is always to come in with an opinion/observation of a prospect’s current state, and then offer up insight into how the recipient can help them hit their targets and grow their business.

The Friendly Yet Relevant Email

This cold email works really well for responses and sales, thanks to three key points:

1. Friendly: Cold emails fall prey to the stiff, formal biz marketing talk. That makes your cold email reader want to gag. Humans wants to connect with a live person! Let your cold email reader see your personality in your email and chances are, they’ll reply. In this email, friendly and casual language is used to make the recipient feel comfortable enough to follow through.
2. Flattery: This email starts off with a compliment to warm up the reader, showing that the recipient is a pro because they did research on this company. This is a highly-targeted, relevant cold email, making it more persuasive.
3. Relevant: In paragraphs #4 and 5, they explain how the recipient benefits and helps them accomplish their business goals. The reader doesn’t have to connect the dots between what the business does and how it’s relevant to them and their job, because it's explained exactly how this business can make their job easier or make them look awesome in the eye of their manager.

 The No Extra Work Email

• The email’s target was precise: the recipient did use Groove
• The email is personalized: they used the recipient's first name and company name throughout the email
• Their copy is very good: the recipient experienced the problems they mentioned in their email
• They reassured the recipient about the transition and the pricing

Partnership Email

• It is an email about the target market: “creative freelance professionals”.
• Even if people lie about their numbers sometimes, 220,000 was a very attractive figure. 
• It’s obvious that the guy sending the recipient the email did his homework: “managing projects” is an issue for the freelancers and Paymo is in the business of helping people manage their projects.
• The sender didn’t press sales on the recipient from the get-go; he proposed a partnership to his prospects.

Link Building Email

Of course, this outreach email wouldn’t work with everybody. You can’t send this kind of email to a governmental organization, for instance.

But in some cases, humor can be a powerful tool. You just need to know who you’re speaking to. Are you speaking to a small company with a young manager named Bryan or a serious exec of a large company? Make sure any links sent go tot he correct website you are intending them to go to. Broken links especially don't look good for software companies.

The Newsletter Reply Email

This email was sent a long time ago, but at the time, this business released some interesting research on winning vs. losing sales proposals.

Instead of sending the typical cold email, they sent a real email reply as a newsletter subscriber/reader to a few sites where they wanted to get covered. 

It was a very short email that starts with praise, includes targeted tease (this recipient was a sales guy on the sales and marketing team, so the research was very relevant), and only asks for feedback.

Email Template Examples

We've collected a few examples of common email templates that any type of company, whether it's a contract service or ecommerce company, can use for their own purposes. You are welcome to use these lead-generating templates to promote a product, offer a prospect a discount on a product, announce a limited time sale, or offer help as a service like a cleaning service or laundromat. 

The "Quick Question" Sales Email Templates

Use this template when you aren’t sure if you have the right point of contact. You’ve done your research, found a big-fish company your product or service would be perfect for, but can’t identify the right person to email.

Keep this email as short as possible and get to the point quickly. The less time your reader has to commit, the more likely they’ll take a quick moment to respond. That said, make sure you properly introduce yourself before asking for any information.

Template:

Good afternoon {first name},

My name is {first name} and I represent {company}.

Could you tell me who handles decisions in the {sales/customer relationship/product buying} department and how I may connect with them?

Thank you in advance,

{insert email signature here}

The “quick question” template has a high response rate because it asks very little of your recipient. You aren’t trying to sell anything; all you’re asking for is an email address or phone number. This is effective because people are more likely to respond to a request that requires little to no effort on their part.

This cold email template is useful when reaching out to a larger company that doesn’t have a clear point of contact. Use it to ensure you’ve got the contact information for the right person before taking the time to craft the perfect pitch.

Third-party Connection Email Template

LinkedIn and Twitter are great resources for finding employees that aren’t quite company decision-makers. You can use their contact information and this third-party cold email template to gain access to your prospect indirectly.

Lower-level employees are more likely to present a profitable opportunity to their employer in the hopes it moves them further up the chain of command.

In this scenario, your email is their opportunity to do just that – which makes a response likely. Calling out an employee by name puts pressure on them to get your message to the right person. No one wants to be the employee who dropped the ball on a great opportunity.

Template:

Hi {first name},

I came across your name on {source} and was wondering if you could help me out.

I have a solution for {industry problem or pain point} that I think {company name} could really benefit from, but I’m having trouble connecting.

Who is the right person to discuss this opportunity with, and how may I reach them?

I appreciate your time.

{insert email signature here}

The third-party template is a cold email strategy used to gain access to hard-to-reach prospects via lower-level employees. Use this template when you’re struggling to reach or get a response from your prospect directly.

Problem, Agitate, Solve Email Template

Problem. Identify a problem specific to the customer you’re cold emailing. Twitter, Google, Yelp, Facebook, and other user-driven sites are ideal for pinpointing a problem your recipient may be struggling with.

Agitate. Now that you’ve identified the problem, poke at it a little. Try and evoke an emotional response from the reader by reinforcing why their problem is so frustrating.

Solve. Offer a solution to the problem. The goal is to convince the reader that your product/service is a no-brainer solution that makes all their problems go away. Make sure this section includes a clear and low-commitment CTA.

The opening line of this email example is personalized and shows the reader you’ve done your research. More importantly, pointing out a flaw or problem your reader has is highly motivating. They don’t want others to know their company’s weaknesses, which is why the problem, agitate, solve formula has such a high response rate. Your reader will be desperate to fix the problem, and they’ll have an easy solution right in front of them.

Hi {first name},

I noticed your company has some negative reviews about poor customer service.

It’s incredibly frustrating to lose customers because of lost tickets, lack of tools, and disorganization in the support department.

{Product name} integrates all of your customer data into one centralized place, allowing you to easily track, manage, and measure customer interactions, no matter the channel.

Would you like to hear more about how {product name} can turn those negative reviews into loyal, satisfied customers?

{insert email signature here}

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action Template

Social proof, data, and intrigue are what make the attention, interest, desire, action formula successful. It’s kind of like being that friend who talks to you after a rough day at work and says, “Hey, I totally get it.”

Let’s look at an example of a cold email using this template backed by real data.

The opening line should intrigue your lead with a thought-provoking and attractive scenario (attention). The second line is designed to keep the reader interested by offering a tidbit of social proof or data that supports your opening statement (interest). Next, pique your lead’s desire by offering even more social proof (desire).

The “attention,” “interest,” and “desire” parts of AIDA will keep your reader hooked throughout the email. After you get your reader to say, “Okay, I'm convinced,” the last piece of the formula (action) should address the question “What do I do next?”

Template:

Hi {first name},

What if a {product/service} could help you {solve a problem}?

In one year’s time, we helped {company name} achieve a {x%} increase in sales after implementing {your product name}.

In addition to an increase in sales, {your product name} helped {company name} improve their overall workflow, increase efficiency, reduce response rate time, and improve customer satisfaction from {A% to B%}.

I’d love to talk to you about how {your product name} could help your company increase sales and improve workflow. Do you have time to connect this week?

{insert email signature here}

Use this approach when your cold email prospect represents a data-driven brand because they’ll be interested in the data and social proof. Find out what’s important to your prospect on a professional level. If your product or service is a match for that prospect, presenting attractive data from a successful use case will motivate your reader to respond.

Straight to Business Email Template

Sometimes the direct approach is the best approach. This is especially true for busy executives and no-nonsense brands. Get right to the point by identifying a scenario or problem common to your prospect. Without any added fluff, present the reader with concrete data that proves your product or service is the logical solution.

The opening line is the perfect intro hook for a busy prospect: short, attention-grabbing, and engaging.

In this case, the cold email caters specifically to the no-nonsense mind of your prospect. You get straight to the point, provide proof, and leave your prospect with a low-commitment CTA that fits their schedule.

Template:

Hi {first name},

Is your customer support system actually losing you money?

We’ve helped large companies like yours lower support costs by {x%} and improve overall sales by {xy%} in less than a year.

All we did was integrate their entire company-wide support system into one efficient, easy-to-manage workflow called {product/service name}.

It’s quick and easy to set up and requires no onboarding at all. Do you have time this week to discuss how {product/service name} could boost your sales?

{insert email signature here}

This approach is highly effective for eliciting responses from busy professionals with flooded inboxes. It quickly answers the question, “What’s in it for me?” and provides proof to back it up.

The "Visualize This" Cold Email Template

This cold email is all about getting your potential prospect to visualize how sweet life could be with your product or service.

Convince a prospect that your product or service will directly improve their world by showing them what their life currently looks like without it. Make sure whatever scenario you present is realistic to your prospect.

Next, paint a picture of that same scenario, only this time with your product or service. What’s changed? How has your solution made their life so much better? 

The “paint a picture” cold sales email template is a shortcut to getting your prospect to convert as quickly as possible. If they can envision a better, easier, or more productive life with your product or service, they’ll only have one question left: “Where do I sign up?”

Template:

Hi {first name},

Nothing is more frustrating than losing a great candidate because you can’t find their resume, interview history, or contact information.

Imagine a world where all of that information is organized in one simple, easy-to-find place. {Product/service name} is that place.

Do you have time this week for a quick demo to see how it works?

{insert email signature here}

Cold emails are only effective if the product or service you’re presenting makes sense to the reader. They need to know how it will directly benefit them.

Some people may have a harder time understanding how your product or service works in a practical sense. This cold email answers that question with a real-world example. Every company should have a real-world scenario in their back pocket for this type of marketing email.

The Valuable and Useful Cold Email Template

Everyone loves receiving valuable and useful resources for free. Cold emailing is the perfect platform to start building a relationship with prospects by giving them something valuable without asking for anything in return.

A good place to start is doing some initial research on your prospect. What are they sharing on social media? What are they interested in learning about? Use that information in your message to hook the reader.

Everyone loves to receive valuable resources for free. Plus, praise and flattery can go a long way toward getting a positive response from your prospect.

Finally, you aren’t asking for anything in return. You’re just both excited about the same things and are starting what could be a profitable relationship for both of you. Humans inherently like to connect with one another over shared interests, which is why this template has such a high response rate.

Template:

Hi {first name},

I stumbled upon a post you wrote on {social media site} about {topic or post}. I thought your points were spot on!

{Insert main takeaways from the piece and how the points the recipient made about the piece were helpful.}

Did you see {article} by {name} on a similar topic?

{insert email signature here}

We recommend using this template if you know that your recipient is going to be a hard sell or is more likely to do business with someone they already have a relationship with.

What's Next in Marketing Emails?

Now that you know the ins and outs of cold email templates, we hope you can choose the template that is right for you. You can also create your own template for each category of cold emails your business may send.

Want to know what other good your email marketing could use? You can update your subject line or read our other articles, follow our guides, and win the hearts of loyal customers through your new, targeted emails.

Want to spend some time making emails on a platform, like our Messaging app, for free? You can check out our templates and customize them any way you like. Connect your email data to click-throughs to your website and more for prospects. Click below to view our templates.