Transcription
The industry average open rate for emails is alarmingly around 6%, and if you want to be even more terrified, the average reply rate is .9%—not even a full percentage point. But when you compare that to Show Me You Know Me open rates, here's what we look like: an average open of 43% and an average reply rate of 20%. That's incredible, and it's unheard of in the sales world, which is unfortunate, but also not so unfortunate because what that means for you is there's a massive opportunity for you to stand out in executives' inboxes simply by putting some thought into what you write.
Let me show you what an executive inbox usually looks like. It's not pretty, right? "Available to talk," "Can I make an intro," "Quick introductions," "Quick question"—there are so many subject lines that are all generic. They say "personalization at scale," and they secretly say, "I want to sell you something." You can do so much better than this, and you've got to do better than this if you expect anyone to open, read, and reply to your email.
Now let's get into exactly how you're going to do this. The subject line is the most important part of your email. This is where you have just a few seconds to capture the attention of the CEO, VP, or whatever executive you're reaching out to. The subject line could look something like this. Now, when you read the subject line, I want you to again reflect: Does the subject line make any sense to you? If you say no, then we did our job correctly. This email was written specifically for the Chief Logistics Officer of Tory Burch, a multi-billion dollar company, and here's what happened: In less than 10 hours of that very first email being sent, the person responded and they said, "Your email stood out in a sea of emails that I get every single day."
Now here's a really cool thing about the subject line as well: This is where you can start to scale this. What other executives do you have that were in that same fraternity? Think about how this is a great opportunity to use that same subject line and to use it on multiple executives while still making it look like it was just for them.
A couple of other tips: Think about how to break up your subject line. Shorter is not necessarily better; you don't have to adhere to less than four words, and you can use plus signs as a great way to break up the verbiage in your subject line. Referencing those exact tips, here's an example of a subject line that would work on me: "Switzerland + Liip cheeseburger + your company name." I want you to think about the subject line again—it makes absolutely no sense to you, and it makes absolutely no sense to anybody that you know, except for me. I'm originally from Switzerland; I was born just outside Geneva. I live in Washington, D.C., and I often wax poetic about the cheeseburger at Le Diplomate. And your company name doesn't make any sense to me, but the first two things do, so it's at least going to get me to open up the email and see what it is that you have to say about the incredible Show Me You Know Me that you did on me.
The second most important part of your email is the first sentence. Your subject line plus your first sentence is what's known as the preview text, and that's primarily what determines if your email gets read. There are two different approaches that I'd recommend trying. Here at my company, Sam Sales, our go-to first sentence is this: "Hi Bill, we have yet to be properly introduced, but I'm Sam McKenna." Now a couple of things here: A lot of people will say not to introduce yourself in the first sentence—it's a waste of space, they say—but here's where I differ in opinion. When you put together a subject line that shows that person that you know them and you've done research, and you pair it with "We have yet to be properly introduced," what you're signaling to somebody is that perhaps we should have been introduced and that you do know something about them.
Now another example is to go right into the Show Me You Know Me; don't waste any time. You might say something about their dog in the subject line and then say something like this in your first sentence: "Bill, I saw your recent post about your adorable furry companion, Sprinkles," and then tie it back to your own dog. You'll see some of the most high-level executives often post about their dog, so a great way to open up the door with them is to reference those animals and again to think about an authentic tie right back to you.
Your value proposition is not what you do. Most emails that we see say what the person does. Now, that's a marketing email. So your value proposition is truly the challenge that you solve. What is it that you do for that particular buyer, and how can you help them? I see this kind of value proposition all the time: "S hiring. We see most C struggle because they ignore this challenge. We see want to hear more." Now we see emails like this because we're often encouraged as sellers to write short, short, short emails, but again, I beg to differ here. Longer is better, and here's why: We have to convince our buyer that time with us will be well spent. When you state something specifically that you can solve for them, then think: What is the next big objection? What is the buyer thinking, and what's their rebuttal? Stating that you can solve a challenge for them isn't enough; you might get them to object—say, "We don't need that," or "We already do that," something like that—so we've got to get around that objection to begin with.
Let's take a look at an example that someone on the Sam Sales team might send to a prospect. Let's say our value proposition starts with this: "If you're anything like our clients, you see your usage rates of LinkedIn Sales Navigator hover around 5% of your licenses. We can train your teams and bring that number up." I also know that my most common objection is, "Eh, we have a customer success manager at LinkedIn; we don't need this." So if they said that to me, or if they responded to me in that way, what would I say back? This is what I want to write succinctly in the first email: "You likely have a customer success manager at LinkedIn, but rather than having them teach you what buttons to push, our team will teach you how to use this platform to sell in the same way that she did when she was an executive at LinkedIn for her teams." So what that does, right, for that buyer is, "Huh, oh, so maybe there is something not only that Sam can do to improve our rates, but to change how we use the platform."
Finally, what you thought would never come: the end of the email. How do we close it? For starters, with any outbound email—and I would tell you even referral emails where you get introductions that are inbound—do not use a calendar link. Why don't we want to do this? It's presumptuous; it's a little rude, and it puts the onus on the individual to schedule time with you. Here's the other thing that I don't like about it: Now that individual is working around your calendar instead of you working around theirs. Another thing to avoid is writing something along the lines of, "Do you have 15 to 20 minutes tomorrow to chat, or would Monday at 1 p.m. work?" Again, the reason for this is it's presumptuous in terms of a short timeline—tomorrow—or it gets too specific, and it allows the buyer to say no to Monday at 1, and then you're left in a pattern of chasing them. What I would tell you to do instead is something that looks different, and that looks like this: Simply say, "Do you have time over the next week or two to learn more? Let me know what works for you, and I'll send a calendar invite along accordingly." Nobody sends scripting that looks like that, so not only will you be different, but you'll take their timing and their calendar into effect, allowing you to schedule the call, you to control the timing, and even for you to rearrange things on your calendar to accommodate them.
I've just walked you through, beginning to end, exactly how to structure emails that will get replies from high-value prospects. If you want to see a few examples that put it all together, I encourage you to check out the resources section of this course. I also want to challenge you to start putting this all into practice. Set a goal for yourself—perhaps it's just 20 emails per week. Remember, quality over quantity, but start practicing these emails, writing with this new script, following these new techniques that I've taught you, and I promise you will start seeing results immediately.
Hey there. Hopefully you enjoyed this cold email course with Sam McKenna. There's a lot of value packed into the video, so don't forget to review the key takeaways. And if you're looking for more content like this, you can head over to Apollo Academy, where you can get access to these courses before they hit YouTube.