As you can see, the biggest mistake of this very email template is that it doesn’t show the awareness of a prospect’s issues. Hence, your main priority in sending cold emails for sales must be focusing on building trust and relationships in the first place. Only after that, you will be able to sell your service/product.

2. Media pitch emails

Right before we start talking about media pitch emails, let’s find out what media pitching is.

Media pitching is the activity that includes promoting information about your service/product to bloggers, journalists, and influencers in your business niche. The aim of media pitching is to get more brand exposure and press coverage. 

Practice shows that top publishers receive a huge number of emails each week. Due to this fact, your pitch might be missed. Plus, lots of these pitches don’t provide any value to the people you’re reaching out to. 

The question is how to solve this problem.

First and foremost, you must provide real value to the recipients. Other than that, you can:

• Let a blogger know about a type you found on the blog
• Present some new data or case study that is worth attention
• Reach out and let an influencer know that you have mentioned him or her in your publication
  

Let’s review an example of a media pitch email template:

This example of a media pitch email template aims to let the prospect know about the typo on the blog. It is a goodwill gesture from your end. In this very case, your purpose is to build relationships that will give you more marketing opportunities.

3. Networking pitch emails

Let’s admit that every cold email outreach type focuses on networking. It doesn’t matter what you get from your pitch in return – a backlink to your blog post, new marketing cooperation, or selling a product. Whatever the result it leads to networking. 

Don’t hesitate to use the structure of this template as it is quite actionable.

4. Brand pitch emails 

The name of this type of cold email pitch is self-explanatory. It aims to help you build cooperation between your company and a certain brand you are interested in. 

Why does this type of cold email outreach might be useful for your business?

Obviously, you know your target audience’s needs. You know how to solve the problems people have. And you know what additional services/products might call the interest of your audience. 

So, why don’t help your audience more by connecting the prospects with other companies?

This “brand connection” will help raise awareness among your audience and build new business opportunities on a win-win basis. 

But here you must be very careful with your email template subject line and the content in the body.

The subject line must be eye-catchy and informative. You should go straight to the point. For example, you want to build a brand collaboration with some company. Therefore, the subject line must tell about your intention:

• {first name}, need some additional help with your service?
• {first name}, what about building cooperation between [company] and [company]?

Here is an example of a template that works with the first subject line:

Remember, this type of cold email outreach must focus on providing benefits to the prospects you’re reaching out to. Thus, your template must answer the question “What’s in it for me?” (for the prospects). Otherwise, it will look like a generic cold email outreach pitch that doesn’t deserve feedback. 

5. Content promotional emails 

It is strictly important to build a powerful content strategy for your blog. By producing high-quality content you will be able to drive more traffic to your website organically. But content can’t work properly without a promotion. 

Cold email outreach is the solution at this point. 

Content promotion with the help of cold email outreach helps you acquire backlinks, get mentions, or references to your pieces of content.

For example, the following email template can be used to promote any blog post on your blog. The trick here is that you focus your attention on the specific term that has a direct relation to your topic of the post:

Furthermore, you should show that you have read the prospect’s blog post carefully. That’s why this template contains a section where you point out the place where the “term” has been noticed with detail. 

The next important aspect of this template is that you should ask if the recipient thinks that your piece of content could be included as an additional source of information. 

Plus, you can use this template not just for promoting your content but other landing pages as well. Even if you think that some of them are hard to promote with cold email outreach.

7. Link building emails

Even though SEO strategies vary, they have a common goal – to move your website’s ranking. SEO specialists know how it is important to acquire backlinks for their website pages. That’s why they use cold email outreach to build inbound links.

Link building cold outreach counts a number of ways you can gain links to your website. The most popular are:

• Unlinked brand mentions
• Broken link building
• Guest blogging
• Co-marketing activities with other companies
• Link reclamation
• etc.

For example, we want to promote one of our landing pages by building more backlinks. Let it be a flowchart maker page. In this case, we are going to use the following cold email template:

The structure of this template looks quite simple. But the section where you include differentiating factors of your pitch makes the email look persuasive. 

Nevertheless, you must be a hundred percent sure that you’re reaching out to the prospects who would be related to your message. 

Now, let’s review some actionable tips on how to write cold email messages.

Tips on writing cold email messages 

Cold email is always challenging because it’s like knocking on a stranger’s door. Will they respond warmly or even at all?

Luckily, there are tips for writing successful cold emails that will help you increase receptive replies. And when you send cold emails often, you start to notice patterns – what works and what doesn’t.

Successful cold outreach is based on a comprehensive system that includes choosing the right prospect to reach out to, creating an eye-catchy subject line, and adding an actionable call-to-action. 

We review this system below. 

1. Contact the right person 

Cold email outreach starts with finding the correct contact information of the prospects. If you send your email pitch to the wrong recipient, the message might be left without a reply (in a best-case scenario). In the worst case – it might end up in a spam folder. 

How to make sure your messages are getting delivered to the right prospects?

First of all, you must understand the main goal of the cold email outreach you’re running.

Let’s say, you want to promote your piece of content by building more backlinks from third-party resources. You must reach out either to a blog editor, marketing/SEO manager, or the author of the post you want to get a backlink from. To find the right prospect, visit the LinkedIn page of the company and check out if the author of the blog post is an employee. 

To narrow down the results, use the filters that LinkedIn suggests. You can type the full name of the author or the job title (editor, marketing manager) of a potential prospect. 

Once you figure out the right prospect, you should find the correct email address. Sometimes people show their email right in their profile. But if you can’t see it there, it is time to use a few specific tools for this purpose. 

Chrome extension SalesQL extracts email addresses of the prospects right from their LinkedIn profiles:

If it doesn’t help, you can use Hunter:

When the list of the right prospects with their contacts is ready, you should proceed with writing an eye-catchy subject line. 

2. Perfect your subject lines 

There is no golden rule for creating subject lines. It depends on your cold outreach campaign goal. See more awesome subject lines for different occasions.

Nevertheless, any subject line has to be descriptive but concise. With a clear CTA. 

Here is an example of a subject line for building potential cooperation with the prospect:

The subject line contains a short question with a suggestion for potential cooperation. Hence, the recipient understands if he or she is interested in this request or not right off the bat. 

This subject line works great in terms of building a business partnership. Talking about other types of subject line, you should follow these simple rules:

a) Keep it short
b) Show the purpose of your email
c) Personalize (if need)

3. Personalize your emails

Don’t delude yourself by thinking that email personalization is all about adding the prospect’s name to the subject line and the body of the email template.

Nope. It has a broader spectrum of action:

• Personalization for media outreach includes mentioning a podcast or a YouTube video where the prospect has been featured
• Personalization for sales outreach includes some information about the prospect’s personal achievements
• Personalization for content promotion includes some compliments about the post the prospect has published
• Personalization for network outreach includes mentioning a common friend with the prospect you’re reaching out to

To sum up, make sure you follow the exact cold outreach campaign goal and personalize email templates accordingly.

4. Add a CTA

It has been already mentioned before that a call-to-action should be an integral part of your email. In other words, you should tell your prospect what you want to see in the reply. 

For instance, the following email from an outreach specialist clearly shows the correlation between the subject line and a CTA in the body of the message:

The prospect understands the goal of this email. He can reply whether it is in his interest or not. A call-to-action doesn’t necessarily mean to “force” the prospect to do some action. It helps describe what you want from the person in a short form. 

You can add a call to action in different forms. Sometimes all you need is a simple link placed in the contextual flow of your email, but other times you’ll wanna use a full-fledged button or banner to grab as much attention as you possibly can.

If you’re using an email marketing tool you can add buttons and banners as part of the email template and design. Another great and cost-effective (or even free) way to add a CTA is through your email signature. There is some art to implementing an email signature CTA, so make sure you click the link to get our tips on the subject.

5. Send follow-up emails

Did you know that sending a follow-up email increases your chances to get your message noticed?

Yes, follow-up emails work great but lots of people consider them annoying. That’s why they don’t use them in practice. 

Likely, nobody says that your follow-up email must be annoying. It should remind the prospects about your first pitch. Nothing more. Thus, it must be short and sweet:

You should send your follow-up email in 2-3 days after your first pitch. The maximum number of follow-ups you can send is 2 (sometimes 3). Check out our guide to learn more about the importance of sending a follow-up email.

6. Create more credibility by adding a professional-looking email signature

The first question people ask themselves when getting a cold email is “who is this person”, The second question is “What do they want from me?” and the third question is “What’s in it for me?”.

Most people know this, but what they don’t realize is that there’s a fourth question that makes or breaks all the progress you’ve made answering the first 3; “Can I trust this person?”. To get their business you’ll have to make them answer a resounding “YES” to this question.

A proper email signature will instantly humanize you in the eyes of your readers. This gives you a huge starting advantage over a faceless email address from a stranger. Even so, many professionals don’t take this opportunity to create trust. Mostly due to a lack of awareness about how an email signature can be used as a lead-generation tool through email signature marketing.

A good email signature for your cold outreach should contain:

• Name 
• Good quality image of you
• Company logo
• Current position within the company
• Physical address
• Phone number
• Company website link
• A CTA with your most important offer

Feel free to take inspiration from any of the signature templates in our signature gallery.

7. Test and Optimize

If you’re doing a lot of outreach, you should track your email open and conversion rates using email tracking software, so you could continuously test and analyze the results of your effort. until you’ve measured your campaign you can’t know for sure if it was the bomb or a complete dud.

Once you’ve started measuring now the question becomes, “am I performing as well as I could?”, “Can I get more out of this campaign?”.

To answer these questions you’ll have to start testing your cold outreach campaigns. Testing doesn’t have to be complicated. All you need to do is track the performance of different versions of outreach emails.

Test everything you think can influence the conversion metrics for your outreach campaigns. Assuming a decent open rate of about 10% you should make just 2 variations with at least 35 emails sent with each (unless you have huge amounts of emails sent out, in the hundreds or thousands per month). Otherwise, your tests will not statistically represent real-world results.

Keep the changes you do to your variations very small. If you make lots of changes at once, you’ll not be able to single out the change that made the difference. Your opportunity to learn will be lost.

It’s also important to keep testing because even if one version of your campaign works wonders at the moment, but you can’t rule out that you can do better.

What to test?

• Subject lines
• Opening line
• Email body
• Target groups
• Email Signature
• Email signoff
• Times of day sent
• Visuals
• Positive vs. negative message framing

Conclusion

Cold email outreach is not a science that requires extra knowledge and secret skills. However, if you don’t plan properly you will not succeed. 

To summarize:

1. Define and set clear goals about want you as a business want to achieve with your cold email writing. 
2. Research your potential customers and understand everything about them. 
3. Create personalized templates according to your potential customers
   a) Find the right contact details
   b) Creating a perfect subject line 
   c) Email personalization 
   d) Include a CTA that will guide your recipient to take an action
   e) Always represent yourself with a professional email signature

The only question that cold outreach raises is how to get a strong response rate. So, keep in mind important metrics for measuring cold email outreach campaign success:

• Deliverability
• Reply rate
• Conversion rate

Hope this guide has revealed to you the aspects behind cold email outreach. And the tips you got familiar with will help you in your outreach campaigns. 

What is email copywriting?

Email copywriting is the literal words you put in your emails. These include those on your graphics, as well as your subject line and body content. The goal of copywriting email marketing is persuading readers to take action, such as viewing a landing page, scheduling a demo, or downloading a PDF. FOr email copywriting to work well you need to know your audience and tailor your words to your ideal client.

Why you should use copywriting email marketing

Email copywriting makes email marketing sharp and effective like a whetstone sharpens a knife’s blade. It is as hard to achieve high conversion with dull email writing as it is to make a salade with a dull knife. If you’re not implementing email marketing copywriting, you are leaving money on the table.

Copywritten email marketing is highly cost-effective for your business. Optinmonster puts the figure at making $44 for every $1 you spend on email on average. This ROI is much higher than most other marketing options. Even retail, which is often a difficult niche to get a click-through, had 38% of consumers reporting they’d clicked a link, according to Sailthru.

Your copywriting for email marketing is also an opportunity to present valuable content, which establishes you as an authority. This content could be anything from articles you promote to sales of your new products.

Broad email copywriting guidelines and best practices

Copywriting for email marketing can seem overwhelming. However, you know your audience and who your ideal clients are. Combine your knowledge with these six tips, and you will have a good, compelling email copy.

1. Select your words carefully

Part of good email copywriting is finding the right tone for your audience. As a rule, that tone is more conversational and casual than the average U.S. office email. With that in mind, you should maintain a degree of professionalism since the email reflects on your business.

Additionally, you’ll need to keep in mind your audience. For general purposes, the average American reads at an 8^th-grade level. That means your emails should be written below that level. Try keeping your English to what a ten-year-old can understand without being condescending.

2. Be direct and succinct

Writing a long email explaining what you’re offering is rarely the best option. Instead, focus on keeping everything direct. If a casual reader opens your email, you have about 6 seconds to hook them into clicking.

That means less email marketing copywriting for you, but each word needs to count. Ensure the words are all relevant to your end goal, whether that is getting an email reply, clicking a link, or downloading a coupon.

3. Spelling and grammar should be flawless 

According to Jack Lee, who is a content marketing strategist at Essaysontime, good grammar is more important than you think: “If you haven’t bothered to make your message perfect, your audience might think you have been equally sloppy when it comes to your product or service. Also, while exclamation marks and upper case letters can be effective when used in moderation, overusing them can have an adverse effect.”

4. Use a single CTA

One of the ways many marketing emails go wrong is using multiple calls to action (CTAs). Writers think that they can advertise multiple offers in one go, and all it does is distract readers so they do not pick an offer at all.

You should choose a single CTA for each marketing email you send. This decision will help you clarify the goal and cleanly copywrite the emails. All that email copywriting then only points to one, easy-to-understand CTA.

5. Add an email signature

The email signature is the end of your email and another opportunity to reinforce what you’re offering the reader. A professional-looking email signature like those from WiseStamp also strengthens your credibility – create yours now.

Your email signature should contain the basics, such as your name and preferred business contact information. You can also personalize with quotes, links, and pictures, so long as they fit the purpose of your email copy.

Email copywriting techniques for increased persuasion and better conversion

Up till now, we covered email copywriting in pretty broad strokes. Here is a more detailed explanation of how to go about creating a compelling email message your readers won’t be able to resist.

1. Create a clear and concise subject line. 

We have already discussed this, but what you should also keep in mind are the ingredients of a great subject line. Also, the content of your message should match your subject line. If you have promised your audience something in the subject, it has to be there once they click and open your email.

Otherwise, not only will your click-through rate dwindle, but it may also affect your open rate since you haven’t delivered what you have promised. Also, be specific. For example, “19 New Ways You Can Grow Your Online Business Today” will be a lot more effective than “New Trends for Online Businesses Owners”, which is pretty bland.

2) Make your greetings personal

The opening line we use for greeting is typically included as preview text recipients can see next to the email subject line in their inboxes. This means it can be used to add more info and relevancy that will make more people open your email. The opening line is also the first bit of content your reader will see inside your email (you can call it a second first impression).

All this makes the opening line the second most important piece of content after your subject line. Writing opening lines that hook your clients is key if you want to keep them reading long enough to convince them to take action.

A great way to hook your readers is to make your greeting personal and tailored to your audience.

Personalize each email greeting with the first name associated with the address. Depending on how you collect the emails on your list, you may be able to do this using your email marketing software. You may also be able to use segmentation features to personalize the text deeper into your message body.

Another trick you can use here is to address your audience in the second person, which means using “you”, “your”, and “yours” whenever appropriate. What this does is shift the focus from yourself to your users. They will only be interested if there is something in it for them, not just you and your brand.

3. Use simple and direct language

It’s okay if you are enthusiastic about all things your new product can do, but flooding your message with technical data will just turn the reader away. You should communicate what you have to say in simple language. Why use a fancy $2 word when there is an equally, or arguably more effective 10 cent word for it?

4. Spark their curiosity

For example, you could say something like “10 Ways to Improve Your Business”, but a better solution would be to sound more provocative, like “10 Devastating Reasons Why Most Businesses Fail”. The latter is a lot more effective, and gives you the opportunity to elicit an emotional response from the reader with powerful words like “devastating” and “fail”. A little drama and flair can go a long way here.

5. Break up your message visually with spaces, bullet points, or lists

In case your message goes on for a bit, divide it into sections that are easier for the reader to consume and scan. This can be achieved by creating a list, leaving plenty of white space, or relying on bullet points. Of course, this should also be used in moderation, and using more than 3-4 bullet points would defeat their purpose.

6. Focus on the benefits rather than features

Whether you are trying to justify the increase in price for your new product or providing a discount for it, instead of going on about all the features it has, focus on the benefits its user will experience if they decide to purchase it. Once they know how it will make their personal or professional life better, they will know its full value and will be able to understand that it’s worth the money.

7. Demonstrate enthusiasm and confidence in your product or service

This is one of the ways to show your audience that you have a truly fantastic product on your hands. If you are projecting a “meh” vibe, they will respond accordingly. If you are not sure how to sound enthusiastic, try writing your message quickly to make it sound more spontaneous.

8. Clean designs

You can use designs elements such as colors, shapes, and even images to guide the readers’ eyes to where you want them to go, or to emphasize the most important parts of your message.

Also, if possible, include colors that reflect those found on your logo or official website in order to bolster your brand’s identity. You can also use professionally designed email templates for regular, recurring content you plan to send like newsletters, sales announcements, and more.

9. Make your call-to-action as clear as possible

This applies both to its visibility, as well as its message. Your readers should be clear on what happens next and reinforce your message on why it would be beneficial for them to take you up on your offer. While not necessarily a rule, it’s always good to have just one call-to-action, instead of several competing ones.

10. Create a sense of urgency

Another method you can use to make your email message more effective would be to create a sense of urgency. For example, let your readers know that your fantastic offer is for a limited time only and that it will expire in several hours. Or tell them there are only 10 invites left, and those who buy them will get exclusive access to a premium version of your website, where they can find even more useful content.

Email copywriting template examples (for sales)

Templates are a good idea when you’re reaching out to a large volume of people. You will need to personalize these templates depending on your company and the services you offer. I can’t imagine everyone reading this is a green company consultant.

A cold lead is someone who has never interacted with your company before. Meanwhile, a hot lead has expressed interest in the product, has the means to buy it, and is currently seeking solutions. In between the two are warm leads.

1) Cold email copywriting example

2) Hot email copywriting example

Top 4 email copywriting services

Whether you’re out of time or unsure where to start, email copywriting services are always an option. These services offer easy access to copywriters who handle email marketing every day. By telling them a little, they can write you the perfect emails.

These services are also nice since there is minimal extra paperwork for you. All you must do is tell the service what you need and how often. In most cases, the customer support team takes care of all the other details.

1) Copify

Copify prides itself on quick, no-hassle content delivery. All you need to do is fill out the brief, and then the site staff chooses the perfect copywriter for your project. That means you’ll get someone who knows what to do for your business.

The company makes several unique promises. First, it says many items have a 48-hour turnaround, which is great if you’re in a hurry. It also guarantees proofreading and formatting, which allow you to use the content without worries.

Key features:

• 48 hour or less turnaround
• Verified copywriting network
• Multiple service offerings
• Professionally managed

Price:

• Prices start at $0.06/word

2) Rightly written

Rightly Written is another content option where you do not have direct content with the writer. Instead, you fill out a brief on the website, and the staff picks a writer that matches. However, you can request the same writer again.

The company offers intuitive options, including a dashboard so you can see all of your orders at once. You can track where the order is within the process, which includes editing by a dedicated team.

One of the things that make Rightly Written appealing is the automated ordering option. This lets you easily scale up your content output to quickly and constantly feed your blog, newsletter, and email automation tool.

Key features:

• Content ecosystem
• Automated monthly option
• Internally verified copywriters
• Professionally managed

Price:

• Prices start at $0.07/word

3) Fiverr

Fiverr has two options for you, marketplace and business. With either option, you choose who works on your project directly. This control is great if you find yourself on a budget or if you find a writer who gets your company brand exactly right.

The marketplace option means you’re vetting the freelancers yourself through their reviews and samples. With business, you get a curated catalog to pick from and a Fiverr success manager to help you along the way.

Either way, you have immense flexibility on this platform. You can even talk to writers before purchase to confirm you’ll get what you want.

Key features:

• Choose your own writer if desired
• Team options, including Fiverr Business
• Wide niche selection
• Completely customizable

Price:

• Prices start from $0.01/word

4) Godot media

Godot Media is an excellent option if you’re looking for other content to go with your email marketing. The platform offers many reasonably priced writing products, including articles and white papers you can use as lead magnets.

Godot Media offers personalized quotes on packages that work for your business. While you may not meet the copywriter, you are assured of professional content. Like other platforms, you do get revisions and the option to select your quality level.

Key features:

• Copywriting only
• Automated monthly options
• Professionally managed

Price:

• Prices from $0.027/word

Final thoughts:

Copywriting for email marketing requires you to keep several distinct things in mind. You need to write to your audience, keep everything direct, and lead them to a specific action. All the while, the email must be personal.

That leaves you with several options, and you can adjust those options to suit your specific business relatively quickly. Modifying templates only takes a little time, while hiring an email copywriting service takes more resources.

Regardless, you know the right email marketing content can help keep your business going, irrespective of how hard the times are. How you get that content is up to you and how it fits in the demands of your time.

With time, email copywriting will start to feel natural. Then you’ll wonder why you thought it was challenging to begin with. Remember, meet your customers where they’re at. Who knows, some may relate deeply to your story about email marketing copywriting.

Copywriting for email marketing helps propel your business forward and improve your overall outlook. It’s there to support your company’s growth, so use it.