Effective cold outreach starts with a warm introduction when you can get one, depends more on who you target than on how you write, and follows seven principles of email copy. These come from Y Combinator group partner Aaron Epstein's Startup School talk How To Convert Customers With Cold Emails. His encouraging starting point: "most cold emails are actually terrible, so the bar is really low for you to stand out".
Start with a warm introduction
Epstein calls a warm intro the best outreach hack and says it can give a conversion rate two to three times that of a regular cold email. Look through your friends, friends of friends, current and former coworkers, school alumni networks and the alumni networks of past employers. When no intro is possible, go in cold, which is what the rest of the talk covers.
Do the funnel math before you write
Work backwards from your goal. In his illustrative example, a 10% demo-to-customer rate, 25% response-to-demo, 10% open-to-response and 50% send-to-open mean 800 emails to win one customer. He stresses that your rates will differ and that you must measure them, and that the goal of each email is only the next step in the funnel, not the sale.
Target first, write second
Epstein says better targeting is the highest-leverage way to improve opens and replies: 100 targeted emails beat 1,000 untargeted ones. His example of a failed email is a company selling shipping services to his digital-downloads business, which could never have been a customer however well it was written.
Write with the seven principles
In his words, these seven principles put an email in "the top five percent":
- One focused goal. A single ask; several asks create a paradox of choice.
- Be human. Write the way you talk to a friend, and read it out loud to catch anything awkward.
- Personalize. "If you're just swapping out a few words, it's probably not specific enough." Look for uncommon commonalities, such as the same school.
- Keep it short. Most people read on a phone and should be able to just hit reply.
- Establish credibility. Schools, past companies, known customers or useful industry data.
- Make it about the reader. Turn the "I"s into "you", and use the words your users use to describe you.
- End with a clear call to action in its own sentence.
Follow up two to four times, then move on
Epstein says to plan to follow up manually two, three or four times, a few days apart, and not to get angry if nobody answers: check back in a couple of months. YC's Max Kolysh, in How to Get Your First 10 Customers, suggests three or four follow-ups over a couple of weeks, keeping the first message under 75 words.
Do it by hand first
Both speakers say the founder should send these messages and learn before automating: Epstein says that if you automate right out of the gate "you're doing it wrong". When someone answers, describe the goal of the call to a copilot that uses your product context and it can suggest the next question while you talk; the post-call report keeps the next step. For the broader acquisition process, see how to get your first 10 customers.
Sources: Aaron Epstein, How To Convert Customers With Cold Emails (Y Combinator, video); Max Kolysh, How to Get Your First 10 Customers.
How many cold emails do I need to send?
It depends on your funnel. In Epstein's illustrative example it took 800 emails per customer, which is why he says to plan for dozens a day, possibly 50. Measure your own rates before you rely on any number.
Should I use LinkedIn or email?
Epstein says email is usually better than LinkedIn, but it depends on the industry: in some, people are flooded with LinkedIn messages and in others they almost never get any. Texting is only appropriate with explicit permission.