How to improve your cold email outreach while freelancing

GOOD SUBJECT LINE

So we’ve played around with this for over a year and got the best open rate (over 40%) with the simple subject line ‘Question’. Perhaps it is a bit old now BUT continues to work. Why reinvent the wheel? You want something short, sweet and will make the person on the other end curious as to why they should open it. And that's the end goal => curiosity => open email.

A GOOD HOOK

A good hook meaning that you presented something that they want up front – ‘we noticed a few mistakes you are making on your website (conversion points, UI etc) but would you be the person to chat further about it?’ Hook them with a pain point, that they’re making a mistake and have a call to action that if they want to fix it, get back to you. Present the problem and the solution. Go straight to the CEO.

FIND COMMON GROUND

“We work with companies like yours already and have produced tremendous websites that have increased traffic/conversions by XX%”. That way, they know you know a bit of the industry you’re in, perhaps have a lay of the land and can hold a conversation with them about what’s important to them. 3rd party verification is a strong way to puff your chest and convey your stature over cold email which triggers interest and action – include 2 links of previous jobs you’ve done and how you can make theirs better.

URGENCY

Back to urgency again. Yup, that’s what makes people buy. I once sent a cold email to a major university saying we’re on deadline for our Winter issue (back when I was selling advertising in a magazine) and have a remnant spot available. I attached a piece of their artwork in the email and mentioned how it would be a great fit in our cyber security section. THEY VERY NEXT MORNING a project manager literally called the office and asked to talk to me – she said she was asked by the DM to follow up with the ad purchase because our deadline was today. She said we’ll take the ad… then asked how much it was. Use urgency in your emails to get quick responses and blast this out to your target once a quarter.

PERSONALIZE IT

These dm’s got crushed with cold email every single days from pigeons trying to sell them everything you can imagine. ‘Greetings of the day!’. No, don’t do that. Use the prospect’s first name and why you thought of them. What can you do for them? Improve their website will do what for them? What is the end results? I also include what their competitor is doing and how this will outrank them… that usually gets a reaction. A lot of times people make decisions on fear and FOMO so bring up a competitor.... which is another good reason why you should niche down.

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