Last month Google announced its plans to crack down on bulk email senders, requiring that emails sent to a Gmail addresses to be strongly authenticated, to have a one-click unsubscribe option, for unsubscribe requests to be processed within two days and for spam rates to be below 0.3%. These changes go into effect in February.
Given how many startups run on GSuite, the news sent a shockwave through an industry that has to-date used sales automation to operate in the grey area of sending higher and higher volumes of unsolicited emails to prospects under the guise of an “outreach strategy”.
This change is clearly Google’s way of pushing back against the spray and pray email strategy. What’s more, with the effectiveness of cold calling limited to the declining pool of ICPs that still use the phone in their day-to-day business life, and with LinkedIn capping connection requests at 100 a week, its clear that sales teams need to improve their messaging in order to survive.
A few months ago I published a tear down of 5 cold emails, in which I reviewed their strengths and weaknesses and provided advice on how to make them more customer-centric and engaging. Given the popularity of that post and the news from Google, I’ve used this week’s newsletter to tear down another five cold emails.
This week’s issue covers:
A recap of best practices for an outbound email
Cold email from Mosaic - classic feature dumping.
Cold email from B2B Rocket - an AI disaster.
Cold email from Salesclover - actually pretty good!
Cold email from Champions - total confusion.
Cold email from Reals - starts well; quickly falls apart.
A recap of best practices for an outbound email
The subject line should be short enough to be scannable in a mobile inbox (40-50 characters) and spark curiosity. Avoid marketing jargon and include content from the message itself.
The body should accomplish 3 things:
Demonstrate relevance by showing you have researched your prospect’s situation and have a valid reason for reaching out. If you find yourself struggling with this it simply means your ICP is too broad.
Provide a reward by sharing a unique insight from your business that is relevant to your prospect. Avoid feature dumping and focus on impact.
Prompt for engagement by asking how the insight aligns with what they see in their business. Avoid asking for a meeting until you have a positive response. You can actually get quite far over email.
Vendor #1: Mosaic - a strategic finance platform.
Here’s the email I received. It’s classic feature dumping.
Strengths
The subject line is short and intriguing. As a CRO in 2023, I do care about efficiency.
Weaknesses
The opening is not at what I was expecting. Fundraising is not usually top of mind for CROs and certainly not something that triggers them to make a software purchase. I was expecting something about improving stage-to-stage conversion metrics in the customer journey.
The reward misses the mark. While I like visuals, the problem is that I don’t know what I’m supposed to focus on in the dashboard screenshot. It’s just a giant feature dump. And the value prop that, “Mosaic automates hundreds of reports” is very broad and generic. Which reports? How long do they typically take to run without Mosaic?
The request, “look interesting?” is not engaging, especially when I’m already confused by the visual.
Vendor #2: B2B Rocket - a meeting booking service
This is the email I received. It’s what happens when you hand over your research to AI:
Strengths
I really struggled to find anything positive in this email.
Weaknesses
The subject line is trying to cram too much info in and has bad grammar. “Let’s chat about your potential” would be marginally better, although asking to chat before I’ve even read the email is putting the cart before the horse.
The sender’s domain and business name do not match up, which creates an instant trust issue. In fact Google sent the rest of this vendor’s sequence into my spam folder.
A relevant opening does not mean parroting someone’s LinkedIn profile back to them with a bunch of obsequious plaudits peppered in. This is not a good use of AI.
The request, “Would you like me to send over some ideas?” is not engaging. If you have good ideas for my business, why not include them in the email. It would have made the message more relevant and provided a reward.
The disclaimer at the bottom is a new level of wtf. Nothing screams low-quality service provider like telling your customer that you couldn’t actually be bothered to research them yourself. I can only imagine how bad it would be if I actually worked with you.
Vendor #3: SalesClover - outsourced sales development
Here’s the email I received. The opening is actually quite good: