When cold emails go wrong (and how to fix them)

Is it me, or have cold emails been especially…weird lately?

Now, you’re always likely to get a slightly off-tone email trying to sell you something pretty irrelevant, but recently, my inbox seems to be full of emails ranging from the slightly irrelevant to the pretty bizarre. I’m pointing the finger at the AI of it all. Not only are people overly relying on generative AI to produce marketing materials – leading to some awkward and repetitive messages – but it seems now everybody has created an AI tool that will absolutely change your life.

The problem is that cold emails are being disregarded as a quality marketing method that requires thought and strategy. People taking a spray gun approach with generic messages or ‘fill-the-gaps’ overly personalised emails, are wasting time and energy, neglecting the planning needed to make cold emails work.

Do cold emails even work?

Cold emailing is a difficult task, with only 8.5% receiving a reply. But this doesn’t shock me when looking at some of the messages clogging my and my colleague’s inboxes. Taking small steps to strategize and modify your emails can easily improve your chances. Things like including personalisation in the body message can improve response rates by 32.7%, and reaching out to multiple contacts multiple times can even see a 160% increase.

It’s all about balance. Most cold emails aren’t very long, so it only takes one line or two to either make it a success or head straight to spam. Let’s take a look at some cold emails that got it wrong, and see how we can make them right.

1.   If you’re going to personalise, get the facts right

Now, there’s a few very key things wrong here:

• I’m not from Birmingham
• I don’t currently live in Birmingham
• I’m not an Ozzy Osbourne fan

Personalisation, when it’s done right, can be crucial to getting a reply. But if you get it wrong, it comes across as just awkward, and like you didn’t do your homework. This email tells me the sender did a brief scan of my LinkedIn, saw where I went to university, and then made some pretty big jumps from there.

So let’s revisit this. We know the writer is from Birmingham, so let’s use the thing we have in common, and use it correctly:

Hi Bailey,

I saw you went to UoB, I’m actually from Birmingham myself! Have you had a chance to revisit town since your uni days?

[then launch into the sell]

This isn’t too presumptive, just using a factor that we can both relate to in a way that feels natural, just like you would in a face-to-face conversation.

2. Tone is key

In this example my colleague received, it’s clear this is likely a second or third email. We know that sending multiple emails does increase your chances, but not if you start to sound upset, or offended, that the person hasn’t replied.

‘Last message – I’ll close your file unless you reply’ reminds of playing with my siblings: ‘I’ll tell Mum if you don’t give it back’. This tone comes across as unprofessional, and certainly isn’t going to make a prospect take you seriously. There’s also the issue of the last bullet point, which doesn’t seem to make much sense.

Let’s take another go at this, and see how we can make it better.

Hello Lynley,

Last chance! If scaling is still important, we’re the partner for you:

• 10-year track record
• 500+ projects delivered
• [stat about the success of existing clients/projects]

This will be my last email, so make sure to reach out if you’re interested!

With this email, we’re still adding a time pressure of this being the last email, but without sounding like we’re writing it with tear-filled eyes.

3. If you’re using AI, make it sound like a person

Okay, where to start. Now this email is clearly a template with certain gaps to fill: office street, nearby coffee shop, coworker #1, coworker #2, client.

But the problem is that the template is creepy. Like really creepy. Reading this creates the image of the sender slowly following you up the road as you walk to the office. It sounds like a stalker dropping personal information so you realise that ‘I know where you work’.

And on top of all that, some of the details are wrong.

This seems to be created using AI (because ‘ % ARABICA LONDON COVENT GARDEN just reads so naturally), but the work hasn’t been done to humanise this template. And honestly, if your AI generates something like this, don’t fix it; just throw it away.

There’s a line to personalisation, it’s about making the recipient feel like the email has gone to them, instead of a list of 500 other prospects. It’s not about showing how many details you were able to find out about someone and compiling them all into one slightly frightening message.

If I were to redo this message, I would start completely from scratch and change the chat GPT prompt to ‘something less serial killer-y’.

4. Show off, without insulting

Now, this one isn’t too bad, but it’s a prime example of how little it takes for a cold email to go wrong. This issue is that in talking about the performance of their AI tool, they make our current content sound not very good.

It’s all about the angle, you don’t want to tell someone ‘your stuff is really bad, and we can do it way better’. Instead, reframe to say ‘our content can deliver X more impressions/clicks’ or ‘our clients saw a Y% improvement in leads’. Let the results speak, rather than putting down the prospect’s existing work. After all, you are trying to get their business.

So let’s take this one, and revamp it

Hello Gia,

Going to be real with you: our AI can hugely enhance your current content. Don’t believe me? Check out these results from our clients:

[Exciting stats from previous work with clients]

Give cold emails the effort they deserve

If you treat cold emails like a throwaway, last ditch effort, then that’s the results you’ll get. But if you take the time to create a sound strategy, and really think through your email sequence, and who you’re sending them to, you’re much more likely to get the responses you’re looking for.

Want to know more about how you can create a winning cold email strategy? Reach out at hello@isolinecomms.com today.