Software Growth

Cold email

A cold email is a first message to someone who has never heard from you, sent to start a business conversation, usually as part of outbound sales.

A cold email is a one-to-one message to a person who does not know you and did not ask to hear from you. In SaaS it is the main tool of outbound sales: you write to a founder, a head of marketing or an ops lead, offer something relevant and ask for a short conversation.

It is not a newsletter and it is not spam, though bad cold email is both. The difference is relevance. A good one reads like a note from a person who did their homework and has a specific reason to write.

What a good cold email contains

Steli Efti, co-founder of Close, says in a Stripe Atlas AMA that a great cold email answers the right questions at the right time: who you are, what you want, and why you are writing to this person out of everyone. He adds that it should end with one clear call to action, since several asks mean no action. Keep it short and human.

  • Subject line. Curiosity plus a promise the body keeps. Efti shares that a subject line like "Very disappointed" worked for him, but warns a high open rate alone does not mean replies.
  • First line. About them, not you. A specific observation beats flattery.
  • Value. One problem you solve and a result, in a sentence or two.
  • Ask. A single, low-friction question: "Worth a 15-minute call next week?"

Sequences beat single emails

Damian Thompson, a cold email specialist on Startups for the Rest of Us, suggests a four-email sequence: the first names two problems your customers face, the second and third each give a free resource that helps with one of them, and the fourth makes a soft meeting request. His broader point is that you must understand the market first and write about problems, not features. Efti also says to plan your follow-up before you send the first email.

How to measure it

Efti suggests a healthy open rate sits between 30% and 40%, and below 15% means you should fix the subject line before anything else. Beyond opens, track replies and meetings:

Example: you send 600 emails and 540 are delivered after bounces. You get 30 replies and 12 meetings. Meeting rate is 12 / 540, about 2.2%. If 3 of those meetings become customers at $3,500 a year, you earned $10,500 from the batch. In Predictable Revenue, Aaron Ross claims response rates of 8% to 12% for targeted emails, as summarized in these reader notes. Many teams see far lower today, so measure your own.

Practical points

  • Target tightly. Thompson says the real work is in the data and the list, not in automation.
  • Protect deliverability. Send from a separate domain, set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC, keep volume modest and remove bounced addresses.
  • Know the rules. Laws such as CAN-SPAM in the US and GDPR in the EU apply to business email. Check them for your markets and always include an easy way to opt out.
  • Price check. Thompson recommends at least $3,000 to $5,000 in annual contract value before building a cold email program with salespeople. See average contract value.

For bootstrapped founders

Start by hand. Write 20 personal emails a day to people who match your ideal customer profile, and learn what gets replies. Calls booked this way also teach you how buyers describe the problem, which improves positioning. Automate once you have a message that works.

Sources

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