While Docurated’s analytics are clearly a worthwhile solution for salespeople, these two sales emails are pretty lackluster, and leave the recipient feeling misled.

Rather than intriguing the prospective customer with alluring benefits, the reader is left bored after reading these sales emails. Let’s take a look at the first one that was sent to one of our subscribers:

You’ll notice that this email has quite a bit of jargon, like “ISV SFDC partner,” and “Salesforce AE,” but these terms are actually fairly familiar to the recipient. Nonetheless, these terms and this email focus a lot more on jargon and features than any benefits beyond a 15% cut.

But this doesn’t do much to stand out from all the “partnership emails” that this particular recipient receives on a daily basis.

And then, after that roller coaster of confusion, they ask the reader for their perspective. How likely is it that anyone is going to take them up on that generous ‘offer’ (which is really an ‘ask’)?

But the biggest problem of this email was when the sender mentioned their “mutual customer,” who’s name we have blacked out in this email. This was the bait that was trying to hook the prospect into responding, which it did, but this attempt still backfired.

Let me explain why.

What happened next:

Because the sender was intrigued by Docurated’s mention of their mutual customer, they decided to look past their sales email’s flaws, and respond because they were skeptical that Docurated had actually sold to this “mutual customer.”

In the prospect’s response, they ask a direct question about the customer’s purchase. As you can see below, the salesperson avoids this, and instead gives an overeager response, blowing the opportunity:

As you can see, Docurated failed to answer the buyer’s question, losing an opportunity to develop an even deeper sales conversation, building on that question. If they really had shared a “mutual customer,” the sender should have said more about what their mutual customer had purchased from them, why they had purchased it (i.e. the benefit of it), how brilliantly this solution was working for their customer, and asked if the recipient would like to hear more.

Instead, the sender randomly mentions that Docurated is “artificial intelligence for sales activities and content.” My thoughts: “so? How does it help my business?”

Then they mention this “15% commission thing” – again. Even though they already mentioned that in the first email. Is that the only benefit a Docurated partnership can offer? I know it’s not, because there’s plenty of benefits on their website that are related to sales, marketing, IT, and more.

Overall, this email screams “bring me into your account(s) for a cut!” when they should have been going for something more like “let’s see how we can work together to help our mutual customer.”

How Trying Too Hard to Get A Response Can Backfire and Blow the Deal

In general, both emails can come off a bit disingenuous. Is this a genuine partnership email, or is it just a sales email masquerading as one, claiming to share customers that they don’t really have? Better to stick to benefits that are relevant to the recipient, stay honest, and just do one thing at a time.

And then, there’s this:

“But that’s getting way too ahead of myself, I’d like to just start with a demo so you understand what it is what we do.”

If you know you’re getting “way too ahead” of yourself, you should probably just take a step back and slow down.

Also, I should be able to understand exactly what your software does from your emails – you shouldn’t be asking for my time to show me a demo because that’s what you would like. Good cold emails talk about how the recipient will benefit; not the sender.

Here’s an example of how Docurated’s first cold email could be rewritten:

Subject: could {!Company}’s sales calls offer more value?

Hi {!First},

Did you know that 93% of executives complain that the sales calls they receive offer no value? That’s almost as many people who thought the Falcons would win the Super Bowl after going up 28 – 3.

[Talk about one benefit of using Docurated that relates to this alarming statistic in relationship to the prospect or their clients. For example: Discuss how Docurated can track which pieces of {!Company} content are most proven for winning deals, that way you know which content to use on sales calls and close faster…]

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Would you like to know more about what else Docurated can do for {!Company} and its customers?

Thanks,

[Name]

In this quick rewrite, I’ve addressed the following issues with Docurated’s cold email:

• The old subject line of the very first email was, simply, “Connecting.” Not good enough, because it offers no value. My subject line mentions the company by name and asks a thought-provoking question.
• I’ve given an alarming and urgent statistic – which is on Docurated’s website, by the way – to elicit some emotion.
• I’ve used a bit of humor, which generally works well when emailing salespeople… unless they’re a Falcons fan.
• Instead of trying to do too much, just focus on one tangible benefit: Docurated can help you sell more.
• The call-to-action is now a benefit to them, rather than a request to gain their perspective.

This revision makes their email more clear, intriguing, and much less confusing.

Have bad cold emails in your inbox? Send them to us!

Help us fight the thoughtless spammers, one crappy cold email at a time by sending us the worst cold emails you’ve ever received.

We’ll put them up anonymously on the “Hall of Shame,” and shoot you an email when they go live.

Please send all submissions to “[email protected].”

(And feel free to suggest what you want to nominate the “bad cold email for!”)