What was the first story you ever heard? For me, it was Sleepy Dog. As the title suggests, the book is about an exhausted puppy that doesn’t want to go to sleep and gets out of bed several times, probably making his parents wish they had never decided to have children.
“Sleepy sleepy up to bed. Sleepy sleepy sleepyhead.”
Two decades later, I still remember that book. The plot, the characters, the pictures, everything, down to the last word.
Studies show that today, people consume around 100,500 words per day, from text messages to emails, billboards to restaurant menus. That’s the equivalent of reading Wuthering Heights every single day.
Somewhere in that noise is your cold email.
Like Sleepy Dog, the best stories are like little brainworms– sticking around in our brains, occasionally coming to the front of our minds when something triggers it. Most cold emails are a soulless march through benefit after benefit, ending in a desperate plea for your prospect’s business.
Without an intriguing narrative, there’s no reason why your pitch will rise to the top. Want to turn your turn your cold emails into magical, brainworm-worthy narratives that won’t be quickly forgotten? Here’s three questions that will help you stick inside peoples’ minds.
Question #1) Why should the reader care?
Your prospects are reading a great American novel’s worth of words every day. As a result, the best way to get someone reading your cold email with interest (besides crafting a great subject line) is being able to relate to them.
The best way to accomplish this is by talking to people who fit your buyer persona. If that isn’t possible, a great second option is to search by job title on LinkedIn and read through a few profiles. See what skills they value and how they demonstrate their talent. The metrics they cite– number of deals closed, percentage of churn reduced– are good indicators of the things your prospect values.
Just telling a nice story about your product isn’t enough if it doesn’t address your buyer’s needs. A VP of sales doesn’t care about employee satisfaction metrics. But what he or she does care about is having an effective, insanely productive team. That’s the need your story should address.
Question #2) What’s your compelling story?
Every product’s features and benefits can be outlined in a way that resonates with your prospect’s biggest pains. By crafting them into a story, you can inject an element of reality that aren’t as visible in other types of emails. The most compelling stories draw the reader in and make them feel like they are the heroes, sent to save the day.
Here’s a few tips to help you get started:
- Get your brainstorm on
- Ask your customers
- Map out your cast of characters, setting and conflict
To help you along even more, here’s an example of an email that tells a great story about a fantasy football team:
SUBJECT: join {!Company}’s Fantasy Football sales team
Hi {!First},Would you like to leverage the competitive spirit of fantasy football to give {!Company}’s sales team a new competitive edge? Applying the same mechanics of fantasy football, we helped [Client] 3x the average number of deals their sales reps closed over 6 months. When can we have a quick call to see if this same model could work for {!Company} or not?
Question #3. Why am I telling this story?
Just like knowing what your customer wants, it’s also important to keep in mind what YOU want. What are you trying to entice them into doing? How does your story lead them to the conclusion that they should get in touch with you?
The last line of your cold email story should entice them into turning the page by reaching out to you. If you’ve ever had someone spoil the conclusion to a book or movie before, you know how awful it feels. Once you know how the story ends, the magic is gone. It’s like skipping to the last page of the book and then having no motivation to go back and see how the characters got there.
The best types of stories reach conclusions that excite your prospects, not bore them. Just like not giving away the ending prematurely, you should keep your goal in mind as you write. Sometimes a story seems like a great idea until you realize that it’s missing a good call to action. When that happens, you don’t need to start over– just reread what you already have, revisit your notes and think about how you can naturally flow into a conclusion that fits with your company’s brand, product and marketing objectives.
Kathie Irwin is an L.A.-based copywriter and avid reader.
For more tips on crafting killer cold-emails, register for Inside Sales’ online Web Conference on May 7 and watch Heather’s presentation on the “5 Secrets to Cold Email.”
