Cold Email Hall of Shame Award:  The Obnoxious  Breakup Email

Instead of ending the conversation in a  friendly or professional way, this email comes off as snarky and overly aggressive.

The sender ends this email with a two-prong call to action that feels overly aggressive and desperate.  The reader is either supposed to email them back or get in touch with a funding specialist over the phone. In both cases, the reader gets the sense that the sender obviously wants to close an immediate deal (even though the reader has NEVER talked to this person before or responded to any of the emails this funding company has sent them).  If the client still hasn’t responded by this email, there is no chance they are going to pick up the phone and buy immediately.   

If you got this email (and all the other emails this spammer sent), you probably feel like you’ve been hit over the head with a hammer repeatedly.

Why on earth would the recipient of this email respond now if they haven’t before?

What’s in it for them?!

The sender is way too self-focused and aggressive.

It feels like a creepy guy (or girl) in a bar who continues to aggressively hit on you after you’ve already said that “No Means No!” about 20 times.

And yet they keep trying with the same approach…

Why this email fails and got on “The Hall of Shame”:

• this email is trying too hard and not professional enough
• The subject line is weird and not captivating (it feels desperate!)
• the call to action is ridiculously forward for a “breakup email”

How to Fix This Bad Cold Email:

This breakup email could be a lot better if it was a short and simple “breakup email” that had a much less aggressive call to action.  A nice change could be sharing a useful (NOT self-promotional) resource or piece of content that the reader would find useful that would leave the reader with positive thoughts toward the sender rather than hounding them with desperate pleas that add no value.

You never know why your prospects aren’t responding–it could just be the wrong time of year, that they’re too busy, don’t have budget, etc. But no matter the reason, you should never leave your last interaction with them on  a bad note or be so obnoxious that you scare them away!

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!”)