Hall of Shame Award: The Selfish Email That Lacks a Value Proposition
Above we have an email that is truly self-absorbed — it completely fails to captivate the interest of the reader, and instead focuses its message on finding someone to sell the product to with the classic “who’s the right person” approach.
The problem with that approach is that it’s not the 90’s anymore, and so when you attempt this method, people usually just think you’re lazy and just sending untargeted “mass-blasts.”
At the bare minimum, you at least need to tailor your cold emails to a specific buyer persona. Adding additional personalization beyond that will usually increase your odds of getting a response even more.
But no matter how personalized your cold emails are, they still won’t work if there’s no benefit or reason for the reader to respond.
The above email asks for a meeting, either with the reader or another associate of the company, three times, without ever taking into account the needs or priorities of the reader even once. The sender fails to address “What’s in it for the recipient”, and instead focuses only on “What’s in it for me.”
Why this email fails and got on “The Hall of Shame”:
- Pretty self-centered
- Not personable or tailored to buyer persona (even admits to “taking a stab in the dark here,” wow!)
- A lot of features, but no strong benefits for the reader
- Bullet points! These make the email feel like mass marketing instead of a conversation. (Bullet points always perform worse on cold emails!)
- This email is all over the place, with no focus on a single benefit or idea.
How to Fix This Bad Cold Email:
Start by scrapping the vague, impersonal opener. Instead, start with a captivating sentence or thoughtful question that is targeted to the reader’s needs or pain points.
Adding more personalization would also go a long ways too. This doesn’t necessarily mean having a lot of different “custom inserts” for every prospect, but at least they could try to focus their message on the prospect more instead of being all about “Koalified Leads.”
This email also needs to focus on one clear benefit so it can be more compelling and effective.
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!”)
