8 Things Not to Do When Writing Cold Sales Emails

Despite buyers overwhelmingly preferring email when talking with sales reps, 77 out of 100 sales emails go unopened. 

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Following cold email best practices can give you the edge you need to stand out in someone’s inbox or DMs. That being said, what works and what doesn’t work when sending a cold sales email changes weekly if not daily.  

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It's incredibly easy to make mistakes that tank your response rates and get your prospects hitting delete before they even read your full message. While we always avoid absolutes when it comes to guidance on crafting cold emails, there are still plenty of things that you should 100%, positively never do.

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In this post, we’re going to give you eight of them. Let’s get started.

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8) Using Clichés

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Clichés have become clichés for a reason—they’re overused. 

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If you’re using clichés in your messaging, it will start your relationship off with your prospect on the wrong foot, have you barking up the wrong tree, and putting that cart before the horse.

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See what we mean? 

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At best, your message is going to come across as boring and at worst as insincere and generic. 

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Phrases like "game-changer," "supercharge," or "cutting-edge" have been overused to the point of being cringe-inducing. The solution is pretty easy: just talk like a normal person. Be authentic, and use conversational, everyday language. Messages between a 3rd - 8th grade reading level perform best.

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7) Being Too Formal or Informal

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Striking the right tone in your emails is crucial. If you’re too informal with an audience that’s used to a formal tone, you’ll come off as unprofessional. 

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At the same time, if your audience is used to speaking with a potential partner or vendor just like they would their coworkers, it can make you seem stiff and impersonal – the kind of person nobody would want to do business with. 

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Striking the right balance is vital and requires you to have a real understanding of your audience. That means there’s one more thing you can never skip…

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6) Skipping your research

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The days of mass marketing are over. Treating your audience as monolithic is the fastest track to unsubscribes.

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The proof is in the results as well. According to Gartner, organizations that can figure out how to personalize their messaging can expect a 16% revenue lift over those that don’t. 

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That’s why you should never, ever skip the research phase.

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Without understanding who is on the other end of your cold email, how could you possibly send the most effective message possible?

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5) Overloading Emails with Information

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Any cold email should be singularly focused on one topic, with one call-to-action, and written for one particular reader. 

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While it's important to provide value in your emails, overloading them with information can be overwhelming. It’s so important that we’re going to repeat ourselves here: it's a conversation. 

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Keep your emails concise and focused on the recipient's interests, needs, and pain points. If you’re not sure whether your email is too long or not, it’s safest to err on the side of being concise. 

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4) Making It All About You

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Ever been caught at a party talking to someone new that spends the entire conversation talking about how great they are? It’s the worst. 

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Same principle applies to cold emails. If you’re focusing too much on yourself in a cold email, you’re going to send them scurrying for the delete button or worse, unsubscribe.

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Instead of talking about how great your product is, your biggest wins, and what you can do, shift the focus to the recipient's needs and challenges. 

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Showing genuine interest in their situation is the single best way to make your email more engaging and effective. May sure you check your I : You ratio.

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3) Not Proofreading Your Message

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Grammar is a rough topic to wade into. Some can’t stand the sight of a typo while others can’t stand the sight of a period at the end of a text message. 

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Even a small typo or grammatical error can harm your credibility and give the impression that you lack attention to detail. The stats back this up too with over half of surveyed consumers saying that grammar mistakes can negatively affect their perception of your brand. 

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The solution, thankfully, is pretty simple: always proofread your emails before hitting send.

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2) Ignoring mobile experience

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Your email is pretty much never going to be read on desktop. In fact, statistics say that 81% of all emails are now opened and read on mobile devices. 

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If you’re not taking a moment to see how your email looks on mobile, you’re missing a huge experience booster for how your recipient will see your email. 

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Send yourself a test version of your email and read it on your phone. If it looks like a wall of text, you can rest assured that it’s not likely to be read. In that case, it might be time to do a bit of editing.

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1) Not having the Regie.ai Chrome extension installed.

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Let’s face it—remembering all the dos and don’ts every time you sit down to write an email can be a headache. 

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Make it simpler on yourself and install the free Chrome extension from Regie.ai.

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Its built-in email analyzer can help optimize your emails based on real-world data and tested best practices right from wherever you’re writing your message. Whether it’s analyzing your 1 : You Ratio, readability level, mobile responsiveness, or more, all of those insights are yours at the click of a button.