Tailor Your Email Subject Line
Our first template tip? Don’t stick to templates.
Yep, you read that right—there’s no easy answer to finding the perfect subject line. What we can tell you is how to craft a subject line that will get results.
You see, the subject line is by far the most important part of the email to get right. You could spend hours drafting your email, coming up with chirpy greetings and perfect personalised signoffs, but personalised signoffs aren’t worth jack if they won’t open the email. You have to get your foot in the door before you think of anything else. Here’s how to do just that.
Keep Your Emails Simple
Remember PPI? If it had been a legal requirement that Caller ID for every PPI business was ‘PPI Cold Call’, the industry would have died overnight. But just by getting you to pick up the phone, they knew they had a chance to persuade you into claiming. The same applies to all forms of cold contact, whether the business is reputable (like a recruitment firm) or not (like a PPI firm). So don’t give too much away in your subject line; try to build their curiosity, instead.
Simple: ‘Looking for the perfect hire?’ Intriguing.
Too complex: ‘Quick email to talk about a super opportunity RE: your job posting…’ Nobody really wants to hear about your super opportunity.
Tailor Your Email Body
Next up, you have to tailor your email body too. If you need to send out dozens and dozens of emails each day, you can get away with reusing the same template time after time. But if you’re sending an email to a head of recruitment who gets dozens just like yours every day, you’re not doing yourself any favours. There has to be at least something in the email that shows you’ve taken the time to do your research, and that you actually wrote the email yourself!
Just One Line Will Do
Just one brief line is enough to personalise the email and to convince the recipient that it was written just for them. That way, you can ‘get away’ with using a template for much of the email, but nevertheless project a professional and impressive image. For example:
‘We found your job listing on Reed; have you had much success with them in the past?’
‘We saw in your ad that you’re looking for vibrant and energetic personalities.’
‘Based on some of your more successful hires in the past year, we think we’ve found some more great fits,’
Avoid Common Email Mistakes
When it comes to B2B email, the stakes are especially high: captivate their interest and you may be able to build a relationship and earn a repeat client. Fail to do so – you get nothing and you will have wasted your time! To help you maximise your success rate, here’s a list of our top 4 common B2B email mistakes.
1. Forgetting Your Call to Action
The worst mistake you can make is to send an email without any obvious call to action. If you forget a call to action, such as:
Let me know what you think! or
Give me a call on the number below, or just reply to this email.
…Then you’re simply sending an email for no reason. And nobody likes getting those vague, rambling emails without a point!
2. Being Over-Personal
In some circumstances, it’s perfectly fine to be personal and informal in your email. When you’re reaching out to a previous connection, you might actually do best to build a client relationship by being friendlier, and less formal. On the other hand, cold contact demands formalities and respect, since, after all, the recipient doesn’t know you yet. That’s why you have to avoid being over-personal in cold contact emails.
3. Boring the Recipient to Death!
Another point you have to bear in mind is that you should keep things simple. There’s no point overcomplicating what you’re trying to say, or writing out emails that are far too long. You’re more likely to bore your potential client to death than get them to reply. Far better is to pique their interest, get to the point, and make an interesting offer- all in two or three paragraphs.
4. Not Proofreading
Last but not least, you have to proofread everything you send. Why? Because spelling mistakes and basic grammatical errors convey a sense of amateurishness and a lack of attention to detail. The last thing that you want is for potential clients to skip out on your offer because of something as simple as a basic typing error!
So What Does the Perfect Cold Contact Email Look Like?
So, now that we’ve been over each and every tip, let’s bring everything together. What would the perfect B2B recruitment email look like? Probably, a little something like this…
Re: Looking for ‘bubbly employees’? We can find your perfect hire.’
Hi Steve,
Couldn’t help but notice your ads posted on Reed. Do you find that posting ads online works for you? If you can’t quite find the perfect fit, we’re here to help. We recently helped [their competitor] to find a dozen new hires for their sales floor and we would be more than happy to take the hassle out of recruitment for you, too.
Would you like to meet up over coffee to discuss how we could help? Looking forward to hearing from you [contact name].
[sign off]
So by now you’re probably already itching to try out your new email tactics for cold contact. And rightly so – you’ll see a bigger improvement with your email open rates, improvements with repose and you’ll save time while you’re doing it. Win-win! Good luck and happy emailing!