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Cold email templates are repeatable messages that B2B and B2C sales reps use to craft personalized emails that initiate contact with cold leads. When you use a template that works well with your target audience, you can simply fill in the blanks for each individual cold lead and get many emails out quickly. While there are various types of templates for different prospecting situations, all effective ones follow a similar structure that earns reads and replies.
In this article, we give you the following:
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Our general cold email template contains the vital elements of a cold email and can be customized to fit almost any cold outreach scenario. Feel free to download it and personalize it to fit your business and your recipient’s probable needs according to their role and industry. For supplemental information on how to customize it, check out our article on how to write a cold email.
All cold email templates contain six essential components that work together to make these emails eye-catching, engaging, and action-inducing. Knowing these components and how they interrelate is important for when you personalize your email templates or create your own cold emails from scratch. It’ll ensure your finished message hits all the main points. We explain each component below and show you an example from our general template.
This usually appears to the left of the subject line in your lead’s inbox. The default will be your email address, but we recommend changing it in the email settings to something more personal like “{Name} from {Company Name}.” Your from line is a chance to come across as personal and entice the reader to open the email. Try to keep it to fewer than 50 characters and nine words.
The subject line is your first impression. It grabs the reader’s attention and/or summarizes the content of the email. Try to make it stand out in the lead’s inbox by listing their name, mentioning a pain point relevant to their position, or posing a question. It should be no longer than 60 characters and 10 words.
This is the first paragraph where you introduce yourself and your company. You’ll typically state your name, your company’s name, and the reason you’re reaching out to this individual — make the opener more about them than about you. In a cold email, the introduction should be 1–2 short sentences. It’s important to cover it quickly and then jump into the pitch before losing their attention.
The pitch is your second paragraph, where you briefly explain the product or service you’re offering and its value in a short elevator pitch. It’ll typically mention pain points you predict the lead is suffering from based on what you found out about them during your pre-email online research. It’ll then introduce your solution and name a few benefits they’ll enjoy when the issue is solved. Try to keep the pitch under 150 words.
Your call-to-action (CTA) asks the recipient to take specific next steps — typically scheduling a meeting. Because the lead will still be unfamiliar with your business at this point, you might just ask if they’re interested in learning more. Regardless, to make it easy for the recipient to comply, ask a direct question about when they're available or include a hyperlink to your calendar via a meeting scheduler app like Calendly.
This contains the “sincerely” portion and the area below it, where you’ll write your contact information, job title, and company name. Sign-offs that are both professional and warm work well — for example, “all the best,” “best,” “thanks,” or “best regards.” To provide other ways for your lead to learn about your business, consider including a link to your portfolio or product page.
We’ve separated our cold email templates into four overarching situations: direct outreach, responses to leads who’ve taken an action, first follow-up, and final follow-up. B2B and B2C sellers will find separate templates designed for each of these situations. Let’s dive in.
Direct outreach is difficult because you’re competing with other salespeople and companies to grab a stranger’s attention. You therefore have to stand out from the crowd. The key here is to make your cold email the most interesting, typically by mentioning a problem you can solve for them. Also, remember that personalization goes a long way, so tailor your template and your completed email as much as possible.
Who Should Use It: People who sell a B2B product, such as software or equipment, and are prospecting for new business leads.
Why It Works: A cold email interests a company’s decision maker by mentioning a pain point that resonates with them. This template gives you two spaces to include pain points, and one to include a negative consequence. The introduction section also signals that this email is meant specifically for them by including something you found in your lead research.
Who Should Use It: Sellers emailing a decision maker to get them interested in a B2B service such as content writing, accounting, construction, or consulting.
Why It Works: Your targets, company decision makers, are busy people. The best way to grab their attention is by leading with something about them and relevant pain points that you solve. This email does just that while also giving you space to explain what makes your service better than your competition’s.
Who Should Use It: Sales reps who are trying to start a sales conversation with a B2B decision maker on LinkedIn as a part of their social selling strategy. This should be used for someone you’ve already lightly engaged with, such as by liking or commenting on their posts.
Why It Works: It begins by showing the recipient that you're familiar with them, their work, and their recent posts on the platform, thereby creating rapport. It also pitches an idea that the decision maker might want to learn more about, especially since it's in regards to a new trend you’re sharing with them. Speaking like an executive wins interest from other executives.
Who Should Use It: B2C salespeople trying to get new potential customers interested in their product. They could be selling supplements, books, clothes, cars, or any other consumer product.
Why It Works: The tone of this cold email template is a bit playful and casual, which is effective when communicating with individual product buyers. It helps them know there’s a human behind the email. Also, it does a good job of honing in on a nagging problem and articulating why your product is the best option out there to fix it. It also overcomes any suspicion of inauthenticity or spam by including a credibility builder field to demonstrate real success.
Who Should Use It: People selling a B2C service to potential customers. The sender could be an insurance agent, a massage therapist, a financial advisor, a painter, or any other service provider.
Why It Works: The template is short and sweet. It focuses on the benefits rather than on the technicalities of the service. It also uses the before-after-bridge method, where you state what their life is like now, show them a better life, and tell them how to get there (your service).
Sometimes you’ll want to send emails to leads who are interacting with your brand to start building a relationship. These leads might have signed up for your subscription, downloaded a lead magnet, or simply checked out your website. While they aren’t exactly frigid, they’re still cold leads because they have yet to communicate with a salesperson directly. These templates can be used as autoresponders, in drip campaigns, or for sales prospecting.
Who Should Use It: Marketers or salespeople who want to reach out to a lead who just downloaded a lead magnet by submitting their contact information into a web form. The goal is to initiate the nurturing phase of the sale.
Why It Works: This email first builds a connection with the recipient by reminding them of the content they downloaded. It then offers free help, which makes the lead trust you and view you as a value provider. Finally, the template relates your product or service to the lead magnet they just downloaded and explains its benefits.
Who Should Use It: Marketing people creating autoresponder emails or salespeople who want to reach out to a website visitor. The goal is to initiate the nurturing phase of the sale.
Why It Works: This email is short, friendly, and helpful, while avoiding falling into creepy surveillance state territory. It politely reminds the visitor about your website, and then introduces your offer to them, being sure to focus on the value of your offer.
When a customer doesn’t respond, don’t just leave it alone. You also don’t want to just resend the same email or one that’s too similar to the first; it comes off as lazy and robotic. Instead, send a new email that adds something to the conversation, like more in-depth product information, an article recommendation, or a bit of humor.
Who Should Use It: Reps who just made a cold call to a lead but couldn’t reach them and now want to follow up with an email.
Why It Works: This email works because it displays the positive results of the product or service in three bullet points so the reader can easily scan the message. It also makes it clear that you’ve already called, showing you’re eager to connect and therefore confident in your offer’s value.
Who Should Use It: B2B sales professionals who are following up on their first cold email.
Why It Works: This email gives a little more product information. In this template, you’ll fill in your lead marketing statistic. It also adds a personal touch in the form of an article recommendation, creating a bit of goodwill at the end of the email.
Who Should Use It: B2C salespeople who are following up on their initial email to a cold lead.
Why It Works: This email reinforces what is said in the first email, but it also throws in another piece of value like a blog post recommendation that adds a nice personal touch, thereby making it clear that there's a real human being on the other side of the email.
The final follow-up is a delicate maneuver. You don’t want to come off desperate, but you do want to drive home the point that this is your last attempt, creating a sense of urgency. Since it’s your last chance to win them over, feel free to take some risks in this email.
Who Should Use It: B2B sales professionals making their final follow-up.
Why It Works: This template tries to win the decision maker over with the benefit one last time, while also creating a bit of urgency. The slightly humorous tone might also play to their sympathy and engender a reply.
Who Should Use It: B2C sales professionals who are sending their final follow-up email.
Why It Works: Consumers tend to respond well to its conversational language and humor. We are switching up the style entirely since the last ones were ineffective. If the recipient thought you were a robo-responder or cold-hearted salesperson up to this point, after reading this they’ll perceive you as a friendly, real person and might just answer.
Below are some tips that will help you craft the perfect email template that you can use over and over again to successfully generate sales leads. Keep them in mind as you create your own templates or modify the ones we’ve provided in this article.
Crafting an email template that is irresistible to the recipient takes time and practice. As long as you’re consistently testing different templates and phrasing, you’ll advance toward optimization a little at a time. For more cold emailing best practices, check out our article on cold email tips that will help you win more conversions.
Cold emails are a great way to get the attention of potential customers. However, their average success rate hovers around 1%. So, no matter the quality, you’re likely going to have to send out a lot of them. To streamline that process without sacrificing personalization, create and save cold email templates, which you can quickly customize to fit each new lead. That said, go ahead and create your master template, and consider using our free one as a starting point.
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