How to Create (and Automate) a High-Converting Cold Email Sequence
What's up Super Senders!
Cold emails work like magic for your outreach efforts. And it gets more magical if you get the conversation rolling through powerful cold email sequences.
The idea is simple—why consolidate your ideas into just one email when you can slowly build the connection with your prospects through follow-up emails?
Unlike a standalone cold email with possibly one follow-up, a cold email sequence allows you to set the tone right with the initial email and slowly provide them with all the information.
Today, I’ll take you through creating and automating a high-converting cold email sequence, along with examples you can use.
The Elements of a High-Converting Cold Email Sequence
1. A Well-Defined Goal
Not everyone can be your target audience, and they certainly can’t all be on the same mailing list.
You might have founders, CMOs, sales reps, and executives on your list; not everyone has the same power.
Here’s what I recommend—segment your list into categories and send them each a targeted cold email sequence. And the goal of this sequence can be to book a meeting, schedule an interview, schedule a demo, invite to an event, promote a resource, pitch a free trial of your product, and so on.
Understand your goal and keep it in mind while writing those emails. It’ll help you craft the ideal email CTA and increase your chances of receiving a reply.
2. Thorough Market Research
When pitching anything via cold email, you cannot simply ask your audience to take you up on your offer just because you have something to sell. You need to know if they have a problem to be solved in the first place and if your offer can make things less painful or more delightful for them!
That's why market research is so important—it helps you to understand your target audience and tailor your outreach efforts to their specific needs and pain points.
Some essential steps you should perform before hitting the “Send” button include the following:
- Think about who you’re trying to reach—what are their job titles, industries, ambitions, and pain points?
- Check out your competition by signing up as a prospect and see if there are any gaps in their outreach approach that you can fill.
- Create surveys with questions about your target audience's current efforts, pain points, and preferences.
- Analyze the data you’ve collected to identify patterns and trends and use this information to tailor your email sequences.
3. A Tie-in with the Buyer Persona
Consider the stage of the buyer's journey your prospects are in—it’s vital you’re both on the same page, so your cold email sequence can come in at the right time and in the right place.
Ask yourself these questions:
- How aware are they of their problem?
- Are they aware that a solution exists?
- Do they know about all the available solutions?
- Are they already shortlisting solutions? Are they clear on the features/aspects of their ideal solution?
- Are they ready to buy a solution but can’t decide yet?
- What objections do they have when it comes to making the purchasing decision?
- How can I address those objections?
4. A Strong and Compelling Offer
The success of your cold outreach campaign largely depends on your offer—what you’re presenting to your audience in exchange for their time and attention.
A strong offer highlights “what’s in it for them” by targeting their pain point. Consider the outcomes your prospects will likely experience once they take action.
Create a sense of urgency to encourage them to take action.
For example, set a deadline for your offer or limit the number of available meeting spots.
Step-By-Step Process of Creating a Cold Email Sequence
Step 1: Initiating Contact with the Prospect
When contacting someone who isn’t expecting an email from you, find an ice-breaker to get on with the conversation on a positive note. And for this, I recommend finding a common point of interest or a piece of information you can leverage to make the connection.
For example, if you see a prospect getting featured on the news or hitting a significant milestone, start off by congratulating them.
Email #1
Subject: Congratulations on Series B funding!
Hi {{firstName}},
I came across your recent {{achievement}}, and I wanted to reach out to you personally to offer my congratulations.
I know you’re busy planning to scale your outreach efforts, so I’m swooping in to take that work off your plate!
At Super Send, we’ve helped businesses like yours streamline their outreach efforts and send hyper-targeted email campaigns to their audience. I would love to explain how Super Send can help you achieve your goal.
Would you like more details? Let me know.
{{signature}}
Step 2: Follow up with a Personalized and Valuable Tip
Cold outreach isn’t always about selling. Yep, you heard that right—it should be a give-and-take process where you offer something valuable in exchange for your prospects’ time.
Here’s how to do it:
Email #2:
Subject: {{firstName}}, here’s a gift for you!
Hi {{firstName}},
I’m following up on my previous email with a resource I think you’ll appreciate.
It’s an email-finding tool we’ve created to help founders like you kickstart their outreach journey and find themselves the right leads for their business.
Here’s the link: <link>
Would love to hear if it helped you and your team!
And, of course, if you're interested in learning more about our [product/service] and how it can help you streamline your [related pain point], feel free to reach out.
{Signature}
Step 3: Handling Objections by Showing Social Proof
We all have our doubts when considering a purchase. Don’t assume mere words would convince your prospects—you need to address their objections and prove that your product works!
Let’s check out an example:
Email #3
Subject: Are your bulk emails getting blacklisted?
Hi {{firstName}},
I know you have this huge pet peeve when it comes to cold outreach tools—outreach tools can get your domain blacklisted!
I get it.
The thing is, that’s only half-true. Sending bulk emails can put your domain at risk only if you don’t warm up your email account before sending those emails.
With Super Send, you can enable the warm-up option and add the number of emails you want to send. Then, it’ll automatically ramp up the frequency so you’re not looking sketchy to your leads’ ESPs!
Here’s a case study of how <client 1> doubled their outreach within two months of using Super Send: <case study link>
If that made sense and struck a chord with you, we’d love to hear from you!
{{Signature}}
Step 4: You Could Try Aggressive Selling in Cold Email
A genius way to make your offer more lucrative is to make it irresistible! Use all your selling strategies and create an urgency for the prospect.
(Of course, please don’t overdo it. There’s no need to be passive-aggressive or overly pushy. And always, always include an unsubscribe link.)
Email #4:
Subject: Don’t miss out on this offer!
Hi {{firstName}},
Just bumping this to the top of your inbox so you don’t miss out on this offer we’ve curated exclusively for you!
After all, we want you to grow your customers like {{client 1}} and {{client 2}} did.
Here’s the deal: Sign up using this link (link) within the next 48 hours, and you’ll get a 2-month free trial and a special 40% discount on our annual plans.
Don’t worry—even if you decide not to purchase the tool after the free trial, you won’t be charged.
If you’d like to discuss how Super Send can benefit your outreach efforts, feel free to schedule a quick call: <calendly link>.
{{Signature}}
Step 5: The Break-Up Email in Your Cold Email Sequence
The important thing about outreach is knowing when to cut ties with a prospect.
When you don’t get a reply after four emails, accept that they’re not interested and move on!
But even when saying Goodbye, take your best shot one last time and use FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) to lure them in.
Your email should make them feel like, “Oh, I might not hear from them again—maybe I should check out their offer!”
Here’s how to do it:
Email #5:
Hi {{firstName}},
This is the last time you’ll hear from us, as we’re closing files this week.
But before we say goodbye, I wanted to let you know that the offer still stands (since we got a huge response for the free trial) for another 48 hours.
If you’re interested, we’d love to help you!
<Free trial link>
Thanks for your time!
{{Signature}}
Bonus: Interview the Prospect
Look, flattery works. I didn’t make this up – in fact, it often looks downright silly to me. But people love to raise awareness about the awesome work they’re doing, so if you’re anticipating a struggle with what could be a major lead, try a cold intro in which you suggest an interview.
Email #1
- The email is simple and crisp.
- We’re complimenting the prospect for their work and boosting their ego so they feel honored.
- It uses a simple CTA that doesn’t sound too pushy and conveys the message just fine.
- [Next steps: Wait for two days and follow up.]
Email #2
- Gently remind them of the invite.
- Sound more authoritative by mentioning social proof (in our case, featuring many marketing leaders).
- We’re using a more convincing CTA, showing we are prepared with the interview questions. The prospects can simply look over the questions and prepare in advance too.
- We wait for three days before following up again.
Email #3
- Create urgency by stating that only a few spots are left.
- Offer them a plan B: the option to get featured some other time if they’re currently busy.
How to Automate a Cold Email Sequence Using Super Send
Finally, once you’ve prepped your campaign structure, you’ll need to push it to production. Super Send makes it super easy to create and automate email sequences.
With its drag-and-drop sequence builder, conditional branching, and other goodies like email warmup and spintax, you’ll have a blast creating hyper-targeted cold email sequences.
Follow these steps to create a high-converting cold email sequence using Super Send:
- Set up your Super Send account. This involves adding a sender’s email address and setting up DMARC, DKIM, and SPF to prevent spammers from sending emails from your domain and spoiling your reputation. (Follow this technical guide to get your Super Send account up and running).
- Go to the dashboard and create a new campaign.
3. You can either choose to create an AI-generated sequence by entering specific information about your product, offerings, and features or create a sequence from scratch.
4. Once you create a new sequence, this is how the dashboard will look. Just click “edit” to make changes to the emails (if you’ve created an AI-generated sequence), or start dragging and dropping elements from the right-hand menu bar.
Select the number of days you want to wait before following up.
- Once done, save the changes, go to the dashboard, and click “Start Campaign.”
Super Send will pick recipients from the leads list you’ve provided and automatically send the email sequence on the schedule you set.
The best part about Super Send is that it’s a multi-channel sales engagement tool. This means you can reach out to your reach via multiple channels such as Twitter – not just email.
For better results, I recommend creating multi-channel sequences—where you send a cold email as Step 1 and a Twitter DM as Step 2, and so on. This way, you’re meeting your target audience on their preferred platform and increasing your chances of getting noticed.
Andrew Pierno
Acquire More Customers with Targeted Cold Email Sequences
Crafting a high-converting cold email sequence requires careful planning and execution. You need to do your homework to understand your target market profoundly.
The goal is to send personalized and targeted cold email sequences that stand out from the clutter and provide real value.
And once you’ve done the legwork, Super Send saves you plenty of time and effort by helping you refine your email sequences and automate them. You can leave the technicalities to our nifty tool and focus on rocking your prospects’ worlds!
Try Super Send for free today!