It’s that time again! We’re showing you what NOT to do with your cold email outreach by taking the weakest cold email we received this week and ripping it a new one.

Welcome to Cold Email Gets Iced. Here’s out latest victim:

We have four main grievances with this email, we’ll start at the beginning.

Cold Email Critique #1 – Awkward Subject Line

“Greetings to you [First Name]!” isn’t the worst subject line we’ve ever read, and it does include some personalization (the only personalization in this email, we’ll get to that next). Still, it sounds stilted and clumsy. No one speaks that way, so I immediately had the expectation that this sender was either a bot or someone who didn’t know what they were doing.

Cold Email Critique #2 – No Personalization

I have no reason to believe from this email that you know who I am, what company I work for, or even what industry I’m in. “I understand what your business needs and the stress you are feeling” is a lackluster attempt at personal connection. It’s presumptuous and off-putting at best.

Cold Email Critique #3 – No Trust Factors

Not only does this sender only name their company in their signature, they give me zero reason to trust them. Especially if you are reaching out to someone for the first time, include previous clients, awards you’ve won, or certifications you have to build credibility.

Cold Email Critique #4 – No Call To Action

The biggest failure of this cold email is that I have no idea what they want me to do or how they want me to respond. Hell, I don’t even know what they’re selling. This was the first outreach I had received from this company, they’re speaking of working together, but haven’t told me how to move towards being their customer or what they offer besides “more sales and more money.” Every cold email needs a singular, compelling, clear call to action. This email has nothing.

Now, I must note, there are two ways that this sender did alright. Their body copy of their email was concise and they did write with a personal tone. But… that’s it. Overall I gave this email a 2/10 (and I definitely unsubscribed).

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Let us know if you’d like to read more cold email critiques! You can even nominate a cold email to get iced by sending it to rachel (at) avadel (dot) agency.