Thread by @iamwillcannon

Crazy Story:

One time we had to stop a cold email campaign because we were actually getting too many replies...

(80% open rate & 62% reply rate)

Below is the exact cold email so you can steal it:

There are 7 moving parts here so don't get lost!

1. Subject line

"Your story"

The subject line is short, adds curiosity, and most important of all:

It doesn't look spammy.

If your subject line begins with something like "hey Will, wanna chat this week?"

You already lost.

2. First line

"Rand. I came across your interview with Alex Turnbull from Groove"

Very personalized.

Rule of thumb:

A good cold email doesn't look like a cold email.

We thought:

"Who are some thought leaders in the B2B customer acquisition space we want to learn from?"

We said that these are people who have been on interviews.

They were thought leaders who have already been on podcasts and interviews.

So, we found an interview for each one of them.

(we knew that Rand was on an interview with Alex, so Alex from Groove was a snippet)

Because each person that we reached out to was on an interview with SOMEONE at A COMPANY, we used this in every email.

We're saying we 'stumbled' on a recent interview of them.

Rand went on this podcast weeks before the email - the perfect timing.

3. Second line

"I'm the founder at UpLead..."

I'm letting him know who I am,

Telling him I'm the founder of UpLead.

I'm also saying what we're doing + why I'm reaching out to him very quickly.

He already was on interviews...

So we know he does interviews.

Naturally,

This means he might be inclined to do another one with us.

(spoiler alert: it worked)

4. Third line

"We've got an awesome audience of over 20k entrepreneurs..."

We need to convey our value.

So, we told him we have a 20k awesome audience of entrepreneurs + sales leaders

("entrepreneurs and sales" is important if their product is geared towards those people)

We tell him how valuable we are because we have an audience of 20k...

a decent audience of people HE sells to = people that relate to his product

So, coming on our interview could be valuable because you're 'reaching' over 20k entrepreneurs and sales leaders.

5. Fourth line

"Looking to learn from SUCCESSFUL leaders like YOURSELF."

We stroke their ego...

Meaning we're saying that you're successful and we want to hear from you.

6. Fifth line

"We don't do it over the phone"

We make it easier for them.

For the interview, it's not over the phone - you don't have to show your face.

It's a simple set of questions + we'll send it to you on a Google Doc.

You can fill it out at your convenience.

We don't sell the product:

We sell the call.

They don't have to schedule time in their calendar.

It's VERY low commitment,

Very convenient + easy for them to say yes.

7. Sixth line

"Would it be okay if I send it over for you to have a look?"

ALWAYS have a clear CTA.

Ask for something that seems simple for them...

And make sure it's just one thing.

One question to get one answer.

This cold email killed it.

We had 800 of these prepared:

We sent out the first 50 and so many people replied and agreed that I couldn't handle 800 interviews being scheduled.

It was too much for us.

(we only sent the first 50 emails or so!)

And by the way,

This wasn't for profit.

It was something just for fun to connect with leaders + learn from them.

Also:

There was only one follow-up.

If we did more follow-ups, we could easily have gotten to 80-90% reply rate (which is basically unheard of with cold email)

Summary:

>very personalized
>we're giving value
>we're stroking the ego
>we're giving you potential customers

These people are responding for one reason:

They have a product/service to sell.

If we're gonna help them do that?

It's a no-brainer.

And last thing:

We did around 15-20 of these founder interviews.

We call them the Uplead growth chats.

Enjoyed this thread?

Then you'll love what I have in store for you over the next few months.

I built UpLead, a business valued at $75 million... and now I'm sharing everything I've learned along the way on Twitter.

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