the industry average open rate for emails is alarmingly around 6% and if you want to be even more terrified the average reply rate is .9% not even a full percentage point but when you compare that to show me you know me open rates here's what we look like an average open of 43% and an average reply rate of 20% that's incredible and it's unheard of in the sales World which is unfortunate but also not so unfortunate because what that means for you is there's a massive opportunity for you to stand out in Executives inboxes simply
by putting some thought into what you write let me show you what an executive inbox usually looks like it's not pretty right available to talk can I make an intro quick introductions quick question there's so many subject lines that are all generic they say personalization at scale and they secretly say I want to sell you something you can do so much better than this and you've got to do better than this if you expect anyone to open read and reply to your email now let's get into exactly how you're going to do [Music] this the
subject line is the most important part of your email this is where you have just a few seconds to capture the attention of the CEO VP or whatever executive you're reaching out to the subject line could look something like this now when you read the subject line I want you to again reflect does the subject line make any sense to you if you say no then we did our job correctly this email was written specifically for the chief Logistics officer of Tori Burch a multi-billion dollar company and here's what happened in less than 10 hours
of that very first email being sent the person responded and they said your email stood out in a sea of emails that I get every single day now here's a really cool thing about the subject line as well this is where you can start to scale this what other Executives do you have that were in that same fraternity think about how this is a great opportunity to use that same subject line and to use it on multiple Executives while still making it look like it was just for them a couple of other tips think about
how to break up your subject line shorter is not necessarily better you don't have to adhere to less than four words and you can use plus signs as a great way to break up the verbiage in your subject line referencing those exact tips here's an example of a subject line that would work on me Switzerland plus liip cheeseburger plus your company name I want you to think about the subject line again it makes absolutely no sense to you and it makes absolutely no sense to anybody that you know except for me I'm originally from Switzerland
I was born just outside Geneva I live in Washington DC and I often wax poetic about the cheeseburger Ella Diplomat and your company name doesn't make any sense to me but the first two things do so it's at least going to get me to open up the email and see what it is that you have to say about the incredible show me you know me that you did on [Music] me the second most important part of your email is the first sentence your subject line plus your first sentence is what's known as the preview text
and that's primarily what determines if your email gets read There are two different approaches that I'd recommend trying here at my compy Sam sales our go-to first sentence is this hi Bill we have yet to be properly introduced but I'm s Kenna and now a couple things here a lot of people will say not to introduce yourself in the first sentence it's a waste of space they say but here's where I differ in opinion when you put together a subject line that shows that person that you know them and you've done research and you pair
it with we have yet to be properly introduced what you're signaling to somebody is that perhaps we should have been introduced and that you do know something about them now another example is to go right into the show me you know me don't waste any time you might say something about their dog in the subject line and then say something like this in your first sentence bill I saw your recent post about your adorable furry companion sprinkles and and then tie it back to your own dog you'll see some of the most highlevel Executives often
post about their dog so a great way to open up the door with them is to reference those animals and again to think about an authentic tie right back to you [Music] your value proposition is not what you do most emails that we see say what the person does now that's a marketing email so your value proposition is truly the challenge that you solve what is it that you do for that particular buyer and how can you help them I see this kind of value proposition all the time s hiring we see most C struggle
because they ignore this challenge we see want to hear more now we see emails like this because we're often encouraged as sellers to write short short short emails but again I beg to differ here longer is better and here's why we have to convince our buyer that time with us will be well spent when you state something specifically that you can solve for them then think what is the next big objection what is the buyer thinking and what's their rebuttal you stating that you can solve a challenge for them isn't enough you might get them
to either object say we don't need that we say we already do that something like that so we've got to get around that objection to begin with let's take a look at an example that someone on the Sam sales team might send to a prospect let's say our value proposition starts with this if you're anything like our clients you see your usage rates of LinkedIn sales Navigator hover around 5% of your licenses we can train your teams and bring that number up I also know that my most common objection is eh we have a customer
success manager at LinkedIn we don't need this so if they said that to me or if they responded to me in that way what would I say back this is what I want to write succinctly in the first email you likely have a customer success manager at Link in but rather than having them teach you what buttons to push our team will teach you how to use this platform to sell in the same way that she did when she was an executive at LinkedIn for her teams so what that does right for that buyer is
huh oh so maybe there is something not only that Sam can do to improve our rates but to change how we use the platform and finally what you thought would never come the end of the email how do we close it for starters with any outbound email and I would tell you even referral emails where you get introductions that are inbound do not use a calendar link why don't we want to do this it's presumptuous it's a little rude and it puts the onus on the individual to schedule time with you here's the other thing
that I don't like about it now that individual is working around your calendar instead of you working around theirs another thing to avoid is writing something along the lines of do you have 15 to 20 minutes tomorrow to chat or would Monday at 1: p.m. work again the reason for this is it's presumptuous in terms of a short timeline tomorrow or it gets too specific and it allows the buyer to say no to Monday at 1 and then you're left in a pattern of chasing them what I would tell you to do instead is something
that looks different and that looks like this simply say do you have time over the next week or two to learn more let me know what works for you and I'll send a calendar invite along accordingly nobody sends scripting that looks like that so not only will you be different but you'll take their timing and their calendar into effect allowing you to schedule the call you to control the timing and even for you to rearrange things on your calendar to accommodate them [Music] I've just walked you through beginning to end exactly how to structure emails
that will get replies from high value prospects if you want to see a few examples that put it all together I encourage you to check out the resources section of this course I also want to challenge you to start putting this all into practice set a goal for yourself perhaps it's just 20 emails per week remember quality over quantity but start practicing these emails writing with this new scpt following these new techniques that I've taught you and I promise you will start seeing results [Music] immediately hey there hopefully you enjoyed this cold email course with
Sam McKenna there's a lot of value packed into the video so don't forget to review the key takeaways and if you're looking for more content like this you can head over to Apollo Academy where you can get access to these courses before they hit YouTube