We’ve all heard the saying: “You’ll never get a second chance to make a first impression.”
Those were the words my dad repeated to me over and over again when he was teaching me how to give a good handshake 🤝
(D. Frazier’s pro tip: The key is eye contact, and no more than three shakes. Four plus shakes and you’re a psychopath.)
Well, dad was right👴🏻
Unfortunately, today’s proverbial handshake for an SDR is often limited to cold emails. And the race for making a good first impression is fierce. Especially in a channel that is constantly competing for someone’s attention.
Think about it: How many emails would you say your company’s SDRs send in a day? 20? 30? 50? Now, how many of those emails lead to meetings?
According to TOPO, the average SDR writes about 40 outbound emails per day. Yet, only 48% of SDRs are actually hitting their quota.
So what gives?
The truth is, a majority of today’s cold outreach emails wouldn’t pass a simple Turing Test.
But don’t blame your SDRs. Many are working off a generic formula handed down to them. And, at their core, these methods aren’t that off base.
A typical cold email follows a simple format:
Your World Now > What Your World Could Be > How We Can Get You There
The problem? The utter lack of personality and personalization holding these formulas together.
You can use all the generic templates you want. But people AREN’T generic. Modern buyers can see right through an email that was sent to a thousand other people.
Through trial and error, we’ve learned that the best cold emails feel custom-built, not one-size-fits-all.
If you’ve ever received an email from Drift, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. We’ve been taught to throw the stuffy, corporate B2B jargon out the window and WRITE LIKE WE TALK. Emojis, GIFs, videos and all.
That also means we stick to the tried and true plain text email. No frills, just you.
After a week of receiving one too many of these generic SDR emails, I decided to reach out to our own sales development reps here at Drift. What emails were they using for cold outreach? And was there any way we could share the best of the best with other SDRs struggling to break through the noise?
Well, they delivered. And we wrote a book about it: 10 cold email templates straight from the Drift SDR team.
Here’s what’s inside:
- 10 cold email templates you can copy and paste straight into your email flows
- 10 examples of these templates in action at Drift
- 7 email best practices every SDR should live by
So, what are you waiting for? Get access to these 10 proven email templates now.
