Cold Emailing

Client acquisition email template

lemlist team
LAST UPDATED
October 24, 2023
READING TIME
7 min.

What's good my people? :)

This week, I've been given a challenge of coming up with an inspirational email template. My goal? Create an email template specifically focused around client acquisition.

The important thing you need to take away from the article that it's just a first step of the sale. It's the awareness stage of your funnel. What does that mean? Two things:

  1. The goal is to get people to engage with you or your content, not sell.
  2. Set up your funnel outside the email

Number one means you're not going to sign clients straight away, but you'll be able to build a relationship first. Number two, it's not just the email. It's your Social Media accounts, your website content and your retargeting.

But we'll talk about that later. First, the template!

Introducing the client acquisition email

Offering SEO services, Social Media management or any type of a campaign that requires creative work is super difficult.

For starters, there are many talented competitors pitching the same pitch. But, more importantly, it's difficult to prove to your prospect that you can bring positive ROI because in most cases they won't have the patience for it.

That's why the essential component of every email outreach is understanding your core audience.

When it comes to content, I basically see it in two forms. You're either going to educate and inform your audience about something they have interest in or you're going to entertain them with something that's funny or viral.

The email template you're about to see has the goal to educate. The topic is - "Why 2019 is the Year of LinkedIn + #1 Strategy to Seize the Opportunity".

Obviously, you have some super light text personalization with a dynamic image as the main attention grabber. On that note, using personalized images for email campaigns brings INSANE results.

I'm gonna get into the funnel and mindset talk in a minute, after I show you how the template actually looks like:

Client-Acqusition-Cold-Email-Template-min

The idea was to visually and in a cool way outline the LinkedIn opportunity. Plus, that customization and the fact it's about you is the secret sauce.

Finally, here's the email body:

🤜🤛 {{firstName}},

Don’t know if you’ve noticed it too, but [WRITE THE OPPORTUNITY HERE].This represents a major opportunity for {{companyName}}.

And it's precisely where you and I come in…

If you remember, this is exactly how [WRITE A PROOF OR AN EXAMPLE HERE].

So, with that in mind, I wanted to bring your attention to [WRITE YOUR VALUE PITCH HERE].

Essentially, do this {{firstName}}:

IMAGE

See you on the other side,

{{signature}

Who is this email template for?

I think everyone can tweak the image, the topic and the text for their own use. It doesn't have to be about LinkedIn and you can change the time frame on the X axis to be more relevant to your business. Don't worry, you have the blank template you can edit in lemlist.

The majority of people who will use this are probably hardcore marketers, SEO professionals, link building grinders, Social Media managers, content people, SaaS entrepreneurs, startup founders etc.

Now, for this particular example, I've chosen LinkedIn as the main topic and pictured myself as if I worked in a digital marketing agency. But again, you can easily tailor this cold email template so it fits your target.

How to set up client acquisition email template?

It's super easy. Here's what you need to do:

  1. Log in to your lemlist account  If you don't have one, you can sign up for the free trial (no credit card required) and get FULL access to the platform so you can see this email template in action  
  2. Watch the video tutorial!
  3. Join the lemlist family community and share your results and get inspired by others :)

Why having a sales funnel is CRITICAL

Let's break it down.

In the email, I'm focusing on LinkedIn and trying to explain why 2019 is going to be all about LinkedIn. But keep in mind that you have to be a practitioner and be able to explain what you've just said. In other words, have you seen what's happening with organic exposure there? Do you have some results to prove you can do it?

My short-term goal is to send my prospects value. I want them to learn how they can leverage LinkedIn to drive business outcomes. My long-term objective is to sign them as my clients and do content marketing for them.

But here's the important one my friend. I'm not selling anything in the cold email. All I want you to do is to click and check out this piece of content on my website. FOR FREE! I'm making sure the copy is crisp and hoping that personalized image will do the trick of making you want to click even more.

Once you drop by my website, I got one word for you ... retargeting. Yes, I'm running Facebook Ads to have you come back and engage with more of the similar content or with a bit more sales-y stuff. That will depend on the campaign and the audience.

Great remarketing audiences have to be built. Cold emailing is one of the main tactics to do that.

In this example, I can run an ad to show you a relevant case study of mine to move you down the funnel. Or, another piece of content like "4 SaaS Companies that are Killing It on LinkedIn" to bring even more value to your world and build more leverage for me later.

The important thing here is the more you're interacting with my content, and if Google Analytics proves that, the easier for me is to sell you my skills down the road.

So the goal is showing you my best content on Facebook. Alternatively, you can sign your prospects to an email sequence, to your YouTube channel or connect with them on LinkedIn. There are many ways to do this.

The important thing is to get them into your funnel, bring MORE value and then go for the sale. The problem is that people go for the sale WAY TOO EARLY.

Even if I don't get that sale at the end, you might share my article or talk about my cold email, so word-of-mouth amplification can still bring it home.

Literally I'm distributing content more than doing anything else. I'm building integrity and expertise through content and making sure I'm on your screen tomorrow.

If you're a big agency or have a proven track record, you can probably go for a sale earlier. But if you're like me, a young marketing practitioner with not-so-flashy results yet, you gotta do more work.

It's as simple as that.

Finally, as previously stated, you can tweak the Client Acquisition Email Template any way you want and set the funnel you think works best for you ... with as many or as few steps you'd like.

That's it for this week. Hope you guys like the new template and that it will help you crush your email outreach game. Stay tuned because we will be posting another inspirational template next week.

lemlist team
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G2 Rating
Price
Best for
Standout feature
Con
4.9
star
star
star
star
star
$30/mo
$75/mo
$2,999/mo
Large, distributed sales teams
AI evaluation precision, gamified KPIs
Lack of tracking system
4.6
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Sales operations and finance teams
Powerful configurability
Limited training resources and complex to navigate
4.4
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Mid-market and enterprise businesses
Comprehensive incentive management
Potentially high cost and steep learning curve
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
$15/user/mo
$40/user/mo
Enterprise: custom price
Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes
Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes
Steep learning curve
4.6
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Collaborative teams
Connected planning
Complexity and steep learning curve
4.6
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with complex sales structures
Complex incentive compensation management (ICM) with high efficiency and accuracy
Complexity for smaller teams and potentially high costs
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies who want to automate commission calculations and payouts
Simplicity and ease of use
Lack of features like redirection
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
$30/user/mo
$35/user/mo
Custom: upon request
Businesses that need a comprehensive and user-friendly sales compensation management software
Ease of use and adoption
Lack of ability to configure the product based on user needs
4.8
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with modern sales culture and businesses who want real-time insights
A built-in dispute management and real-time visibility
Users say it works slowly, customer support is slow
4.9
star
star
star
star
star
$30/user/mo
$50/user/mo
Smaller sales teams
Powerful automation
Lesser user base and average user interface
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with scalable needs
Automated Commission Calculations
Lack of filtering by date, no mobile app
ERP vs. CRM
ERP
CRM
Summary
Backbone of a business's internal operations.
Backbone of customer-centric interactions and operations.
Goal
To centralize and streamline core business processes in a company.
To increase customer experience, satisfaction and loyalty, and boost sales.
Focus
Internal operations and processes across departments (finance, accounting, inventory, supply chain, HR, and sales).
All interactions with leads and customers.
Manages
Internal business data like financial data, inventory levels, production details, supply chain, HR info.
All customer data like contact info, purchase history, communication history, customer preferences and more.
Users
Finance, accounting, operations, supply chain, and HR departments.
Customer-facing teams like sales, marketing, and customer service.
Benefits
Streamlines operations, improves data accuracy, enhances decision-making, boosts collaboration, increases productivity.
Improves customer relationships, increases sales, strengthens customer service, personalizes marketing campaigns, provides insights.
Price
$150 per user per year on average.
$10 to $30 per user per month on average.
PRM Tool
Rating
Feature
Pro
Con
Mobile App
Integrations
Free Plan
Pricing
4.65
star
star
star
star
star-half
Org-wide alignment
User-friendly layout and database
Suboptimal as a personal CRM
square-check
Lack of tracking system
square-check
Team: $20/month
Business: $45/month
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Social Media Integration
Easy contact data collection
No marketing/sales features
square-check
Lack of tracking system
square-xmark
7-day trial
$12/month
4.75
star
star
star
star
star-half
Block Functions
High customization capability
Not a dedicated CRM
square-check
Limited
square-check
Plus: €7.50/month
Business: €14/month
N/A
Open-source
Open-source flexibility
Requires extensive manual input
square-xmark
Limited
square-check
Self-hosted
$9/month or
$90/year
3.1
star
star
star
Simple iOS app
Ideal for non-tech-savvy users
iPhone only
square-check
iOS only
Limited
square-xmark
1-month trial
$1.49/month or
$14.99/month
3.6
star
star
star
star-half
Smart Contact Management
Feature-rich and flexible
Reported bugs
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
7-day trial
Premium: $13.99/month
Teams: $17.99/month
4.4
star
star
star
star
star-half
Customizable Interface
Customizable for teamwork
Pricey for personal use
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
Standard: $24/member
Premium: $39/member
4.7
star
star
star
star
star-half
Integrated Calling
Integrated Calling
Too sales-oriented & pricey
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
14-day trial
Startup: $59/user/month
Professional: $329/user/month
4.8
star
star
star
star
star
Business Card Scanning
Business Card Scanning
Mobile only
square-check
Limited
square-check
$9.99/month
4.45
star
star
star
star
star-half
160+ app integrations
Comprehensive integrations
No free app version
square-check
Rich
square-xmark
14-day trial
$29.90/month or
$24.90/month (billed annually)
Capterra Rating
Free Trial
Free Plan
Starting Price (excluding the free plan)
Maximum Price (for the most expensive plan)
Best for
4.5
star
star
star
star
star-half
square-check
14-day
square-check
€15/month/seat billed annually
€792/month/3 seats billed annually + €45/month for each extra seat
Versatility and free plan
4.2
star
star
star
star
square-check
30-day
square-xmark
But it offers reduced price to authorised nonprofit organisations
€25/user/month
€500/user/month billed annually (includes Einstein AI)
Best overall operational CRM
4.3
star
star
star
star
star-half
square-xmark
square-check
Limited to 3 users
Comprehensive incentive management
€52/user/month billed annually
Small-medium businesses and automation
4.5
star
star
star
star
star-half
square-check
14-day
square-xmark
€14/seat/month billed annually
€99/seat/month billed annually
Sales teams and ease of use
4.1
star
star
star
star
square-xmark
square-check
Limited 10 users
$9.99/user/month billed annually
$64.99/user/month billed annually
Free plan for very small teams up to 10
CRM goal
Increase the sales conversion rate for qualified leads from marketing automation campaigns by 10% in the next 6 months.
SMART Breakdown
1. Specific: It targets a specific area (conversion rate) for a defined segment (qualified leads from marketing automation).
2. Measurable: The desired increase (10%) is a clear metric, and the timeframe (6 months) allows for progress tracking.
3. Achievable: A 10% increase is possible based on historical data and potential improvements.
4. Relevant: Boosting sales from marketing efforts aligns with overall business objectives.
5. Time-bound: The 6-month timeframe creates urgency and a clear target date.
Actions
Step 1: Refine lead qualification criteria to ensure high-quality leads are nurtured through marketing automation.
Step 2: Personalize marketing automation campaigns based on lead demographics, interests, and behavior.
Step 3: Develop targeted landing pages with clear calls to action for qualified leads.
Step 4: Implement lead scoring to prioritize high-potential leads for sales follow-up.
Step 5: Track and analyze campaign performance to identify areas for optimization.
Outcomes
Increased sales and revenue
Improved marketing automation ROI
Marketing and sales alignment
Data-driven marketing optimization
Table
CDP Software
CRM Software
Approach
Data-centric
Customer-centric
Focus
Interactions across various channels and touchpoints, both online and offline.
Sales, marketing, and customer service interactions.
Functionality
Automatically collects, organizes, tags, and makes data available in real-time.
Helps businesses track customer interactions, sales pipelines, prospects, and service requests.
Goals
Personalized customer experiences across all channels.
Better customer relationships, streamlined processes, and improved profitability.
Benefits
Data integration, management, and accessibility, allowing for detailed analysis and segmentation.
Better communication within teams and with customers by organizing information about customer interactions and history.
Data Handling
Handles both identified and anonymous data, stitches together various data points.
Deals primarily with identified customer data.
Use Cases
Personalized marketing campaigns, targeted advertising, content customization across multiple channels.
Managing campaigns and leads, enhancing customer service, providing better customer support, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Examples
Insider, Bloomreach, Salesforce Marketing Cloud CDP
HubSpot, Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional, and Zoho CRM
CRM
Free plan
Best feature
Best for
Con
1. HubSpot CRM
square-check
Sales automation
Sales teams
Up to 1,000 contacts
2. Insightly
square-check
Custom fields
Basic needs
Not enough info about the free plan
3. Agile CRM
square-check
Deal and sales pipeline tracking
Small teams
Up to 10 users
4. Zoho CRM
square-check
Lead and contact management
Businesses of all sizes
Limited to 3 users
5. ClickUp
square-check
Unlimited tasks and unlimited members
Personal use
Up to 100MB storage
6. EngageBay
square-check
Live chat
Small and midsize enterprises
Up to 1,000 branded emails per month
7. Bitrix24
square-check
Unlimited users and 5 scrum teams
Big teams
Up to 5GB of cloud storage
8. FreshSales
square-check
Easy to use and simple setup
Beginners
Up to 3 users
9. Mailchimp
square-check
Very beginner friendly
Marketing teams
Send up to 500 branded emails per month
Type of Affiliate Marketing
Unattached
Related
Involved
Format
Paid advertising
Social media or YouTube channels
Dedicated website or blog
Focus
Quick income
Your niche
Your audience
Engagement with your audience
square-xmark
square-check
square-check
square-check
square-check
Very close connection with your audience
Pro
Little effort
Higher credibility thanks to your niche
Long-lasting and scalable
Con
Paid ads cost a lot
Potential for bias since you don’t use the thing you promote
Require time, effort, and dedication

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