17 B2B cold sales email templates that actually convert

You can spend hours meticulously crafting cold emails, only to be met with silence.

Sound familiar?

Well, you're not alone. Many B2B sales professionals struggle to crack the code of effective email outreach.

But you're about to discover how you can ramp up your open and reply rates, with the same techniques that helped us get to $20+ million ARR.

In this article, you’ll learn how to write a sales email, with 17 examples of high-conversion, personalized templates that you can use right now.

How do you write a sales email?

A successful cold email has a catchy subject line, an intro line that connects emotionally to the recipient, a personalized pitch, and an email closure that simply explains the next step.

1. Write a clickable subject line

First, a good sales email starts with a good subject line. This is the first thing your prospect will see, and it sets their expectation for the email as a whole.

Motivate the reader to want to open your email by making it intriguing.

For example:

❌ "Improve your email deliverability": sales-y and doesn’t focus on a benefit.

✅ ”Want to reach 50%+ open rate?": personable, with a tangible result.

If you're unsure how to write a clickable subject line, here's a list of the best cold email subject lines - according to real data.

2. Hook prospects with your intro line

Here is how your prospects read their email inboxes:

To stand out from any crowd, you want to make your first sentence click with your audience and push them to open your email.

For instance:

❌ "I'm Lucille, working at lempire and I have a sales automation platform that will save 50% of your time/money" : vague, generic, and doesn’t focus on the prospect.

✅ "I saw your recent post in the SaaS Growth Hacks group where you were looking for ways to market your tool with a small team.." : specific, and focuses on the prospect.

If you want to go in-depth on opening line tactics, check this guide on how to start an email.

3. Craft a personalized pitch

Your pitch has to be about the value and benefits you bring for prospects, and not the other way around.

Show them you understand their needs and pains, lead by example, and demonstrate your expertise on the subject.

You can offer materials or useful resources like a blog, article, video, referral, etc. It creates interest and positions you as an expert.

Here’s an example:

❌ "lemlist helps to get in touch with anyone with great multichannel features" : too focused on selling lemlist.

✅  "I'm curious to learn more about your current outbound strategy. What say you if we hop on a call and exchange our best practices?" : gets the reader interested without feeling like they’re being sold something.

Remember - your goal is to book a meeting or a demo first, build a relationship, and sell later.

To perfect your copywriting, use these data-driven best practices for cold email copywriting.

4. Close with a clear CTA

The end of your email should have a sharp, clear, and urgent call-to-action. You never want your prospects to think too long on what they need to do next.

Remember, it shouldn't be focused on closing a deal, but on the next step. And that's getting a reply and qualifying interest.

Here's what I mean:

❌ "If interested, let me know what day works best" : not clear and actionable enough.

✅ "Are you available next Tuesday at 10am or 4pm ?", or give a calendar link with your availability: this way, the prospect has an easy way to get in touch.

Need more information on how to close an email? Unsure if you should use signoffs like “cheers” or “best regards?”

Use our complete guide on how to end a cold email.

5. Send follow-ups

If initial cold emails don't get the number of replies you want, it doesn't necessarily mean that your prospects are uninterested.

Maybe they were busy at that time, forgot to respond, or simply had something else going on.

You should always add follow-ups in ALL your campaigns.

We’ll include a few follow-up templates for you in the next section, but to dive deep on the subject, check out these follow-up email templates. To learn the best number of follow-ups to send per campaign, read our data analysis of cold email follow-ups.

17 B2B sales email templates that get replies

Ok, now that you’ve learned the perfect cold email structure, here are 17 sales email templates with proven success rates.

These examples are some of the high-performing templates that helped our company drive revenue and reach $22,000,000+ ARR down the road.

Consider this your go-to resource for emails that convert.

1. Coffee template, a classic lemlist sales email

Sales is about building relationships. Before trying to close a deal, network. Meet people, discuss, ask for feedback, and then you'll see how much easier selling becomes.

Here is the sales email Iryna shot when she first arrived at lemlist.

Subject line: {{firstName}}, my email isn’t cold (I promise)

Hey {{firstName}}, I recently joined lemlist and would love to talk to you about your vision of outbound and automation.

There are plenty of things to cover, so any tips/strategies from you would be helpful!

In return, I’ll be happy to reveal a few cold-email personalization tricks (that got us from 0 to 10 million ARR) over coffee!
‍

{{personalized image}}


Choose the best time for you here ☕
{{signature}}

Here's the personalized image Iryna included with her campaign:

Authenticity, personalization, and value. That’s what brought her a 76% open rate and 12% reply rate.

Wondering how to build these kind of personalized images, add them to your campaign and have them adapt automatically to every prospect? Check out this video tutorial!

2. Prospecting email template with high personalization

If you want your sales emails opened and not immediately trashed, personalize them.

The first priority is a good intro line that breaks the ice and is specific to your prospect.

Here’s how to automate that for every prospect in advance:

Open a csv, add your list of prospects with their info, and add a column called "IceBreaker."

Find any relevant info on your prospect to make them understand you've done your research about them, their organization, and/or their industry before sending that sales email.

Then add it to your email like this:

Subject line: Intro {{firstName}} X Clémence

Hello {{firstName}},

{{icebreaker}}

Hence this email 🙂

When I started my agency, my biggest challenge was being not sure if I was burning my domain and my clients’ domains by sending too many emails. Especially when some clients were already coming with a damaged domain name from mass emailing!

I’m curious to know, which process do you have in place to help your clients eliminate their deliverability problems?

I recently realized how complex of a subject deliverability is and at what point some small adjustments can have instant impact on my open rate (from 33% to 78% on average!).

If you’re interested in this, I’d love to talk with you about my methods. You can find my availability here.

{{signature}}

P.S. Here’s a short article on how to ensure good deliverability and optimize your conversation rate. Take a look!

{{iceBreaker}} will that be replaced with the right sentence for each of your prospects. 👇

Clémence got a 89% open rate and 13% reply rate with this cold email.

3. Milestone sales email template

One of the best ways to contact many companies is to congratulate them on a milestone (new ARR hit, fundraising, etc.).

For example, type the name of your prospect's company + "fundraising," check the News tab in Google, and see what's interesting.

Everyone likes to be congratulated! You just have to be genuine and honest about the way you do it and, once again, show you've done your homework.

Subject line: Congrats for your ${{amount}} fundraise 🎉

Hey {{firstName}}!

Just saw your fundraising announcement, congrats on your {{amount}} milestone!

From what I understood, you plan to hire new members all around the world.

I was curious to know what solutions you’re using to proceed at scale?

We’ve already helped {{similarCompany1}} and {{similarCompany2}} with our solution, and they have doubled their sales team since then!

Are you available next Monday at 4 PM to discuss that?

Cheers,
{{signature}}

Then you can link it to your solution and offer to discuss about a specific topic link to the milestone.

Also mention 1 or 2 existing customers for credibility and to show that you understand their industry.

4. Personalized video thumbnail

One our most succcessful cold email templates has a personalized video thumbnail.

In plain terms, it's a custom image generated with unique elements for your prospect (custom text, their company logo, etc), and a play button to generate clicks.

For instance, here's how one of our users leveraged this strategy to grow his business.

Subject line: Introducing Impressius - franchise opportunity in {{country}}

Hi {{firstName}},

Thank you for your interest in learning more about becoming an Impressius licensee!

I’ve recorded this video message for you, click to watch it:

{{personalizedVideoThumbnail}}


See you there,
{{signature}}

Here is the custom image he added to his campaign:

Nicolas had a 91% open rate and a 65% reply rate with this template.

To make your own personalized video thumbnails, take a look at this video tutorial.

5. Using social proof to book meetings with prospects

To get a response from your prospects, you have to convince them that you’ve got expertise on subjects relevant to them.

A great way to do that is to add targeted social proof.

Here’s how one of our users did that to get hundreds of replies from his prospects:

Subject line: Artificial intelligence

Hello {{firstname}},

I saw on LinkedIn that you are interested in smart building.

May I ask if you (or your clients) have ever used AI to regulate heating?

With our clients (L'Oréal, Dassault, Crédit Agricole), our AI reduces energy consumption by 15 to 27%.

We rely on the existing BMS, so no work is required.

You might also be interested in this.

Would you be available Monday at 11:30 AM to chat about this opportunity? Or grab a convenient time for you here.


Yours truly,
{{signature}}

Adrien used this template more than 1500 times, with a 15% reply rate.

6. Schedule a meeting with your sales email

Before focusing on your features, make sure to qualify your prospects first and let them understand the benefits you can offer them.

Here’s an example:

Subject line: Thanks for the ebook {{firstName}}

Hey {{firstName}},

The ebook you’ve shared on building a marketing plan was spot on. Loved the highlight it puts on the impact of proper messaging and how easily it gets overlooked.

You wore many hats in your career, from social marketing to enterprise sales, so you’re surely aware of the importance personalization and proper messaging has in cold outbound.

Hell, you wouldn’t be able to {{recentWin}} without it! I’m curious to know if you have something in place to help your team stay efficient?

If this resonates, let me know. I would be happy to chat over coffee. My availability is here.

Take care,
{{signature}}

The only rule is: make your CTA clear and simple.

This B2B sales email template got an 80% open rate and 23% reply rate.

7. Template to focus on pain points

The idea here is to show prospects that you understand their pain and that you are the one to help with it.

You do that either by leading by example and showing you've cracked the code in the past, or you build a trustworthy personal brand that tells that for you.

Subject line: Ideas for {{painPoint}}

Hey {{firstName}}, what if {{ceoFirstName}} heard that you’d managed to increase the number of deals in your pipeline by 50%?

Cool, right?

Gabriel Frasconi, Head of Sales at Zendesk, was able to do this thanks to lemlist. Using the tool, his sales team was able to increase his open rate from 35% to 75% and book 2x more meetings.

Would you be open to having a chat, and see if we can do the same for you? Here’s my availability, if you’re interested.

{{signature}}

P.S. {{firstName}}, you can check how Gabriel did it right here!

In this template, Simon used two important factors:

• Figures. People trust stats, so when they're good, put them forward.
• Social proof. The audience can identify with Gabriel Frasconi, so if he achieved this goal with lemlist, that's reassuring

The P.S. also assists in facilitating social proof.

This email is part of a campaign that had a 45% reply rate.

8. Promoting your (better) solution

A great way to demonstrate the quality of your solution is to give prospects a tangible example.

In the template below, Anthony sent prospects a real example of how his work will make their lives easier.

Subject: Hi {{firstName}}, here's how ASMR content SHOULD sound

Hey {{firstName}},

So I found your IG @{{Handle}} on #ASMR the other day and wanted to share this 1-minute comparison video I made demonstrating how I (an audio engineer) get the most tingles out of a recording.

l also want to share my knowledge with content creators, so if you have any questions about recording ASMR content, just reply to this email.

I'm super keen to help you out, so I'm going to follow up in 3 days. I respect if you wouldn't like me to follow up, here’s an unsubscribe button. Just to clarify, I've not added you to any newsletters or weekly communications.

{{signature}}

Anthony used this template 487 times, with a 30% reply rate.

9 Cold sales email with a website screenshot

Among all the variables you integrate into your copy, having a custom website screenshot can really make a difference.

This will grab the attention of your prospects who'll recognise their content and design.

You can explain how you found their website and why you decided to reach out.

Here’s an example of a template that you can use this kind of image in:

Subject line: Business Partnership: {{companyName}} & JustCall.io

Hi {{firstName}}!

Decided to send you and your teammate {{Teammate}} my feedback on {{companyName}}.

I found {{companyURL}} while searching for the best {{industry}} websites in {{City}}.

It looks user friendly and has an individual design. I sincerely like it.

{{personalizedWebsiteScreenshot}}

I noticed some loading issues with photos, in any case. Are you aware of it?

As a technician, I found out that you use Magento 1 version, and I know it has lots of performance drops.

In using Magento 1, what difficulties have you faced?

Keep up the good work!
{{signature}}

The trick here is to position yourself as a problem solver, so your prospects are more willing to reply to improve their work processes.

80% of people have opened this email and 19% have answered. Check out Jane's work.

10. Inside sales email templates

Inside sales are scenarios when your prospect expressed an interest before you decide to reach out.

Of course, just because the prospect has come to you does not mean that you should treat this interaction lightly.

Here’s an example of how you can reach out:

Subject line: Thanks for joining the webinar, {{firstName}}!

Hey {{firstName}},

I saw you’ve been with us for our webinar with Becc Holland 😃

I hope you got some nice tips for your outbound strategy.

Since you work at an agency, I thought you might like to see how one of our customers got a 69% open rate and a 17% reply rate with his latest campaign.

Also, if you want more details on our multichannel prospecting strategy, Briana wrote a complete article here.

If there’s anything I can help you with for your next campaigns, just book a slot in my lemcal, and I’ll be super happy to help you out.

Cheers,
{{signature}}

That's our way to go with inside sales email templates. Give it a try, and see how your discussion will naturally and genuinely go down your funnel.

11. Partnership email templates

It is true for every cold email, but even more for partnerships: you should propose win-win situations.

When everybody wins, there are no frustrations.

Here’s a template you can use for partnerships:

Subject line: Question about {{companyName}}?

Hello {{firstName}},

Through my search for partnerships with product design agencies like yours, I saw {{companyName}} profile on {{site}} and saw your showcase of working with {{icebreaker}}, congrats on having an impressive profile of work!

We at Rubikal are in search of partnering with design agencies where we can complement and build their designed products.

I’d love to learn how you manage to develop your designed products? I saw you don’t have a focus on engineering in-house.

I am attaching our profile of work for your reference. If this sounds interesting I would love to arrange for a 15 minute call - grab a time from my availability here.

Best,
{{signature}}

The intro line breaks the ice, the second shares info about Ehab's company, and the third delivers a concrete value proposition.

Don't overcomplicate things. Be straightforward in your messaging.

Ehab got 90% open rate and 17% reply rate with this email.

12. Identify decision-makers in your sales emails

Sometimes, your sales email is perfect, your deliverability is awesome, and your solution is just amazing.

But, you still get no answer.

That can be because you didn't reach out to the right person. Don't hesitate to ask them to point you in the right direction.

Subject line: Business Partnership: {{companyName}} & JustCall.io

Hi Team,

Can you please direct me to the person in your organization who is the decision-maker in Strategic Alliances and Partnerships?

JustCall is an intelligent cloud telephony provider that integrates with multiple other CRMs and Helpdesks, allowing agents to automate, track, and analyze their calls & SMS.

I’m reaching out to discuss a potential partnership with {{companyName}} on a revenue-sharing basis, as we are also a PipeDrive Integrator.

Let me know if this interests you.

Regards,
{{signature}}

In this email, the subject line allows anyone receiving the message to know the goal.

And the objective of this email is clearly to get a reply, not to seal the deal, which is why prospects are more willing to answer.

Shubham had 82% open rate and 32% reply rate on this campaign.

13. Prospecting sales email for... unicorns

Sometimes, a cold email pitch can be sent after first contact, for example in your multichannel prospecting strategy.

Here, Nadja took advantage of fresh news to get in touch with the CEO directly, and mentions her existing relationship with the head of growth. 👇

Subject line: {{contactName}} pointed me your way

{{firstName}}, congrats on the amazing news! 🦄

I just talked to {{contactName}}, your Head of Sales on LinkedIn, and she asked me for a demo of lemlist, pointing me in your direction.

Are you available Monday at 11 AM or Tuesday at 2:30 PM for a demo?

For context, we could help with your client acquisition and cross channel outreach (email, LinkedIn, calls).

Excited to connect,
{{signature}}

Her CTA is clear, with only 2 slot suggestions, and she gives a little bit of context to support her argument.

You can check out Nadja'a complete process in this vlog.

14. Classic B2B sales email template

Before writing your intro line, it's important to clearly define your buyer persona.

This will allow you to be super relevant in your personalization. Remember, personalization without relevance is useless.

Here’s the template one of our users sent to get meetings with B2B clients:

Subject line: {{companyName}} x CompanyX

Hey {{firstName}},

Saturated digital marketing channels are greatly impacting your potential to acquire new customers, and ultimately the growth of {{companyName}}.

At CompanyX, we focus on innovative advertising formats to avoid these hurdles, thanks to micro-influencer campaigns.

We typically achieve impressive results with companies similar to {{competitor1}} and {{competitor2}}, and this is why I’m reaching out to you with this first.

As an Instagram influencer myself, I witnessed firsthand the immediate impact of such campaigns. This is what lead me to start CompanyX. I want to give access to this untapped growth potential to companies and brands that share the same values as us.

If you have 15 minutes, I’d love to show you how we can collaborate with influencers that will give you access to your ideal target market.

Are you available Wednesday at 3 PM? Or pick from my availability here.

Looking forward to meeting you!
{{signature}}

In this copy, Mike begins by pointing out the pain for his users, so he shows that he knows what he's talking about.

Then he name drops a competitor or two. It resonates with the prospect who knows their competitive landscape.

And then he finishes with social proof and highlights that they share the same values.

Mike had a 69% open rate and 14% reply rate with this email.

15. Humorous follow-ups after no response

Follow-ups are a great way to increase your reply rate. Because if you don't get an answer, it doesn't mean that your prospect isn't interested.

For follow-ups after no response, we generally advise:

• 2-day delay between emails 1 and 2
• 2-day delay between emails 2 and 3
• 3-day delay between emails 3 and 4

For the first example, let’s try a bit of humor:

When the prospect did not reply, here is the first follow-up:

And finally, here’s the last email:

Playing the storytelling card works for sales reps. Don't forget to leave the door open in your very last email. You want to end with a positive note.

16. Follow up after a meeting

When you have a call with a prospect, it's always a good idea to follow up with written info.

Make things crystal clear, plus send a gentle reminder about the next steps you agreed on.

Ideally, send it the same day.

Subject line: As promised, Frank

Hey again Frank,

Great talking to you today. As promised, I’m sending a quick summary of our conversation.Let me know if it’s all good or I forgot something?

NEXT STEPS:
- We’re going to organize one more meeting with John and Sarah

CHALLENGES:
- Qualifying leads prior to reaching out
- Reporting across multiple channels

GAME PLAN:
- Set up lemlist account and test sequence
- Address lead qualification and share best practices

Take care,
{{signature}}

Keep it simple and on point: next steps, challenges, objectives, deadlines, etc.

The impact? This follow-up had 90% open rate and 73% reply rate.

17. The last follow-up in a sequence

Sometimes, even after 3 or 4 follow-ups, you won't have an answer.

But keep in mind that it still doesn't mean that your prospect is not interested at all.

It can simply mean that it's not the right timing.

Here’s how to handle that:

Subject line: Talk soon!
‍
I don’t want to bombard your inbox, and it looks like you’re crammed at the moment.

No worries, shoot me a message when you have some time!

Either LinkedIn or email works. 🙂

I look forward to seeing your content in the meantime.

With 💙 to your growth,
Briana

Here, Briana informs that she won't be bothering the prospect with emails anymore, but she also makes sure to stay on good terms and will keep in touch on linkedin.

This holds the door open for future opportunities.

The key takeaways

To get more replies, your sales email templates should be:

• personalized
• sharp
• targeted

Give it a try with one of the 17 templates above, and watch your reply rates start to increase.

If you want to dig deeper, either in sales, marketing, recruitment, or networking, our cold email ebook gets even deeper in the analysis of our best cold email templates.

Oh, if your hands are shaking and can't wait to start creating your campaign, may we suggest lemlist as you preferred cold email tool? Your first campaign is totally free, as well as your first 14 days on our platform!