cold-email-copywritinglisted

# Cold Email Copywriting A cold email is an interruption. The recipient didn't ask for it, owes you nothing, and decides in about three seconds whether to keep reading. Everything below follows from that. The bar is not "is this a good email". It's **would this specific person, reading this on a phone between meetings, think it was worth the interruption?** ## What good looks like ``` Subject: [3-5 words, lowercase, specific, no pitch] [First line: something true about them that took effort to find. Not their name. Not their company name. A fact.] [The connection: why that fact means this email is relevant. One or two sentences.] [What you do, in their language, in one sentence. Ideally with a number attached to a result for someone like them.] [The ask: small, specific, easy to answer.] [Name] ``` Under 100 words. Under 75 is better. On a phone that's a screen and a half, and anything longer gets deferred, which means never. ## The first line The most important sentence, and the one where almost every cold email fails. **Doesn't work:** "Hi {{first_name}}, I hope this email finds you well." "I came across {{company}} and was impressed." "As the {{title}} at {{company}}, you probably..." All three are visibly automated. The merge fields prove a machine wrote it, and "I was impressed by your company" is what you write when you haven't looked at it. **Works:** something specific and recent that required looking. > Saw you're hiring two SDRs in Munich — that's th