(old - do not publish) 15 sales email templates to close more B2B deals Copy

Relevant and personalized email templates is the only way to launch a successful outbound campaign and grow your business.

In this article, you're about to discover how you can ramp up your open and reply rates, through actionable examples and a quick teardown of all sales email templates that helped us get to $10 million ARR.

The anatomy of a successful sales email template

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

To improve your cold email results, don't forget to maximize deliverability by performing an email reputation audit, and adding follow up emails to your sequence.

Subject line

First, a good sales email starts with a good subject line. This is the first thing your prospect will see based on which they will set their expectation.

Motivate them to want to open your email by making it intriguing.

For example, I wouldn't write "improve your email deliverability", because it sounds a bit sales-y and people prefer to talk solutions, not features.

Instead, I'd write something like "Want to reach 50%+ open rate?" to talk about something tangible. Plus, it's exciting. A prospect is more likely to take a quick scan if I can answer the question.

If you're stuck with writing something that teases prospects, here's a list of 59 cold email subject lines.

Intro line

Everyone knows how a typical inbox looks like. However, if we break it down, here's how it REALLY looks like.

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

Try not to talk about you like "I'm Lucille, working at lempire and I have a sales automation platform that will save 50% of your time/money". Or anything similar.

It's too vague, too generic... and just not worth it.

Instead, make it about them. Something like this... "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."

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

Pitch

Your pitch has to be about the value it brings for prospects and not the other way around. Period, end of story. :)

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

You never wanna say a thing like "lemlist helps to get in touch with anyone with great multichannel features".

You know how this ends, right?

It's way better to be human and focus on starting a conversion. For instance, "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?"

Muhammad Muzamil, The Sr Digital Marketing Executive at Cloudways (a managed secure WordPress hosting platform) says, "Personalized emails significantly get the much-needed attention and hence the reply and lead from our intended customers. When your pitch revolves around them, they feel valued and are much more likely to reply to you, ultimately serving your end goal positively."

Remember - your goal is to book a meeting and build a relationship.

Email closure

The end of your email should possess a sharp and clear 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.

Keep it as simple as possible. Never say "If interested, let me know what day works best".

It invites friction, because they need to suggest timing, then you might need to adjust, etc.

It's smarter if we play it like this "Are you available next Tuesday at 10am or 4pm ?"

If you want to know more about how to end a cold email, we've got your back.

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 any of the hundred other reasons in between.

You should always add follow-ups in ALL your campaigns. Not boring ones, but some good templates, in most cases better than the first one.

If you wanna see a few examples, check out these follow-up email templates.

B2B sales email templates that got 73% reply rate

Ok, now that we saw how the perfect cold email structure looks like, let's move this conversation to sales email templates that will get your reply rates to jump high.

Heads up! The sales email examples you're about to see are some of the high-performing templates that helped our company drive revenue and reach $10,000,000 ARR down the road.

Sales email introduction examples

Let's crack on.

Coffee template, a lemlist classic sales email but still effective

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

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

Authenticity, personalization, and value.

That's the recipe of this template that brought here 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?

Like this!

Prospecting email template with high personalization

If you want to get a chance to have your sales email opened and not directly moved to the bin, personalize it.

What you want to focus first is a good intro line that will break the ice and add your email into the best sales templates category.

How to build it?

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 before sending that sales email.

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

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

Milestone sales email template

One of the best ways to contact a company 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.

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 your email is solid. At least, I would open and read this email if I was to receive this one.

Personalized video thumbnail

One of probably the best cold emails we ever used was the one that had 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.

It looks like this.

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

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

Saas email templates

Switching gears! Focusing on the SaaS world now.

Schedule a meeting with your sales email

Before focusing on your features, make sure to qualify your prospects first and let them show they actually wanna find out more about you.

After that, you can either drop your Calendly link, or give 2 slot suggestions.

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

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

Remove this pain out of my back strategy for sales emails

The idea here is to show them you understand their pain and that you can remove it from their back.

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

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

Plus, the P.S. also assists in facilitating social proof.

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

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 decided to reach out.

Jane positioned herself as a problem solver, so her prospects are more willing to reply to improve their website.

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

Inside sales email templates

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

Don't get me wrong, it's not because they didn't need you in the first place that you should jump to the selling part blindly.

Let's play it out.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Professional email template

To quote Barney, suit up. :)

Identify decision-makers in your sales emails

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

But, no answer.

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

In this email, the subject line enables for 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, that's why prospects are more willing to answer.

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

Prospecting sales email for... unicorns

Sometimes, a cold email 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.

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.

B2B sales email template

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

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

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

He shows that he knows... hah, I can rhyme pretty well. 🤩

Then he name drops some of the competitors. 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.

Sales follow up emails

First things first, 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.

Sometimes, it simply means that it was not the right time for them to reply.

For follow-up 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

Another tip, don't put any new subject line, this will allow you keep all your messages in the same thread.

Follow up after no response

For this one, let's use a bit of humor. B2B, yes, but not boring to boring ;) Let's twist a bit our milestone example.

Email 1

Email 2

Email 3

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

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.

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

This follow-up had 90% open rate and 73% reply rate. Yes, 73%.

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, Briana informs that she won't be bothering the prospect with emails anymore, but she also makes sure to stay on good terms and keep the door open for future opportunities.

Wrapping up

Now you have a bunch of ideas from our sales emails templates.

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. First campaign is on us as well as your first 14 days on our platform!