51: Simple Messaging is Best
Here are 3 examples
Outbound messaging is overcomplicated far too often.
So many emails are ignored, not because the offering wasn’t relevant, but because the writing was too complex to understand at a glance.
If a prospect doesn’t understand your email they won’t ask you to clarify. They’ll ignore it.
So if you simplify your messaging to the point where anyone could understand it, you’ll get far more responses.
Here are 3 examples from 3 practitioners that demonstrate why simple outreach is best.
I’ve tried all three. They work.
You should try them too.
Warning: none of these are “best practices”. These aren’t the traditional templates your manager wants you to send. But that’s exactly why the people who do use them get results.
Agenda:
The Pitch Slap
The Mouse Trap
The Transparent Email
1. The Pitch Slap (from Patrick Joyce)
In this post, Patrick shares why pitch slapping is *actually* a good thing.
But not the kind you’re thinking of.
He recommends getting straight to the point. No fake networking when you both know you want to sell them!
Simply ask, “Hey, would you be open to checking out [my product]?”
If they don’t respond, follow up a day later with, “thought it might be relevant based on XYZ”
I’ve used this in situations where I can see they’re opening my emails but not responding.
My take? It works because prospects prefer when you’re upfront and honest. VP/C-Levels appreciate brevity.
No one likes fake networking. Nor do they want to read a paragraph about your product.
Here’s a recent example:
2. The Mouse Trap (from Will Allred)
In this post, Will shared what he calls “the mouse trap” email.
It’s a simple framework:
Sentence 1: personalized trigger
Sentence 2: value prop question
Here’s an example:
[name], looks like you recently hired your first SDR leader.
Are you looking at XYZ tools to help them scale outbound?
If you can find strong buying triggers this email will work great.
For example, I know when a company hires their first SDR leader they’re likely looking at sales engagement tools.
3. The Transparent Email (from Ryan Lallier)
In this post, Ryan shared his painfully transparent email template:
Instead of trying to fake personalize, Ryan is straight up.
It saves him the time of having to personalize and his prospects probably get a kick out of it.
It’s a total pattern interrupt.
Win, win.
I tried it on a small scale and got a 6% reply rate (for context, I’m not doing high email volume right now as I’m testing messaging to see what works first).
If you know your ICP well, have a large market, and do high email volume, this template is worth testing out.
Create a hyper-specific list of a hundred people, explain why they fit that specific list in the email then hit send with zero personalization.
It’s genius.
…
Go follow Patrick, Will, and Ryan on LinkedIn!
Thanks for reading,
Jed
P.S. If you want to support my writing by joining the paid plan here’s what you’ll get:
Access to my ~50 archive posts
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Hey Jed, great content. I was curious if you'd be open to sharing what your best performing email signature looks like? Do you really leave it as - Thanks, Jed at the bottom?
2 Quick Questions:
What’s considered “high volume” email outreach?
How do you measure messaging and determine if it’s successful?
Other than that, great post! Brevity, value, honesty 🌟