Request for an Appointment: Cold Email Templates that Convert

How to make an appointment email effective: Wordstir  step-by-step guide (Briefly!)

Based on our successful cold email campaigns, we would like to share our insights and recommendations you can adhere to while asking your prospect for an appointment. 

1. Data analysis. Once starting our strategy of B2B appointment setting, we used to identify the prospect's ICP, determine our client's value proposition, and conduct in-depth market research in the niche. Collecting data about prospects’ preferences and behaviors is number one in the email marketing strategy. 
2. Approach identification. We elaborate upon the approach based on criteria we defined to perfectly match our target audience. The number of follow-ups depends on how the prospect interacts with you and what industry they are involved in.
3. Personalized email waves. There is no defined template that will match all your prospects. On average, an appointment email encompasses 3-5 waves. Once we have researched the clients’ industry market and their target audience, we become equipped with the instruments we can successfully apply in the messages tailored exactly to the prospects’ needs. 

To help you optimize your cold outreach emails and increase the chances of getting into the prospect’s mind, we crafted customized email templates for various industries, following particular intentions and clients’ requirements. You can filter the templates by industry and campaign type to find the one that suits your goal perfectly. 

Tips on how to ask for an appointment: DO and DON’TS 

Do: Your kick-off email has to be straight to the point and accurate. 

Don’t: Refrain from overwhelming your recipient with additional details of your offer to set up an appointment. 

Do: Elaborate upon several waves, including follow-ups; each must have a special focus (for instance, one wave - benefit-oriented, another one - with the purpose of delivering value, and one more - problem-solving). 

Mind: There is no all-in-one solution when it goes to the approach and the number of waves in your email cadence. Personalization is your key to success. 

Don’t: Be salesy and pushy. Intrigue your prospects with the hook (solution to their pain points) that can be discussed further during the call or a face-to-face meeting. 

Do: Clearly pinpoint the purpose of your outreach and how you can help solve your prospect's problem. 

Don’t: Going into details in your follow-ups is a bad practice since they need to be concise.

Do:  Include some figures or stats in your outreach to foster the intent you are going to convey. 

Don’t: Do not focus on your merits; otherwise, your pitch will be comprehended as salesy stuff. 

Structure of appointment email template

• Greeting

• Intro 

• Value proposition (VP)

• Call-to-action (CTA)

• Sign-off

Request for appointment email templates: Custom sequence 

Template 1: Kick-off email backed up by big names and numbers

Wave 1

Subject line A: about {{Company}}’s EBITDA

Subject line B: learnings from [Top Company 1], [Top Company 2] for {{Company}}

Hi {{FirstName}},

I am with [Company], we’ve spent the past 10 years helping companies like [Company 1], [Company 2], and [Company 3] raise bottom-line profits by over 2B USD.

Our learnings could make up volumes, some would be applicable to {{Company}} if you want to join the symbolic “2023 heroes” list. How about a brief chat on Tuesday to see what can be done?

Best,

Template 2: Brief follow-up

Wave 2 - Same thread

Hi {{FirstName}},

Simply wanted to throw in some proof, too, where do I start? We have 2,000,000,000 USD worth of proof at this point.

Just in case, we don’t ask to pay until (a) we agree on clear commitments; (b) we meet these commitments.

Let’s set up a small conversation to see if we’d be a match?

Best,

Template 3: Reinforced by success stories 

Wave 3

Subject line A: {{FirstName}}, your favorite margin recovery tactics?

Subject line B: {{FirstName}}, do you have a profit strategy for 2023?

Hi {{FirstName}},

Strange we’re not connected on LinkedIn; I discovered {{Company}} and thought we at [Company] could apply some of our experience in to bolster your strategy for 2023.

After all, [Company] increased our client’s profits by a combined 200M USD each year over the last 10 years, and have helped companies like yours yield >2B USD in EBITDA. 

What are your favorite margin recovery tactics? Do you think expanding that list would be beneficial? Or is something else of higher priority?

Best,

Template 3: Applying the referral approach

Wave 4 - Same thread

Hi {{FirstName}},

If you’re too busy at the moment, kindly redirect me to {{Referral_Name}} or whoever you find would be interested.

Really, there’s a lot I could suggest if we had a brief talk.

Best,

More nitty-gritty tips: Best practices

We know that basic recommendations are good to leverage into an email marketing campaign along with a pointwise approach. Most businesses implementing cold email campaigns complain about low open and reply rates. How to improve these indicators, and how actually to make these emails work? We decided to outline our clients' main pain points and mistakes while making an outreach to schedule an appointment:

#1 pain point: Low reply rate

X Mistake: Referring to executives directly (and only to them)

V Verdict: Think twice about whether it is worth reaching high-level positions (C-level executives, CTO, CEO) in your appointment-setting campaigns. Such a traditional approach is proven to fail mostly. Instead, experiment with a referral approach where you ask for an internal referral to the person in the prospect’s company who will be suitable for accepting your request for an appointment. 

#2 pain point: low open rate

X Mistake: non-attractive subject lines

V Verdict: subject lines have to be eye-grabbing and not contain spam words to avoid transferring to the spam boxes. 

#3 pain point: prospect’s neglect

X Mistake: “Vague” call to action

V Verdict: Call to action (CTA) must be persuasive but without excessive pushing. It has to be harmonically connected with the context of your message following the pinpointing of the benefits a prospect can gain once they get in touch with you via an online meeting or demo presentation.