Cold outreach ·Agency ·Spartan
Get a reply, not a meeting. The meeting is the second email.
Write a cold email from [WHO YOU ARE] to [WHO THEY ARE]. They have never heard of me. Plain text only — no formatting, no bullet lists, no HTML.
The email is built on one thing: [THE OBSERVATION]. Everything else exists to hold it up.
The single action this email drives: [THE ASK].
Rules:
- 90 to 130 words. Four short paragraphs at most. No paragraph longer than two sentences.
- Open on the observation. Not on my name, not on my company, not on how I found them.
- Say who I am in one clause, buried mid-email where it belongs. Nobody opens a cold email to learn about the sender.
- Make the ask small enough to answer in one line. Ask for a reply, not for thirty minutes. Do not include a booking link.
- No compliments that could be pasted into any other email. If the praise would fit a hundred businesses, cut it.
- No questions that answer themselves. Skip "are you looking to grow" and anything shaped like it.
- Never invent a number, statistic, result or client name. If a figure would help, leave [XX] and I will fill it in or cut it.
- No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case. Write a subject line of five words or fewer that reads like a human wrote it to one person.
Return the subject line, then the body, then a sign-off.
Cold outreach ·Creator ·Friendly
Get a yes-in-principle. The logistics are the next email.
Write a plain-text cold email to [WHO THEY ARE] proposing [WHAT YOU PROPOSE]. We have never spoken. Words only — no HTML, no layout notes.
Rules:
- 100 to 140 words. Four short paragraphs at most.
- Open with [THE SPECIFIC THING] — a real detail from their work, in one sentence. Generic praise reads as a mail merge and is worse than no opener.
- Put [WHAT THEY GET] before what I get. A collaboration email that leads with my side is a favour request wearing a partnership costume.
- State the proposal in one clear sentence. No decks, no attachments, no phases.
- Ask only for a yes in principle. The dates and the logistics belong in the next email, and asking for them now makes the reply expensive.
- Do not describe our audience with adjectives. If a size or a figure matters, leave [XX] and I will fill it in.
- Never invent a number, statistic, subscriber count or engagement rate. Where a figure belongs and I have not supplied it, leave [XX].
- No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case.
Write a subject line under 45 characters that names the proposal rather than opening with a compliment. Return subject, body, sign-off.
Cold outreach ·Agency ·Spartan
Get a reply either way. A no closes the loop and frees the slot.
Write a second cold email to [WHO THEY ARE]. The first one, about [THE ORIGINAL POINT], got no reply. Plain text only.
This email is allowed to exist because of [THE NEW THING]. Without that it is a nudge, and nudges do not deserve inbox space.
Rules:
- 60 to 90 words. Shorter than the first email. Always shorter.
- Never write "just following up", "bumping this", "did you see my last email", or "circling back". Every one of those says the email has nothing new in it.
- Lead with [THE NEW THING]. Reference the original point in half a sentence at most, as context rather than as a recap.
- Close by making a no easy and specific. Something like "if this is not a thing you are thinking about, say so and I will leave it" — one line, no self-deprecation, no apology for emailing.
- Do not add a second ask, a calendar link or an attachment.
- Never invent a number, statistic, result or client name. Where a figure belongs and I have not supplied it, leave [XX].
- No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case.
Write a subject line of four words or fewer. Do not reuse the first email's subject and do not prefix it with "Re:". Return subject, body, sign-off.