Cold email
Definition
A cold email is a one-to-one email sent to a business contact who hasn't interacted with the sender before, written to start a conversation about something specific to the recipient.
A cold email is a one-to-one email sent to a business contact who hasn't interacted with the sender before, written to start a conversation about something specific to the recipient.
It's not spam, and it's not marketing email, and the differences are legal as well as practical. Spam is bulk, deceptive, or sent to people who opted out. Marketing email goes to a list that subscribed. A cold email goes to one named person at a business, says who it's from, has an honest subject line, and honors a request to stop. Under CAN-SPAM that's legal in the US. The rules are stricter in Canada and the EU.
The practical difference is that a cold email has to earn the reply on its own. Nobody asked for it. So the ones that work are short, about the recipient's situation, and end with a question that's easy to answer. The ones that don't are about the sender.
An example
"Hi Karen, saw the permit for the Ridge Rd buildout. If the network for the new site hasn't been scoped yet, we can quote that separately from whoever handles your current office, usually about two weeks from walkthrough to go-live. Worth a quote on the second site?" Sixty words. The first line is about her building. Nothing about the sender until the second sentence.
What it's not
A cold email is not five emails that each ask for 15 minutes. It's not an email with a logo, three bullet points, and a link. And it's not personalized with a compliment about the recipient's LinkedIn post; that pattern is recognized in the first four words and deleted.
Related terms
Cold email reply rate · Cold email sequence · Cold email formula · Can spam
If you want this run for you, see our cold email agency.
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