When your cold call game is showing minimal results, try adding cold emailing into the equation. Calling cold a prospect after a brief email introduction may yield better results than using cold calling alone.

Emails are the most effective forms of marketing and engaging a prospect. When emailing those who are not familiar with you or your services, craft a catchy but informative subject line and a very concise message.

Cold emails will be an introduction to you and your business, so having a clean, simple design and easy readability pays off and brings in leads. Readers don’t want to be overwhelmed with text and images. Get to the point with beneficial information.

Here are 7 tips to up your cold emails

Tip 1: Subject line.

You’ll be able to tell if your subject line is good or not by the open rates. A poor open rate means it’s time to change your subject. Weirdly, some of the best open rates are 3-4 words. Using the person’s name or company also has high open rates. Some examples may be: “John, increase tenant retention” “JRB Investments – Have any vacancies?” or “Katy, tour new offices”. Try out some different short titles featuring the name of your prospect.

Tip 2: Don’t introduce yourself!

I hit delete the moment I see “My name is Joe and I own a SEO firm…” I already suspect what they want and I’m moving on. Instead, to get more leads from your cold emails, just get right to the point with a pain point.

Tip #3: Open with a pain point that’s troubling your prospect.

This doesn’t have to be something that’s thrown in their face. Address a pain point that someone else is feeling. The subtle cue is that you have saved a similar company from a similar problem. Here are a few templates your can use in your campaigns:

“I came across (your building / name / company name) while working on reducing office vacancies with another client.”

“I noticed (your building / name / company name) while touring retail space with a client of mine who’s looking for higher traffic areas.”

“I found (your building / name / company name) while working on multifamily investment portfolios with a new client.”

Tip #4: I know you.

This is where you’ll mention that you’re aware of their needs because their needs are similar to another client’s. Here are a few templates your can use in your outreach:

“NAME, it seems (your building / name / company name) shares some similarities with a few of our clients.”

If you’re going for a more personal touch, research exactly what they do to prove you’ve done some research:

“It looks like your portfolio is mainly retail buildings. From the outside, your portfolio shares some similarities with many of my current clients.”

Tip #5: Show how the pain point is resolved.

If you can, using numbers is a big hit.

“Recently, we filled office vacancies for a client that will generate $500,000 in revenue over the next year — and we used this strategy to fill vacancies for their retail properties as well.”

“I recently helped a client find a better location for their retail space and increased in store traffic by 30%.”

“Recently, I helped diversify an investors multifamily investment portfolio to include 3 retail and 2 industrial properties.”

Tip #6: A call-to-action.

If you don’t close with a clear request, people don’t know what you want. Also, response rates are higher when you close with a question.

“Click here to download [ Freebie ]. Does this [ Freebie ] help answer any of your questions? “

“See an article about . Does this article help answer any of your questions?”

“You open to having a quick chat?”

“Does your investment portfolio need to generate more income?”

Tip #7: Too Salesy?

If you sit back and look at the cold email and wonder, “Is this too salesy?” …It probably is. Throw it out and start again! Think of this as a client requesting that you write to his friend. It’s a referral, but you’ve never spoken before. It’s best to keep things simple and brief.

Need cold calling and emailing templates?

If you don’t know where to begin when writing cold emails, check out our marketing kit made just for commercial real estate. Cold Call Hero has pre-written email sequences for investor rep, landlord rep and tenant rep. Warm up your cold calling list with an email to increase the chances people will answer your call!

Offering you help with optimizing your cold lead game is just another way I’m taking the broke out of commercial real estate brokerage.