Cold Email Template and Examples for B2B

A cold email gets judged before it's opened: the inbox shows the subject line and the first words of the body, and that's where the recipient decides whether to read on or delete. Across our B2B campaigns, 10-14% of emails get a reply. Below is a five-part cold email template, four examples for different triggers, follow-ups, subject lines and the mistakes that cost you replies.

What a cold email is

A cold email is the first email to someone who doesn't know you and hasn't asked for anything. In B2B it starts a conversation: about a meeting, a partnership, an interview or an investment. It doesn't have to sell. It has one job, getting a reply.

What sets it apart from a marketing blast is the recipient. A blast goes to everyone, a cold email goes to one person who has a reason to talk to you. So the template below is a frame, not copy to paste: the reason and the opening line get rewritten for every recipient or segment.

The cold email template

The email has five parts, and each answers one question the recipient has:

1. Subject line: what is this about? Two to five words about the recipient or their problem. It describes what's inside: deceptive subject lines are banned outright under CAN-SPAM.
2. Reason: why me? Company news, an open role, a move into a new market, a conference talk, a similar company you already work with.
3. Problem: why should I care? One or two sentences on the problem you solve for companies like theirs. No website rehash, no list of services.
4. Proof: why believe you? One number or a short example: what a similar company got and how fast.
5. Question: what do you need from me? One question that's easy to answer: "Is this relevant?", "Who owns this on your team?", "Worth 15 minutes on Thursday?"

Brackets mark what gets rewritten for each recipient. A quick test: swap the company name in your email for any other. If nothing breaks, the email has no reason in it.

The signature carries your name, title, company and website. CAN-SPAM also requires a clear way to opt out and a valid physical postal address for the sender. What else the law and mailbox providers require is covered in our guide to cold email outreach that stays out of spam.

Cold email examples

Four examples for different triggers. These are samples, not emails from our clients: the names are made up, and the brackets are yours to fill in.

In all four, the reason comes in the first line, the offer fits in a sentence or two, and there's one question at the end. The number in the proof is different for every company. If you don't have an honest one yet, a short example without a number beats a made-up one.

Partner emails work the same way, except the problem part covers what both sides get. How we find partners and carry the conversation to a signed agreement is on our partner recruitment page.

Follow-ups: what to write when there's no reply

Silence after the first email is normal, which is why a sequence of follow-ups comes next. Each one brings a new reason to reply. "Just following up" and "circling back" say nothing new, so there's nothing to reply to.

In our campaigns the sequence stops for someone as soon as they reply, and anyone who asks us to stop is removed right away. When you run out of new reasons, end the sequence: an email with no reason in it is exactly the "just following up" you're trying to avoid.

Cold email subject lines

A good subject line names the recipient's problem or the reason you're writing. Examples:

• "Delivery in Austin for [Company]": a reason from the news;
• "Pipeline while you hire an SDR": a reason from an open role;
• "Month-end close at [Company]": the recipient's problem;
• "After your talk at [conference]": a reason from a talk;
• "Question about [problem] at [Company]": when there's no specific reason but the segment is a tight fit.

What doesn't belong in a subject line: "Re:" or "Fwd:" on a first email, since you've never written to each other, all caps, exclamation marks and words like "free", "discount" or "urgent". That's how marketing blasts look, and your email will be read as one of them.

Why cold emails don't get replies

• It's about you. The opening line is about your company, not the recipient's problem.
• There's no reason. The text fits any company on the list, and it shows.
• Several offers and questions at once. The recipient has to choose, and not replying is easier.
• Attachments and links in the first email. A file from a stranger is a reason to be careful. Send the deck once they reply.
• Pressure. "Only until Friday", "a unique offer" and "guaranteed results" read like advertising in a cold email.
• The email never arrived. If nobody opens it at all, the copy isn't the problem: check the domain, the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records and the mailbox warm-up.

How to tell whether the email works

You need a benchmark. Here are the averages across our B2B campaigns:

If fewer people open, the problem is delivery or the subject line. If they open but don't reply, it's the copy: change the reason, the opening line or the question, one thing at a time, and compare variants on equal parts of the same segment. A silent segment shows up by week two.

Investor emails show how much a number in the email itself matters: by our benchmarks, 18-22% of funds reply to an email with metrics, and below 5% to one without. How to write to funds is covered in how to find investors.

Email doesn't suit every segment. In our enterprise campaigns in Russia, email and LinkedIn get under 3% replies, while a Telegram message to a personal number gets 25-30% (more in the enterprise Telegram case study). That's why we add LinkedIn and Telegram when email in a segment stays below these numbers.

If nobody on your team has time to write and run the conversations, you can hand this off to an outsourced SDR team: we run the list, the copy and the conversations, and people ready to talk land in your calendar.