Best Sales Prospecting Emails

Cut Through the Noise and Connect with Your Prospects

When it comes to sales prospecting, email prospecting remains one of the most widely used and accepted ways to make contact.

What is sales prospecting, and why is it important?

Sales Prospecting is the process of researching, finding, reaching out to and making contact with potential customers or clients, to explore whether they might have an interest in purchasing your product or service, now or in the near future.

According to Hunter.io, 80% of people prefer sales reps to contact them.

What Are Sales Prospecting Emails?

Given the acceptability of email among both B2B and B2C prospects, the question most sales professionals face is how can I write an effective sales prospecting email?

In my book The Unstoppable Sales Prospecting System, I explored methods for incorporating cold emails into a broader sales prospecting system.

For now, however, let’s focus on what makes a cold email successful.

Your Prospecting Email Subject Line

How do subject lines impact the open rates of sales prospecting emails?

After considering the importance of incorporating email into your approach, it’s crucial to focus on the most influential component: your subject line.

A strong subject stands out and prompts prospects to open your email.

Unfortunately, as spam folders grow and monitoring inbound email becomes more common, subject lines are also under scrutiny.

This creates a bit of a dichotomy, however, not something you can’t overcome.

Using Technology to Build a Strong Subject Line

Many Sales CRM’s (Customer Relationship Software) today offer an option to make recommendations on an effective email subject line.

There are also dedicated sales software options, such as Omnisend or Salesblink, that offer tools and resources to build cold email subject lines that get noticed and opened.

If you do want to use software to help you build more enticing email subject lines, you can also use simple AI tools such as Grok, Claude, or ChatGPT.

Simple Steps to Create a Strong Prospecting Email Subject Line

Or, create your subject line by following these three rules.

Post a question or interesting statement.
Make it relevant and compelling to the reader.
Keep it brief or less than 8 words.

Instead of a subject “New Information to Help Manufacturers Increase Productivity,” your subject line might say “Do You Want to Increase Your Productivity?” or “Up to 25% Increase in Productivity with This.”

That’s the idea.

My personal preference is to use very short subject lines for any sales email or cold email to further intrigue. For the above example, I might say “25% Productivity Increase” or “Would This Help?”

Don’t overthink your subject line. Test headlines to see which get opened and which are ignored.

The Structure of Your Prospecting Sales Email

What are the best sales prospecting email templates to use?

Rather than focusing on a template, let’s begin by identifying an effective sales prospecting email structure.

An effective cold email structure and its content can depend on what you are selling and to whom. For our purposes, however, consider the following structure to be widely acceptable.

A study by the Nielsen Norman Group found that most people read their emails in an F pattern.

We begin by reading the top line, then scan down through the content.

It’s only after this scan that we decide whether to read the email in full or move on.

This raises the question: What is the optimal length for a sales prospecting email?

How Do Prospects Read Cold Sales Emails?

Prospects who open your email will scan it for relevance, interest, and urgency before deciding if it’s worth reading.

Where they do read the email, the last line of your email, often referred to as the next step, or call to action, is also important.

If the reader quickly scans the email and finds it relevant or compelling, they will return to read it fully, and the last line suggests what happens next.

Here are the questions a prospect will be asking themselves as they scan your email:

Is this information important to me?
Is there something here I wasn’t aware of or should know about?
Is this something I should act on immediately?

Based on this and with an enticing subject line in place, our objective turns to building a cold email or sales prospecting email that has the following structure:

A personalized greeting
A relevant and compelling opening line
Bullet points that address the following:

a) A statement about why you are reaching out

b) How you help address the impacts of your opening line

c) Examples of relevant companies/clients you’ve sold to

A clear and compelling call to action (last line)
A personalized sign-off

Use the structure above as a starting point to create your sales email templates.

Prospecting Email Structure Example

Here is an example prospect email using the above structure to illustrate what it might look like. This cold email—paired with other channels as outlined in my book, The Unstoppable Sales Prospecting System—aims to connect with a prospect.

Scenario: Don Smith (ABC Company Sales) spots a prospect after visiting other customers in the area.

The area the prospect is in often receives heavy snowfall each winter, which is why customers in the area use Don and ABC – their buildings are known for their strong design and structure.

After some research, Don found that Shawn was the General Manager—the decision-maker he typically approached.

Don hasn’t met Shawn. This is his first attempt to connect.

///

Subject: Will Your Pre-Fab Buildings Last?

Hello Shawn,

Is snow load something that causes you concern for your prefabricated buildings?

My name is Don Smith of ABC Buildings. We’ve built and supplied customizable, high-quality prefabricated buildings since 1972.

We have several long-time customers near your facility, including DDD Metal Company and Triple Z Storage.

Our buildings have won awards for withstanding extreme snow loads.
Building Study North America found our frames to be the strongest in the industry.
Our proprietary design lets us build faster than others in the industry.

Would you be open to a brief ten-minute call to discuss your future prefabricated building needs? I can share recommendations.

Best Regards,

Don Smith

-End of sample-

If you are looking for email templates, you can use the structure above to craft your own cold email.

The Psychology of a Good Sales Prospecting Email

Your goal with any prospect is to earn and retain their trust. That begins when you identify a pain point that your product or service can address.

It begins, however, with earning trust.

After all, people still buy from those whom they know, like and trust.

A good email then, is one that a prospect finds interesting to read, personalized to their needs, and are compelled to respond, is your goal.

It is also important, however, to understand that your email is one step among many toward building trust.

I was taught early in my sales career that your goal with any prospect is get them thinking positively throughout their interactions with you, as if they are nodding yes, in their mind, as your interactions and conversations evolve.

Your email is one of the steps in this journey.

The Psychology of Yes For Your Prospect

In other words, they should be nodding “yes” as they read your email. For example:

Yes – this is applicable to me

Yes – this is relevant to us

Yes – this is something I might need in the future

Yes – connecting with this person might make sense

Yes – I will respond

So script your emails with this in mind.

Your goal is to get your prospects nodding “yes” as they progress through your email, so that they are compelled to respond.

Mistakes to Avoid with Sales Prospecting Emails

There are many mistakes to avoid when creating effective sales prospecting emails. Here are the most common:

Lengthy emails – emails that are too wordy and lengthy don’t get read. They are often viewed as taking too much time, so prospects often ignore them.
Impersonal emails – emails that don’t have a warm greeting and a personalized sign-off are perceived as being automated and therefore irrelevant to the reader.
Lack of email relevance – emails that don’t speak to the interests or needs of the reader don’t get responded to as they are deemed unimportant.
Poor email timing—sending emails at busy times (like 9 am) can cause them to be missed.
Using slang or poor grammar can cause emails to be marked as spam or seen as unprofessional.

Rules for effective sales prospecting emails:

Avoid sending emails on Monday mornings.
Schedule emails to arrive in the late morning (i.e., 11 am) or late afternoon (4 pm).
If a prospect replies, respond at once—even if you need to suggest a follow-up call.

These best practices will help get your emails opened.

Increasing Your Sales Prospecting Email Response Rates

Applying the rules and steps above gives you a clear framework and actionable steps for creating sales prospecting emails that get a response.

Continually test small changes—such as different subject lines, revised opening lines, and varying send times—to determine what yields the best response from your prospects. Focus on measuring which changes increase open rates, engagement, or conversions.

Your Next Steps: Prospecting Emails That Get a Response

When it comes to prospecting, considering that most prospects still prefer email as an initial contact, email prospecting is still an effective method to make contact.

Whether you are developing your own email, incorporating email into your sales process, or building emails for a sales team, just ensure you prioritize your time on developing emails that address pain points.

When you do, your emails will be opened and receive responses, and that’s the foundation for building a strong sales pipeline.