Hope This Email Leaves You Engaged: Sales Outreach with Yurii Veremchuk

If you’re kicking off your email with lines such as:

“I hope this email finds you well…”

“I hope you and your family are well in these unprecedented times…”

You’re wasting space (and your prospect’s time.)  Instead, how can you avoid a near guaranteed move to the trash folder, and turn your cold opens into warmer conversations? 

Our hosts, Rachel Kreis, VP of Marketing at Landbot, and Jiaqi Pan, CEO at Landbot, are joined by Yurii Veremchuk, Head of Business Growth at Woodpecker, to discuss effective outreach strategies and approaches that will help you stand out in today’s crowded marketing environment. 

Woodpecker utilizes AI to help create SaaS products for cold emails, sales follow-up automation, and products for lead generation. 

Yurii recently published an eBook, Five Irrefutable “Never Break” Laws of Cold Emailing. Yurii has built a following of nearly 40,000 on LinkedIn, and he is considered an influencer in the outreach space. 

Receiving Value Begins with Providing Value

Yurii tells us that the fundamental law of business is in order to receive value back, you must provide it first.

Many professionals are receiving hundreds of emails each day — that is a tough environment for differentiation. If every email starts the same way, your prospect becomes increasingly inclined to click “Select All” and “Delete”. 

In reality, it is doubtful that you will receive a response from a prospect that begins with, “This email did find me well, thank you for asking!”

The solution for standing out in a crowded space lies in research and creativity. Begin by asking yourself, how can I communicate in a way that my reader will actually engage with? 

Your readers are busy. So, write to busy people. Yurii gives us a few tips for doing this effectively.

Make Your Text Stand Out Visually

Often, emails get thrown out in large clumps — because they all look exactly the same to the reader. 

By making your email stand out visually, you stand a better chance of not moving directly to the trash. Yurii suggests situating your text into an F shape with front loading in the first line, a short subject line, and jumping straight to the point in the first sentence.

Less Is More

Most busy readers will not engage with an email that is too wordy. Making a clear and concise point (with a strong direction) is key here. 

This is not so much about length. If your email contains 3 full pages of engaging, valuable content, it will likely perform as well as a single paragraph held to the same standards — quality is king. 

Make It Easy to Read

When readers are bombarded with unnecessary jargon or overly complex writing styles, they will lose interest quickly, especially in a full inbox. 

Make your content engaging, and ensure there is a clear, natural flow.

Make Your Intention Clear

If your reader makes it through the first three sentences of your email and does not have a clear understanding of your intention, they will likely shake their head and move on.

Begin with making your intention clear. Why are you in their inbox, what do you have to offer, and what is the desired action you want them to take? 

Don’t Ask Too Much

Beginning your interaction in a cold email by asking for a 30-minute meeting will likely come off as too high of an ask. Requesting a “quick chat” will probably land you in the same spot.

Keep in mind these people are busy, and they did not ask for your help (even though they may need or want it.) Lowering their initial commitment by opening the conversation and requesting a brief response leads to better results. 

Adding the Right Amount of Personalization

Researching your prospect is crucial, and utilizing what you’ve discovered can build a great conversation.

At the same time, discussing too much or irrelevant personal information could appear creepy, not catchy. 

“Personalization took a weird turn some time ago. If you’re trying to sell software, and you found out your prospect has a Corgi, it would be a bit weird to send an email discussing how beautiful the Corgi is,” Yurii says. 

Instead, aim to understand your prospect’s personal and professional goals. Then, position yourself as the vehicle that will help them reach those goals faster. Look into the technology the prospect is using, then use that as a touchpoint. 

P.S. Yurii recommends saving any elements of personalization for the postscript as a way to maintain engagement and finish a cold email strongly. 

Make Sure You Are Solving a Relevant Problem

Based on your research, what problems are your prospects facing? 

Discussing your status as an organization or providing a list of product offerings in a cold email will likely not bring in much of a response. Instead, state the problem they are facing, then tell them how you can help solve it.

How Can AI Help?

“I'm in the camp where we want to shape an AI to augment salespeople, not to replace them,” Yurii says.

Yurii believes AI is not developed enough at this point to become a great agent who crafts amazing, well-researched cold emails. Instead, AI can be used as a supplementary tool that can help agents:

• Overcome writer’s block to craft stronger emails
• Create stronger prospecting videos
• Search for better prospects
• Perform better cold calls

Instead of relying on AI in the same way you would rely on a top sales rep, Yurii encourages using AI to augment agents instead. By utilizing AI for research and summarization, agents are allowed more time to connect directly with prospects. 

Want to learn more about crafting an outbound system that moves the needle? Tune into Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Google Podcasts, or listen to the full episode below, where Yurii shares more advice and tips, how to adapt these strategies for LinkedIn success, and more.