Cold emails that get a 25% reply rate?

You can build a six-figure freelance business with nothing but cold emails.

Just ask Mike Straus.

On average, cold emails get a response 4% of the time...

Mike has run cold pitching campaigns that’ve netted reply rates as high as 25% 👀

And he’s landed almost all his clients over the last 13 years through cold emails.

So, it’s safe to say Mike knows a thing or two about how to send cold emails that land work.

And the other week, he shared his hard-earned cold pitching secrets in a MOFU workshop…

So as an early Christmas present, I thought I’d share Mike’s five golden rules of cold pitching with all of you fine folks, too.

Let’s dive right in to Mike’s cold pitching masterclass (including a breakdown of a real pitch that landed him five figures of work)…

🤏 Keep it to about 10-13 sentences 

“Any more than this is too much,” says Mike. 

One way to help keep things short and sweet:

Don't waste your first paragraph introducing yourself.

Get straight to how you can help them.

Which brings us on to…

🚀 Highlight how the prospect can benefit from working with you

“Don't make it a ‘me’ fest,” says Mike. “Instead, appeal to the prospect's wants.”

You’d be surprised how little someone needs to know about you before they pay you.

Check out this pitch that landed me a client back when I first went freelance.

All I say is that I’m “a copywriter”: 

Making the first email all about them is what got me the gig.

That and…

🍻 Be personal, informal, and engaging

“A cold pitch ain't a resume,” says Mike. “Write like you talk – even if you’re pitching a B2B business.”

Read your cold pitch out loud to make sure it ain’t too high-falootin’. Does it sound like something you would say in real life? If not, it needs work.

🎯 Personalise it! 

“Proof that you researched the prospect helps when you can casually work it in,” says Mike. 

You don’t need to go dig up their old MySpace Top 8 or anything here…

But your email is going to land a lot better if you mention some recent news about the company or a piece of content they’ve just published. 

So spend a bit of time stalking their blog and socials to see if there’s anything you can add into your pitch to personalise it a bit.

🙅 Don't include any links or attachments

“This could trip a spam filter,” explains Mike.

So avoid including links and attachments in your emails until the prospect replies, after which your email address will have the green light from their spam filter.

👀 The anatomy of a perfect cold pitch (with a real example)

Here’s the structure Mike recommends you stick to with your cold pitches:

🔴  Engaging subject line

🔵 Comment on a piece of recent news, or shared interest, if possible,

🟢 Explain why you're contacting them

🟠 Social proof

🟣 Explain what you want

🟡 CTA

🟤 Witty sign-off line

Want to see this in action? Here’s a pitch that follows this exact framework which landed Mike five figures of work from Hockey Canada:

A pitch like that takes a lot more time to pull together than a copy-and-paste, spray-and-pray job.

But it’s what lands Mike a response rate of up to 25% on his pitches 👀

🫵 Putting it into action…

Raring to apply Mike’s advice and start cold pitching?

Here’s what he recommends as a first step:

1. Build a list of 25 prospects

2. Find the names and contact info of the best point of contact at those companies (Mike recommends using a tool like Hunter.io)

3. Send 25 cold emails

Why 25?

“Because cold pitching is a volume game,” says Mike. “If you want to succeed with this channel, you’re going to need to send a lot of emails. And I find that 25 is a good enough number that you’ll be able to get some data from that you can use to tweak your approach.”

Need help finding those first 25 prospects? Check out how I found 25 prospects in 30 minutes using LinkedIn’s free search.

I’ve just scratched the surface of Mike’s cold pitching advice here, by the way 👀

If you want his tips on the best person to target based on the size of the company, how many times you should follow up on your cold emails (and exactly what to say), and much more…

Then join us in MOFU Mastery to get access to Mike’s full hour-long cold pitching masterclass (plus $4,000+ of other courses, templates, and workshops).

👉 Join us in MOFU Mastery today