Cold email template
A cold email template is a reusable structure for a first email to someone who has not heard from you: an opening observation, a reason it is relevant, a small ask and a plain sign-off.
Also called Cold email format, Cold email structure, Cold email example.
A cold email template is a pattern for a first email to a stranger that you can reuse across many recipients. Templates are also the reason most cold email fails. A template is something many people have already received, and a recipient who has seen the shape before stops reading at the first familiar line. "I hope this finds you well" and "quick question" are templates announcing themselves.
The phrase has a second life: many people searching for it are job seekers writing to a hiring manager. This page is about business email, one company writing to a possible customer, though the shape works for both.
What transfers from one good cold email to the next is the shape. The words do not, because the words have to come from the person you are writing to.
The shape of a cold email that gets replies
Open with a short, specific observation about the person: something they shipped, wrote, hired for or said, in one sentence, with no compliment attached. Follow it with one sentence on why that makes your product relevant to them now. Then make a small ask, something that can be answered in one line rather than a meeting. Sign off plainly, with your name and nothing else. Under a hundred words in all, and it should read like something you could say to the person over lunch.
Subject lines
A cold email subject line has one job, which is to say what the email is about. Describe the email in three to six words, the way you would label a file. Lowercase is fine. Avoid anything that could pass for a newsletter or a promotion: manufactured urgency, or a personalisation token obviously filled in by software. "your onboarding checklist" beats "A quick idea to grow your business", because it tells the reader which email this is before they open it.
An example
Suppose you sell a tool that turns a changelog into release notes customers can read, and a small SaaS company has just published its third changelog entry this month on a bare GitHub page, the latest covering a pricing change. Its founder is Anna.
Subject: your changelog
Hi Anna,
You have shipped three changelog entries this month, all on the GitHub page, and the last one covered a pricing change your customers probably wanted to hear about directly.
We turn a changelog like that into a release note your customers can read, in your voice, without anyone on your side writing it up.
Would it be useful if I sent you what your last three entries would look like?
Sam
Seventy-odd words, each sentence doing one job. A minute on their GitHub page produced the first line, and nothing in the email could be sent to anyone else.
Cold email format
Under a hundred words, so it fits on a phone screen without scrolling. Plain text rather than HTML, with no images and no formatting beyond line breaks: a designed email is what a filter and a reader both recognise as marketing. One link at most, and only to your own product. A real unsubscribe line and your postal address at the bottom: the law requires them in most places, and they tell the reader they can make it stop.
Kamu writes each cold email from something the person actually did, such as a release they shipped or a job they posted, which is the opposite of a template: the shape above stays fixed and the words are new every time.
In practice
- An email that opens with the pull request the recipient merged on Tuesday, and asks one question about it.
- A template that opens "I hope this email finds you well", recognised and deleted before the second line.
- A subject line reading "your pricing page" rather than "Quick question about growth at {company}".
Questions
What is the best cold email template?
The one the recipient has never seen, which rules out anything you can download. Treat a template as a shape rather than as words: an observation about the person, a sentence on why it makes you relevant, a small ask and a plain sign-off, under a hundred words. Then write the words fresh for each person. A template worth reusing is one nobody could recognise as reused.
How long should a cold email be?
Under a hundred words, and shorter is usually better. The email should fit on a phone screen without scrolling. Length is a signal in itself: a long first message tells the reader you are sending the same thing to many people and had to cover every angle. Three or four short paragraphs, one idea each, is enough to earn a reply, and a reply is the only goal a first email should have.
What makes a good cold email subject line?
It describes the email in three to six plain words, so the reader knows which message this is before opening it. Lowercase is fine. It should not promise anything, invent urgency, or ask a question the body does not answer. The best test is whether the subject line would look normal on an email from a colleague: "your changelog" passes, "Boost your pipeline this quarter" does not.
Should I use HTML or plain text for cold email?
Plain text. A first email to someone who does not know you should look like it was typed by a person, and HTML with images, buttons and a tracking pixel looks like it came from a marketing platform, to the reader and to the spam filter alike. Plain text also renders the same everywhere and cannot break. If you need a link, one is enough, and it should go to your own product.
Related terms
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