How to Craft Cold Emails That Convert

Time to read: 5 minutes

Hosted by Leslie Douglas, Brian LaManna from Gong shared his expertise on crafting cold emails that actually convert. The discussion revealed how Brian transformed his outreach strategy from booking 90-95% of meetings through cold calls in 2018 to securing 75% through email in the past year—a complete flip in effectiveness.

The OPPS Cold Email Personalization Framework: A Game-Changer for Sales Outreach

Brian introduced his OPPS cold email personalization framework, developed after struggling with writer's block and spending too much time crafting individual emails. This systematic approach helps sales professionals create personalized, effective cold emails quickly:

• O - Observation: Start with something specific about the prospect or their company
• P - Problem: Connect your observation to a challenge the persona typically faces
• P - Product/Solution: Tie your solution to that specific problem
• S - Simple CTA: End with a straightforward call to action
• PS - Personal touch: Add a brief postscript that makes the email feel uniquely written for that recipient

"The goal with every email, in my opinion, is to make it look like it is manual, to make it look like you wrote it only to [the recipient], and nobody else in the world would it make sense if it arrived in their inbox," Brian explained.

Balancing Manual Personalization and Automation in Cold Emails

The discussion began with a poll about manual versus automated outreach. Brian advocated for a balanced approach, giving the edge to manual personalization while acknowledging that automation has its place:

"If you ask that persona... 'Do you respond to a fully templated canned email?' They'll tell you no," Brian noted. However, he suggested that automated follow-ups can "bump up that strong messaging" when prospects miss your initial outreach.

For automated touches, Brian recommended keeping them extremely short (1-2 sentences) so they appear personalized. His go-to automated formats include:

• Social proof snippets
• Short videos (30 seconds)
• Images
• Memes relevant to the persona

The Persona Exercise: The Foundation of Effective Cold Email Personalization

A critical foundation for the OPPS cold email personalization framework is thoroughly understanding your prospect's persona. Brian walked through his process:

1. Identify the problems they face daily
2. Determine how they're measured (metrics that matter)
3. Understand the outcomes they're seeking
4. Collect social proof/stories relevant to them

For research, Brian suggested starting with what you already know, then filling gaps by:

• Consulting with your team
• Using ChatGPT (with a specific prompt)
• Searching Google and LinkedIn
• Asking current customers directly

Practical Application: Implementing the Cold Email Personalization Framework

When crafting emails using the OPPS framework, Brian demonstrated his research process using Plaid as an example company. He showed how he:

1. Checks the company website homepage for strategic priorities
2. Searches Google News for recent developments
3. Reviews the "What's New" section for technical buyers
4. Finds a relevant observation (in this case, a "$400 million secondary share sale")
5. Connects that observation to how his solution could help during this growth phase

Time Management and Prioritization for Cold Email Campaigns

For sales professionals with large territories, Brian recommended "doing a little every day, so you never have to do a lot." His approach varies based on account load:

• With 800 accounts: Target 3-4 accounts per day, 3-5 personas per account
• With 45 enterprise accounts: Focus on one new account per day, targeting 3-4 people with hyper-personalized messaging

For prioritizing which accounts to tackle first, Brian suggested:

1. Start with close-lost opportunities that might be ready to restart
2. Look for intent signals (new leadership, website visits, etc.)
3. Use your marketing tools to identify accounts showing interest

Key Recommendations for Cold Email Personalization Success:

1. Create a persona document for each buyer type (08:20:00): "The goal of like any message, in the first place, is to simply break through the noise... If you ask that persona... 'Do you respond to a fully templated canned email?' They'll tell you no." Develop detailed persona profiles including problems faced, metrics they're measured by, and outcomes they seek.
2. Use the OPPS cold email personalization framework for manual emails (09:46:00): "I put together this framework where it always starts with the observation. I then tie that observation back to like a problem that persona would face or a challenge. I tie that in with our solution. I leave off with a very simple CTA... and then I throw in a small PS at the end again, just to make it scream human."
3. Keep automated follow-ups extremely short (10:36:00): "If I'm gonna send you a 10 sentence automated email, you're gonna be able to tell pretty quickly that it's really generic. But if I'm sending you like one or 2 sentences, I can maybe trim it down enough that you can't quite tell."
4. Do a little prospecting every day (14:14:00): "My philosophy as an AE is like, do a little every day, so you never have to do a lot... I source 2 net new opportunities the last week of January, when I was trying to hit President's club."
5. Prioritize accounts using intent signals (16:56:00): "I'm also gonna make a list of like all of our own marketing tools... and like look for intent within them... I'm basically trying to look through like, where is there a new VP of sales at one of my accounts? Where could there be a past user at one of my accounts? Where could there be somebody that was on our website?"

By implementing Brian's OPPS cold email personalization framework and following these recommendations, you can transform your cold email approach from generic templates to personalized messages that actually convert prospects into meetings.

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