Cold Email Success: Tips from Aaron Epstein

Opening: Understanding your sales funnel is essential for finding product-market fit and scaling marketing efforts. Quote:

"So your goal is to get one new customer, let's say. And then what you want to do is you want to work backwards from that goal to build your funnel, which I'll walk you through now."

Takeaway:

• Epstein illustrates the importance of working backwards from your goal.
• Founders should quantify each step in their funnel.
• Mapping the funnel helps identify areas for improvement.

Opening: Crafting effective email copy is key in distribution and marketing efforts. Using these principles can enhance response rates. Quote:

"So, in order to guide you through this, I've come up with seven principles of effective email copy that are going to help you write emails that stand out."

Takeaway:

• Epstein outlines seven principles to improve email effectiveness.
• Founders should apply these principles to increase engagement.
• Refining email copy leads to better marketing outcomes.

Opening: Learning from examples can help founders improve their own distribution tactics. Quote:

"All right, so let's see some examples... And it's worth noting, these are actually real emails that I have received."

Takeaway:

• Epstein shares real-life examples of good and bad emails.
• Founders can learn what works and what doesn't.
• Applying successful templates can enhance email effectiveness.

Opening: Persistence in follow-ups can significantly improve marketing outcomes. Quote:

"But one email is often not enough... you should plan to manually follow up 2, 3, 4 times as needed."

Takeaway:

• Epstein advises following up multiple times.
• Spacing out follow-ups makes persistence less intrusive.
• Creative follow-ups can re-engage potential customers.

Opening: Manual outreach helps founders learn and optimize before scaling marketing efforts. Quote:

"You have to do it manually first, so that you can learn and figure out what works, so that you can then start to scale the process more."

Takeaway:

• Epstein urges founders to begin with manual, personalized emails.
• Direct experience helps identify effective strategies.
• Automation should come after optimizing the manual process.

Opening: Finding unique connections can improve personalization and engagement in outreach. Quote:

"You want to try to find the uncommon commonalities with the people that you're reaching out to... So that means that you have to do the work."

Takeaway:

• Epstein suggests finding unique shared experiences.
• Research helps uncover these uncommon commonalities.
• This deepens connections and increases response likelihood.

Opening: Establishing credibility is crucial for gaining trust in marketing efforts. Quote:

"If you're in YC, often that can be credibility enough to open doors, but if you're not in YC, this can be through former schools that you've attended, companies that you've worked at, or other impressive things that you've done."

Takeaway:

• Epstein advises founders to highlight their background for credibility.
• Sharing notable customers provides social proof.
• Establishing trust increases the chances of engagement.

Opening: Being human makes your emails relatable, increasing response rates in marketing. Quote:

"This really helps to talk about emotions... because humans talk about emotions and bots, or LLMs or whatever else you're using to try to automate this process is not good at this type of thing."

Takeaway:

• Epstein suggests writing as you would to a friend.
• Using informal language and emotions connects better.
• Authenticity in emails leads to better engagement.

Opening: Personalization increases the likelihood of responses, enhancing distribution strategies. Quote:

"Everyone's used to getting tons of spam, and people can smell spam from a mile away. So that's why personalization and making it feel targeted is super important to avoid the delete button."

Takeaway:

• Epstein stresses the need for specific personalization.
• Founders should do the work to research and tailor emails.
• Personalized emails stand out and are more likely to be read.

Opening: Improving open rates is crucial for effective distribution and marketing. Better targeting ensures your emails reach the right audience. Quote:

"The most effective way to increase your open rates is gonna come through better targeting. We talk a lot at YC about making something people want, and targeting is really all about finding the people that want it."

Takeaway:

• Epstein emphasizes that better targeting is the highest leverage for increasing open rates.
• Founders should focus on identifying and reaching out to their ideal customers.
• By improving targeting, founders can achieve higher conversion rates.