Writing Funny Cold Emails – Humor to Attract Potential Customers?

Using humor to attract potential customers, does it really work?

Anyone with an idea, great product, or simply a desire to connect with some decision-maker with whom he never spoke had to go through the process of creating dozens of cold emails that at first did not get any response.

What are those funny cold emails? For starters, cold email is a means to start a conversation online. That is a message you send to a person who most likely knows nothing about you, your product, or your company. Since it’s the first time they hear about you, we say they are “cold” leads. If you still have not figured out what funny cold emails are – they are cold emails, but funnier and less conventional. 

How on Earth to get the attention of someone who has never heard of you and write cold emails that get responses?

What I learned from writing who knows how many cold emails over time is that there are no strict rules that apply to all people. Some great templates can ease your process towards getting your emails answered, however sometimes those emails tend to be pretty unuseful, and here is why:

• Not all of your leads are the same. What triggers one person, does not have to trigger someone else. We all react differently and what works with one type of people, does not have to work with another.
• It is not authentic. There are different salesmen outhere, some of them talk a lot and have amazing charisma that makes you trust them from the start, while others tend to be more serious and distant and still do a great job. All of this reflects in the way you write these emails. 
• Emails that work with C-level titles do not have to work with those who are holding a junior position. In general, people who are on a C-level tend to get a dozen emails on a daily basis which makes your chances of getting a response quite lower.

Aside from these universal truths which can change the perspective of how cold outreach works, here are some great tips that you should keep in mind when writing a cold email:

You are writing an email to another human being

Call me Captain Obvious, however many people make this mistake. Yes, we all have masks and a set of desired behaviors when we work. Behind those learned behaviors are real persons with emotions that we can trigger. 

People tend to react better when you make them smile, it is a great way to start a conversation. Feel free to use humor as an opening line/subject line or use memes instead.

Keep it short

Nowadays nobody has time to read long texts, especially from someone they never heard of. Keep your cold emails/LinkedIn messages as short as possible. If you can do it in under 300 words, great!

Avoid using words that mean nothing

I already said that we tend to use many polite words just to sound smart or professional, however, if we overdo it we can miss the point and lose ourselves in dozens of words without meaning. 

“Hello dear XY. How are you doing? I hope my email finds you well” – congrats, you just spent 14 words without saying anything, at least anything meaningful. Keep it short and sharp, be direct.

Call to action

As a salesperson, you need to know that every interaction has to have the following steps mentioned and agreed on with a lead. Since you are cold outreaching someone who did not know that you exist till that moment you sent an email, do not ask them for big commitments or favors. 

Just think of a real case scenario where you saw a stranger on the street and asked him to lend you the money. There is a high probability that you would not get what you are asking for.

Examples of low investment call to actions in the first cold email:

• Can I send you some ebooks/videos that might help you get higher conversion rates?
• Can I ask you a couple of questions just to understand if we have a business potential?
• If you are interested in hearing more about it, feel free to book a 15 min demo meeting with us.

Stop selling in the first email

The whole point of sending a cold email is to move your prospect a little deeper within your sales funnel – book a meeting, not to SELL. If you are selling an amazing product, but have not realized if that person is a match, they will not start using your product even if you gave it to them for free. Cold emails should be all about your prospect and building a relationship, not selling.

Following SkaleUP Example

In summer 2021 I started doing market research to make sure that we had a product-market fit. I needed my leads to fill out a questionnaire I prepared earlier for them. I was targeting CEOs of startups/small businesses so I decided to go with cold messaging via LinkedIn.

That way it looked more personal and CEOs of startups tend to spend time on this platform. When the research was conducted, here are the results we achieved:

• Cca 80% open rate
• Cca 65% of all contacted leads responded
• Cca 32% of all contacted leads decided to help me and fill the questionnaire.

Yes, you might say that the final action I needed them to take was not sale, but the principle remains the same.

Here are quick tips of how we managed to get those conversions:

• Opening line – it was spontaneous with the human touch which triggered their emotions. I reminded them that once they were in my shoes which was supposed to create a rapport between us. 
• Humor – my writing style was humorous and a little bit laid back which made them feel comfortable and themselves.
• Being authentic – I literally used words that I use in my everyday life. That made me sound natural and people tend to recognize it, sometimes on their unconscious level.
• Story telling – a brief story which relates the topic – or why you are contacting them could allure them into reading further.
• Memes – this way you will get their attention and make them smile which will buy you some time 🙂
• Make sure your profile is legit – the last, but not the least, do not make generic fake profiles which will make you look unrealistic so someone might think that you are a spam.

Yes, cold emailing is not easy…

Yes, it sucks to be ignored, but these numbers can be lower if you stick to the rules mentioned above. Good luck!