Writing lessons I learned as a content writer at a tech company

Hellooo. Welcome to part 2 of this writing lessons series.

If you have sent cold emails or are planning to, please read this newsletter carefully so you’ll not make a fool of yourself.

Part 1: Article writing

Part 2: Cold email

Part 3: Sending survey question

Part 4: Improving landing page copy

Cold email

1. Keep it short

This is the email

The problems with this email:

1. Too long

   I’m guilty myself as I’ve written a long cold email before. But when I started receiving tons of them, I finally realized I don’t read cold emails, I skim them. So remember, people don’t read cold emails, they skim them.

2. Not being straight to the point

   If I cannot know what the email is about in 5 seconds, you’ve lost me. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. Imagine if you’re cold emailing to high-level executives, it’s not unusual for them to receive gazillions of cold emails per day. They’ll go berserk if they read each one thoughtfully. So to prevent that, they screen the emails as quickly as possible so they can finally move on to more important tasks.

3. Sounds unnatural

   Being formal is okay. But as I said in part 1, human touch is important.

Here’s why this email is great.

1. Short. It’s skimmable and straight to the point.

   Here’s how to keep your readers glued with simple writing.

2. A compliment but it can be improved.

   The “spot-on” feels template-y. A simple “I like your article about [topic]. Haven’t read something that helpful in a while” would be better. Please be genuine. If you don’t have anything to compliment, then don’t.

3. The intention to help me first (I’d love to reference). Then, ask for something (How about we collab?).

   This technique triggers reciprocity.

2. You don’t even need to let the recipient know who you are

The first email boasts about the company. Please remember that nobody cares about your company’s achievement as much as you do. Also,

It’s useless because the email already has a footer stating the company he works for. If I want to know about your company, I’ll Google it.

The second email is smart because he doesn’t say anything about the company at all. Probably he knows if I’m interested, I can just Google it or ask him in future replies.

Part 2 is done!

I hope you find it helpful. Please share this newsletter with your marketing colleagues to save them from embarrassment.