If you’re cold-emailing for internships, networking, sales, etc. boost your response rate by making the recipient’s job easy. Here's how:
Think about who is most relevant to your ask and likely to respond. If you’re applying for an Engineering role, the Marketing Recruiter likely isn't the best person to contact. They might take the effort to redirect you, but don’t assume they will.
Aside from the email itself, there are small details that could help increase your chances of a reply. Always make sure to have a professional-looking profile picture, and if you can, use your school email (.edu) or official organization email (custom email domain is a plus) to boost your credibility.
The subject line will be the first thing your recipient sees, and can be the difference between your contact opening or ignoring your email. Don't give away your entire purpose of emailing within the subject line and instead, hint at the purpose to pique the recipient's interest. Imagine that you receive hundreds of emails, usually with the same request. Ask yourself, "If I saw this subject line, would I open?" Feel free to experiment with several styles of subject lines to see which receive the most responses.
Even if you use a fill-in-the-blank template for each of your contacts, customize it so that it appears written specifically for the recipient. If you can switch out the name of a professor or a company and still have the email make sense, then it's likely too general. Do your thorough research on the recipient, and discuss specific papers or projects you are interested in working on. If you don't clearly show your effort in writing the email, the other person may not take the effort to respond.
Even if you feel unqualified for a position, confidently show off your capabilities and humbly demonstrate your willingness to learn. You don't need to have all the answers, so long as you're dedicated to finding them. Avoid mentioning any details about your weaknesses, or anything that could cause distrust.
People are busy and may forget to reply. Gentle reminders after 3-5 days show that you care about their response.
Your follow-up should be no more than a couple of sentences and should be actionable just like your initial email. You can use the same call-to-action, phrased differently. For example, "Please let me know if you'd like to get on a call!"
If possible, provide another unique reason why they should reply (without explicitly saying so). For example, "This would be a great opportunity to increase [COMPANY]'s exposure."
However, if you try several times with no reply, move on or wait before trying again. Don’t risk burning a bridge by pushing boundaries..
Attention spans are short and time is valuable. Triple-check your email drafts for any areas where you can cut or include in a later follow-up.