How to write irresistible CTAs for your warm outreach emails

“I recently spent $8 on Oxylabs, and got this sales email as a result [...] it’s really hard to not reply.”

One glance at the CTA and I knew why.

The email overall? Unremarkable.

Minimum viable levels of personalization.

Boilerplate opening lines.

Robotic writing.

And yet…

The sending trigger, subject line and the CTA combined make it an action-worthy message.

This isn’t to say that you should ignore personalization, settle for boring boilerplate copy and a stiff voice and tone…

But it’s interesting that an email can land fairly well despite these flaws. Which is why we’re going to look at this email today. 🤓

In this issue you’ll see:

• The unremarkable yet highly actionable ”revenue expansion” email from Oxylabs.io

• What makes this email so difficult to leave on read, despite the mediocre copy

• The simple tactic you can swipe to make your CTAs elicit more replies

Let’s dig in.

THE BREAKDOWN

Oxylabs’ “revenue expansion” email.

Here’s the email in question:

As mentioned, this email works despite some missteps. Let’s start with the things I’d tweak:

1) Use a more conversational voice and tone.

Time after time, I see emails sent from sales teams that read like they were lifted from a PhD dissertation.

This isn’t English class.

Your sales team’s email copy is allowed to sound human.

In fact, ideally, your email copy sounds similar to how the sender sounds on the phone or in a meeting.

Written formalities—like hello instead of hi and passive voice instead of active voice—result in an overly formal voice that feels out of place in this conversational channel.

Here are some easy ways to warm up the voice and tone:

• Use contractions.

• Default to simple and/or casual vocabulary.

• Write in active voice. (Bonus points for active voice because it also makes your copy easier to understand.)

2) Add light personalization.

This email is a post-purchase email. In most cases, a first name is collected when a purchase is processed, so this email should use the data they have on file to make the copy sound more personal.

Adding a first name merge tag in the salutation is low-hanging fruit.

3) Use messaging that “advances the plot.”

This email contains a little too much filler copy for my liking:

The first line? Boilerplate niceties.

The second line? Rehashes the subject line.

Remember: It’s okay to be direct. You can cut the filler copy.

Before we go on, it’s worth acknowledging a couple of things about the nicety in the first line:

Gong research shows that niceties like the one in the first line of this email correlate to a 24% increase in meetings booked. I see this stat thrown around regularly. Often the folks throwing around the stat miss critical additional context. For instance:

• The stat is specific to cold emails. (The Oxylabs email isn’t a cold email.)

• Additionally, the nicety is often used in a cold email campaign’s follow-up touch-points (which this email isn’t).

• Finally, Gong notes that a personalized nicety is stronger than a non-personalized nicety.

Now, this nicety copy may be placed to push the core email content out of the inbox preview, so the reader must open the email to close the loop that the subject line opens. That’s fine and fair. But I’d challenge the writer to lead with something more relevant and engaging than “Hope you are well.”

Now, here’s what works:

1) Leverages contextual relevance in the subject line.

The recipient received this email shortly after they completed their first purchase. By connecting the email to the recent purchase, the subject line leverages contextual relevance that works nicely to get the open.

Notice that the subject line doesn’t give away what’s actually inside the email. It only indicates that the contents inside relate to the recent purchase:

2) Uses a closed-ended question as the CTA.

As previously discussed (here and here), I rarely recommend closed-ended questions for headlines, crossheads and other web copy… but closed-ended questions work nicely in sales outreach (like this Oxylabs email) because they lighten the cognitive load required to get a response.

Imagine if the CTA read something like “Thoughts on your purchase so far?”

Think about how much more effort that CTA requires from the reader...

The reader has to recall their experience so far… Consider how they feel about it… and then write it all down. Too much work. And a sure way to tank your reply rates.

That said, there’s one other special thing happening with this CTA…

THE PSYCHOLOGY

“Name it to tame it.”

The following 5 words are what make the Oxylabs CTA so interesting:

“Is it safe to assume…”

These 5 simple words signal the application of strategic labeling, also known as tactical empathy (the term made popular by former FBI negotiator Chris Voss in Never Split the Difference). This is what makes the reader feel compelled to respond to the email. Here’s why:

If the label that follows is correct, the message builds rapport between the sender and the reader—the reader feels understood by the sender, reciprocity bias kicks in and the reader feels compelled to respond. (The sender will probably offer some valuable information about Oxylabs that helps the sender better achieve their intent.)

If the label that follows is incorrect, the message will probably trigger the reader’s reactance bias and compel them to correct the label.

So, no matter what, the reader typically feels compelled to respond… which is the whole goal of the email.

It’s worth noting that when you intentionally mislabel, you’re engaging in strategic mislabeling. This is often seen as a manipulative tactic. Worse, intentional mislabeling negatively affects negotiations.

IMO, whether a label or mislabel is manipulative comes down to the sender’s intent. With Oxylabs, assuming the primary JTBD is testing, then mentioning “testing” as the labeled intention isn’t manipulative because the intent is aligned with their core buyer persona’s intent.

If you’d like to ensure you use empathy ethically—highly recommended!—start by reading this and this.

THE ACTIONABLE TIP

Use a strategic label to prompt right-fit readers to take action.

Here’s the key strategy you should swipe for your outreach emails:

When you’re using a behavior-triggered email to engage a prospect, try writing a closed-ended CTA that labels your assumption about why the recipient took that action.

Best-case scenario, you’ll assume correctly and start a focused conversation about your product’s core use case.

Worst-case scenario, you’ll assume incorrectly and likely start a conversation about the real reason they’ve taken that action.

Thanks to Elvis over at PressPulse for sharing the Oxylabs example with me. Have a piece of copy you’d like me to consider? Feel free to send it my way. :)