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Why This Is the Best Cold Email Ever Sent?

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In November 2017, Ramp.fm — a merch-on-demand company — sent a cold email masterpiece to 50,000 scraped email leads. Each email featured a photo of Ramp’s CEO wearing a t-shirt mockup with the recipient’s company logo, making it feel hyper-personalized and relevant.

Here’s an autopsy of why this is the best cold email ever written:

I am wearing your tshirt email ramp best sales email


Results

  • Recipients: 50,000
  • Open Rate: consistently above 50%
  • Click-Through Rate: 25%+
  • Total Revenue: $70,000+


Lessons to Learn

1. Always—and I mean always—strive to perfect these seven elements of your cold email:

a. Craft an irresistible subject line they have to click - here's how. 

b. Follow up with hyper-personalized content that makes them feel the email was written just for them.

c. Then, make your pitch clear and brief — address their pain and your solution fast.

d. Back it up with one line of credibility (clients, results, or press).

e. After that, include a clear, low-friction next step (ideally one click).

f. Keep the whole email short — aim for 3–8 sentences.

g. Finally, limit links to 1–2 direct URLs (never use link shorteners).


Here are a few strong cold email examples that put those principles into action.

However, if you can’t nail each of the above seven principlies, don’t bother sending cold emails. This marketing channel is too crowded, and you’ll just waste time, money, and possibly harm your domain reputation—especially if you’re sending from your main domain. Here’s why you shouldn’t, and how to do it right.


2. Test before you scale.

Ramp started by manually testing the concept: they used stock photos of a model in a plain white T-shirt and individually Photoshopped logos from 50 different companies, then sent personalized cold emails. Even with minimal copy, the personalized image alone grabbed attention—earning a 50% open rate. Once validated, they worked with their tech team to automate the process and scale the personalization to 50,000 recipients. (Read here how they did it.)


3. Think of your cold email like a funnel.

Step 1: Get them to open.
Step 2: Grab their attention.
Step 3: Keep them reading.
Step 4: Get them to act (click or reply).

Perfect each stage to maximize conversions.


That was the power of testing, creativity, and getting the cold email basics exactly right.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to nail cold emailing and generate a ton of new leads from it.