I analyzed my teams emails

here's what I learned

Right now I’m leading the SDR org at Degreed - a $100M learning tech company. Our prospects are Learning and Development Leaders, these folks typically have traditional HR or Training backgrounds and are not so receptive to risky or edgier types of outreach.

They respond to simple, casual, clear emails. No cleverness needed.

The proof is below. I analyzed my teams active emails and sequences over the last several months and here’s what I learned:

1️⃣ Personalization in email is overrated.

If you told me two years ago I'd be typing that out I wouldn't believe you. That's because simple personalization worked a few years ago.

Things like plugging {first name} merge fields into subject lines or mentioning surface level details from a prospects Linkedin profile.

Those tactics had their moment and that moment has passed. Unless you take the time to get extremely personal and clever, the time investment in crafting personalized emails often isn't worth it. These emails typically don't have an outsized performance against emails with a simple, relevant message.

Which leads me to my next point.

2️⃣ Relevance takes the cake 🍰

Your messaging needs to consider the current state of buyer mentality.Execs are under a ton of pressure.

They don't care to read through a witty email, all they have mental space for is saving money and solving real business issues.

Your emails should make it clear that you:

  • truly understand their problem/goal

  • be as obvious as you can about this-your company is actively solving this for their peers/competitors

  • social proof-your solution drives dollars-based impact — more social proof with $ and %.

Nail the relevance piece and you don't need personalization.

3️⃣ Make your emails casual. Then make them more casual.

B2B buyers are showing consumer-like purchasing behaviors and expect their buying experience to be similar to buying a consumer product.

They're officially worn out on sales speak. Your emails don't need to be super buttoned up.

Tip: pretend your writing an email to your best friend. Add in some necessary punctuation and remove any unruly nicknames you've given your friend over the years.

Hit send.

💡 Bonus: most email gurus will tell you to remove filler words because that feels like the right thing to say, but filler words work in email because they make the message feel more conversational. Words like really, super, very, etc.

Type the way you talk. Give it a shot.

What doesn't work is filler phrases like "just touching base" or “circling back on this”

4️⃣ Simple nudge emails get replies.

This pains me to my core because there's no real "work" being done here.But they do work. Adding a 'reply' email to your sequence with a simple "putting this at the top of your inbox - is this a priority for you?" message continues to show strong open and reply rates.

5️⃣ lowercase subject lines work.

There are four ways to capitalize:

  • Title Case

  • Sentence case

  • ALL UPPERCASE

  • all lowercase

Which do you think is used most in subject lines?

  • 60% of the time it's sentence-case

  • 34% of the time it's title-case

  • 6% of the time is all-lowercase

What are you trying to do in someone's inbox?

Stand out.

How do you do that?

Do stuff that nobody else is doing.

Right now, that's lowercase subject lines.

Happy Wednesday ✌