In (part 1) we gave you a template. That template works, but here is the catch: a template is a starting point, not the finished email. If you send it word for word, the person on the other end can tell. They have seen a hundred of them. The thing that separates an email that gets a reply from one that gets deleted is whether it sounds like it was written for them, or written for anyone.
Personalising it doesn't mean making it longer. It means making it specific. Here is how to do that without losing the things that make a cold email work: brevity, clarity, and respect for the reader's time.
— why generic emails get ignored
People can smell a mass send. A line like "I really admire the work your company does" tells the reader nothing, because it could have been sent to a thousand other people. There is no signal that you chose them.
The fix is not flattery. It is evidence. One concrete detail that proves you actually looked before you hit send.
— find the one specific thing
You do not need five points of research. You need one. Before you write, spend two minutes finding a single detail that is true about this person and no other:
- something they said on a podcast, panel, or post
- a specific project, deal, or product they worked on
- the actual path they took into the role
- a piece they wrote or were quoted in
Then reference it in one line, plainly. Not "I loved your incredible insights", but "I read your point about X and it changed how I was thinking about Y." The first is noise. The second could only have been written to them.
— keep it short
Short is not lazy, short is respectful. A long email asks the reader to do work: to read it, to decode what you want, to feel guilty if they can't get to all of it. A short email asks for almost nothing, which is exactly why it gets answered.
Stick to the shape from part 1. One line of context, one specific question, one polite exit. If a sentence is not pulling its weight, cut it. Nobody has ever replied to a cold email because it was thorough.
If you can say it in two sentences, don't use four.
— make the question theirs
The fastest way to sound copy and pasted is to ask a question they have answered a hundred times. "How do I break into the industry?" is generic. It puts the work back on them.
Tie the question to the specific thing you found. If they made an unusual career move, ask about that. If they worked on a particular deal, ask what surprised them about it. A question only they can answer is the clearest possible proof that this email was not mass produced.
— be respectful, not formal
Personal does not mean overfamiliar, and respectful does not mean stiff. You are writing to a person, so sound like one. Skip the corporate throat clearing ("I hope this email finds you well") and skip the over the top praise. Warm, direct, and brief reads as confident. Long and formal reads as nervous.
Acknowledge their time, ask your one question, and get out of the way.
— putting it all together
Here is the part 1 template with everything above applied. Short, specific, and respectful, with one line that could only have been written to this person.
Notice what each line is doing. The context is one sentence. The hook (the Sourcing Africa panel, the move from audit at 26) is a detail that exists for this person and no one else. The question can only be answered by someone who actually made that move, and the exit gives them an easy way out. Nothing is padded, and nothing is generic.
— the test before you send
Read your email back and ask one question: could I have sent this exact email to someone else without changing a word?
If yes, it is not personal yet. Find the one line that makes it unmistakably theirs, and the reply rate takes care of itself.