5 Tips for Building Trust in Sales Cold Emails (with examples)

Having trouble converting prospects into clients with your cold emails? The issue could be a lack of trust from your prospects.

Building trust from the first email helps capture your prospects’ attention and get replies. The more replies you get, the higher your sender reputation is. This improves your deliverability and keeps your emails out of spam in the long run.

In this article, you’ll find 5 practical tips to build trust with your prospects right from the start, make your emails stand out, and get more replies. 🚀

Tip 1: Create a clear sender identity

Imagine receiving an email from this person 👇

→ you don’t know them

→ there’s no profile photo or email signature

→ the subject line is vague and spammy

Without a clear sender identity, your prospects won’t trust you. On the other hand, a clear identity builds trust, and makes prospects more willing to reply or book a meeting with you.

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Here are 3 elements you should always include to create a clear sender identity:

1. your full name

--> to build authenticity and trust

2. use a custom domain

--> for your email outreach

3. add a clear profile photo

--> to humanize your message and help prospects put a face to your name

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An email from a recognizable sender is much easier to trust and likelier to get replies 👇

Tip 2: Write valuable and clear subject lines

The first thing your prospect sees in your email is your subject line. A spammy subject line could trigger email providers and land your email in spam. But a great subject line can make you stand out in a crowded inbox and get your emails read.

Here are 3 tips for writing email subject lines that avoid spam & get replies:

1. Show your prospects what’s in it for them

Use your subject line to tease the value of your email or offer. Clearly mention what your prospects will get from reading it. This makes them more likely to open your email and reply to it.

2. Create a sense of urgency or curiosity

Use a tone that triggers your prospects' curiosity or creates a sense of urgency. Avoid clickbait subject lines since they ruin your credibility and lower reply rates.

3. A/B test your subject lines

A/B testing helps you learn more about the tone your audience reacts to. The idea is to create two versions of your subject line and send each to different audience segments.

Once sent, you can track the open rates and replies you get for each version. This will show which subject line was the most effective and tell you more about the tone your audience responds to.

A/B testing tells you more about your audience and helps you write subject lines that they are likelier to open.

Here’s an example of a subject line you can A/B test 👇

After sending 1000s of emails, we’ve cracked the code on subject lines that push people to open & reply to your emails. With that in mind, we created 100+ email subject line templates. You can use these as inspiration for your email outreach!

Tip 3: Personalize your email

Personalization is key to grabbing your prospect's attention and building a connection. It shows prospects that you’ve done your research and written the email specifically for them. This makes them likelier to read your email and reply.

Here are 3 ways you can personalize your emails to get more replies:

1. Address pain points

Mention industry-specific pain points to show that you understand your prospect’s challenges.

Imagine your tool helps B2B companies easily record video testimonials.

Here’s how you can lead into a potential need or pain point 👇

2. Tailor your offer to their needs

Customize your value proposition based on your prospects’ specific challenges.

In our example, it’s clear that recording and editing video testimonials can be time-consuming.  So you can address their objections by proposing a solution 👇

3. Speak their language

Talk to your prospects in the words and tone that they use. This shows that you understand their domain and have experience with similar businesses.

Imagine your key audience segment is SaaS founders & entrepreneurs.

Here’s what “speaking their language” would look like 👇

Tip 4: Build credibility with social proof

Your prospects are likelier to trust you if they see the results you’ve already achieved. Including social proof in your first email helps build this trust and credibility.

Here's how you can naturally add social proof without sounding salesy:

1. Highlight user statistics

Mention competitors or similar clients you've worked with to show your experience and success in their industry.

For example, imagine you’re selling an email warm-up tool.

Mentioning the result you’ve seen with a competitor or similar business can help your prospect relate more to your offer 👇

2. Include data-driven results

Add specific data or industry benchmarks to showcase the measurable impact you’ve had or can have on your prospect.

In the same example as before, you can also make an ‘extraordinary’ guarantee to catch your prospect’s attention 👇

3. Include a short testimonial quote

Include a short quote or testimonial from a happy client to show the impact your product or service has had.

For example, if you’re reaching out to a prospect who an existing client referred, you can say 👇

Tip 5: Keep your emails away from spam

Prospects won’t trust an email that landed in their spam folder. So ensure that your emails avoid spam and land in prospects’ inboxes.

Here are 3 tips to boost your deliverability and keep your emails away from spam:

1. Warm up your email

Think about the warm-up process as a protection for your emails that prevents them from landing in spam. Email warm-up gradually increases emails sent from your account. This natural pattern prevents triggering email providers and boosts your deliverability.

Since the process takes 3-4 weeks, it’s best to use a warm-up and deliverability booster like lemwarm.

lemwarm creates a personalized deliverability strategy based on your goals and email characteristics.

Check out the improvement in this user's deliverability score within 3 weeks of using lemwarm 👇

2. Avoid using spam-trigger words

Spam trigger words are commonly found in emails related to scams or illegal activities. So email filters are programmed to flag emails with such words as spam. If your emails have spam trigger words, they’re likelier to land in spam, where your audience won’t see or trust them.

To prevent this, avoid overly aggressive, pushy, or manipulative words. Focus on using a friendly and conversational tone with your audience.

You can do that using this list of the top 20 spam trigger words to avoid 👇

3. Monitor your email deliverability

Use a warm-up and deliverability booster like lemwarm before-during-after sending email campaigns. Monitoring your deliverability is an effective way to avoid soft bounces and keep your emails away from spam.

While monitoring your deliverability, here’s what you should check:

• your deliverability score (keep it > 90)
• your technical setup
• your email metrics (spam complaint rates, bounce rates, etc.)

You can use a tool like lemwarm to check your technical setup. ⬇️

Your cold email credibility checklist

Here’s a simple 5-step checklist to build credibility and motivate your prospects to reply 👇

❒ add your full name & a clear profile photo

❒ write valuable and clear subject lines

❒ tailor your offer to prospects’ needs

❒ speak your prospects’ language

❒ build social proof with testimonials and potential results

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Landing in prospects' inboxes instead of spam protects your credibility. 

The simplest way to avoid spam is to boost your deliverability and monitor it before-during-after sending emails.

Check out this complete guide for tips to get started now 🚀