Best Email Closings: How to End Cold Email Like a Pro

George Vitko 22 Apr 2021

When it comes to cold emails, we tend to spend a lot of time working out the best ways to start them off. What subject lines work best? What opening line should I use to hold their attention? People don’t seem to be as concerned with how they should end their email. However, even the strongest subject lines and openers will do you no good if your cold email doesn’t end properly.

By using the following tips and suggestions in your cold emails, you can make sure your emails finish as strongly as they start and get the results you’re looking for.

What is the best closing for an email?

When sending cold emails sales reps tend to pay attention to a few things:

Subject line as it’s the key element responsible for driving email opens
Personalization to make the email feel warm and appealing
Value proposition to make sure the prospect sees the benefits of what you’re offering

When it comes to the sign-off, most will go with the “all the best” email closing or use other formal email phrases without giving a second thought about it.

While there are many sign-off lines for email, simply closing an email with “best” might ruin the whole impression. To make sure every word you use serves the key purpose – engagement – we’ve decided to go through the best email closings for business emails.

This mostly revolves around the CTA and how you can start a conversation with your prospect. So, here are some of the best ways to close an email.

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Always have a CTA

The golden rule of closing your emails is to make sure you have a clear call to action (CTA). Why are you sending a cold email in the first place? What action do you want the recipient to take after reading it? Your CTA is the whole point of your email; every line that comes before it (including that subject line) should drive the reader toward it.

While you might think it’s obvious what you want your email recipient to do, you still have to ask them to do it. Too many cold emails end passively, tailing off without ever saying what should happen next. Sometimes this is done with good intentions, maybe wanting to avoid being too salesy.

However, leaving out your CTA doesn’t do your recipients any favors. Rather than being a hard sell, letting the reader know what to do next and how to benefit from your email will lead to better outcomes for you and for them. Aim for one CTA per email, and make sure it’s clear and easy to follow.

Avoid an aggressive CTA

While every cold email should have a CTA, that doesn’t mean all CTAs are created equal. Your CTA will depend on the overall objective of your campaign. Some companies use cold email because they’ve read somewhere that they should and that it can get great results for your business. While that’s true, cold email has to be part of a planned strategy, where careful thought is given to how cold email will actually get you those results you’re looking for.

As cold email can be a great way to increase sales, some marketers make the mistake of using every email to sell. They then wonder why, rather than bringing in the money, their emails are ignored or flagged as spam.

While your ultimate objective may be to increase sales, closing every email with a pitch and a link to ‘buy now’ simply isn’t going to work. After all, people very rarely buy from complete strangers. Instead, it’s better to find another short-term objective for your first email. One popular option is to try and book a sales demo or call, but this might not be the best way to close an email professionally.

Bear in mind that the average professional receives 120 emails every day, but only responds to 25% of them. People’s time is limited and there are only so many meetings or demos they can attend. As a result, aiming for a simpler outcome that requires minimal effort from the recipient is far more likely to get a positive response.

Start a conversation

Think of your cold email as the first step in a much longer journey. It is your first contact, your introduction. While people will be more hesitant to buy or even arrange a meeting with someone they’ve never heard from before, a simple response is much less of a demand.

One of the most effective ways of starting a two-way conversation is to ask questions. Questions encourage the reader to pause and think, even if it’s just to answer the question in their head. As a bonus, the responses you receive are a fantastic opportunity to learn more about your prospects, information that you can use to craft a personalized and relevant follow-up.

The simple fact that they’ve responded—regardless of what the actual response is—tells you that the subject is relevant to them and has some importance. Just bear in mind that there’s a fine balance to be had between asking questions that are open-ended and encourage a thoughtful response, and making the recipient feel like they’re being interrogated.

Don’t be afraid of no

A common sales tactic is to try and get prospects into the habit of saying yes. The thinking goes that the more times they say yes, the more likely to say yes to purchasing your product/service. Even if this is the case though (I’m not entirely convinced), remember that the goal of your first cold email isn’t trying to close the deal. Rather, you should be using your cold emails to qualify your leads and see whether you’re a good fit for each other.

From this point of view, a no is just as valuable as a yes. Every no you hear allows you to focus more resources on more promising leads, rather than putting time and effort into leads that were never likely to pan out.

In fact, getting a no can be even more valuable than a yes, at least according to Chris Voss, author of ‘Never Split the Difference’ (one of our recommended books to help you improve your sales). As Chris explains, if people feel forced into saying yes it can feel uncomfortable and be misleading.

When you ask yes-oriented questions that you already know the answer to, you give people a one-word escape route that’s difficult to pass up. To satisfy you and move on with their lives, all they need to do is tell you what you want to hear—even if they don’t genuinely agree.

Use your email signature effectively

I’m regularly asked if it’s better to open cold emails with an introduction or not. Some feel that it’s only right to introduce yourself the first time you contact a lead, while others feel that you should get straight to the point. By using an email signature, you can get the best of both worlds, saving that valuable real estate for an attention-grabbing introduction while still letting people know who you are in your signature.

However, there’s no need to leave it there. For example, you could include a link in your email signature to your latest blog post, any free tools your company offers, or your social media profiles. While you should generally stick to one CTA per email, your signature can act as a secondary CTA, inviting people to learn more about your company or download a free guide.

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Examples of the best business email closings

To see what this all looks like in practice, let’s take a look at some examples of the best closings for emails and see how they measure up.

“I’d love to jump on a call to discuss this further. How would next Monday at 11am suit you?”

We have a CTA with a clear objective—to get a meeting. Assuming the body of the email has done enough to generate interest in the product/service, this could work. If they’d just asked if the recipient would be agreeable to a call, there are only two potential responses: yes or no. However, by suggesting a potential time, you encourage the recipient to think in terms of whether the timing is convenient, rather than whether they want to have a meeting in the first place.

“If that sounds interesting to you, I’d be happy to explain more. Feel free to pick any time from my calendar that would suit you for a chat.”

Here we have another closing that’s trying to secure a call. As mentioned, this might be too much of a request for an initial cold email, but this closing does its best to remove as much friction as possible by allowing them to pick a time from a scheduling tool. However, some people will be hesitant to click a link in an email from a stranger. If the email is from a recognized company and/or the reader sees enough potential value in the product, this could work well.

“Do you ever struggle with {specific problem that your product solves}?”

We’ve already discussed how questions can be the best way to close out an email, encouraging your reader to engage more. The key word here is ‘specific.’ If you’ve done your research properly and can refer to a problem that is relevant to the recipient, this should be enough to get their attention. However, this question could easily be viewed as rhetorical and, while it might still get them to think, it still might not be enough to motivate a response.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how are you currently dealing with {specific problem that your product solves}?”

Building on the previous example, the subtle change to this ending makes it clear that you’d like to start a conversation, inviting the reader to give their input. Even if it doesn’t always lead to a sale, this type of closing is a great opportunity to learn more about your recipient. However, the likelihood of getting a response depends on the complexity of the problem you’re solving. If they can answer the question in a few words, this will reduce the friction of responding. If it takes too much time or effort though, or the problem isn’t one they’re interested in, you’re not going to get a response.

“I’ve actually recorded a video showing how {sender company} could help save {recipient company} $486 every week. Would it be okay to send that over?”

This is one of my favorite email closings. As well as following the rules of how to close an email like a pro, this steps it up by offering the reader something that’s personalized to them. Rather than asking for a sale, a meeting or anything else, this email closing is offering something of value. Coupled with a screenshot of the video, ideally showing the recipient’s company name, this is by far the best way to close a business email that stands a really good chance of getting a response.

How to write better cold emails, according to data

Get data-backed insights on several aspects of effective cold email copy, including length, variables, questions, and non-text elements.

Conclusion

While they may not get as much attention as subject lines or openings, your email closings are just as important when it comes to writing an effective cold email. By ensuring that you have a CTA that’s in line with your overall objectives (without being too aggressive) and starting conversations, you can send emails that are more likely to get the response you’re looking for.

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