Cold email first lines: examples written from a company’s own filings

The first line of a cold email has one job, which is to get the second line read. Most fail at it, because they are about the sender, or because they are flattery that could have been sent to anybody.

The ones that work do two things at once. They say something true and specific about the reader, and they give the reason for writing today rather than last month. For UK companies there is a free source of exactly that: what the company has filed on the public record. This page has examples for each kind of filing, the openings that fail, and the rules we hold our own system to. The film above shows those first lines being written, one for every company.

What a good first line does

It earns the next sentence by proving three things quickly:

1. You know who they are. The company by name, and one fact about it that a mail-merge could not have produced.
2. There is a reason for today. A date, a deadline or a change, not "I thought I would reach out".
3. You are not about to waste their time. One or two sentences, with nothing padded onto the front.

Anything that does not serve one of those can go. The pitch comes second, and it should be short enough to read without scrolling.

Where the specifics come from

The most reliable specifics are dated facts the company has published itself. Companies House shows when a firm was registered, when its accounts and confirmation statement are due, and whether either is late. None of that is private and none of it is guesswork, which is why it can be said plainly.

This is a different thing from reading somebody's social profile and remarking on their holiday. A filing is a business fact, stated by the business, and mentioning it is no more intrusive than mentioning their shop sign. Companies House data for lead generation sets out what is and is not on the public record.

Examples, by the reason you are writing

Every company below is invented, and each line is the kind a real filing supports.

Just incorporated, from a kitchen fitter to a new building firm:

I saw you registered Specimen Builders on 14 August. The first few jobs are usually when a builder settles who fits what, so I wanted to be early rather than polished.

It names the date, explains the timing honestly, and admits what it is. For the full approach see how to get work from builders.

Accounts due, from an accountant:

Sample Joinery's annual accounts are due on 30 November. If nobody is lined up to file them yet, I would like to be considered.

The decision about who files is made weeks before the date, so this arrives while it is still open.

Accounts overdue, from an accountant:

The public record shows Example Haulage's accounts were due on 31 July. If that is already in hand, ignore me. If it is not, it can be put right this week.

Tone matters most here. State the fact, offer the way out, and never sound like a warning letter.

Confirmation statement due, from a bookkeeper or formation agent:

Your confirmation statement is due on 12 October. It is a ten-minute job, and I am happy to do it as a first piece of work.

Small, specific and easy to say yes to.

First accounts coming, from an accountant:

Demo Studio was registered last November, which puts your first accounts a few months away. Most founders have nobody lined up for the first set, so I thought I would ask.

Website graded poor, from a web designer:

I opened the Specimen Plumbing site on my phone this morning and the menu covers your phone number. It is a small fix, and I thought you would want to know either way.

One true observation beats a paragraph of audit. It has to be true. Our crawler grades a site before it is ever offered as a reason, so nobody is told their site is poor on a guess.

Lines that fail, and why

• "I hope this finds you well." It says nothing, and it is the first thing a busy reader learns to skip.
• "I love what you are doing at Specimen Ltd." Flattery with no fact in it reads as mass mail, because it is.
• "Quick question." With no context, the honest answer is no.
• "We are a leading provider of..." The reader has not yet been given a reason to care who you are.
• Anything you cannot evidence. "I see you are growing fast" is a guess. A date on a filing is not.

The rules our own first lines are held to

Every morning a model writes one opening line for each matched company, and a set of rules refuses the bad ones before anybody sees them. The rules are the useful part, whoever does the writing.

A greeting or a sign-off inside the line is removed. A line is rejected outright if it leaves a merge field unfilled, runs past two sentences, falls outside 40 to 220 characters, or opens with the same four words as a line you have already seen. A rejected line is asked for once more, and if it fails again the card falls back to a plain house opener rather than sending something odd under your name.

The last of those rules matters more than it looks. Ten emails that open the same way are a mail-merge, however personal each one sounds.

The middle is yours

The first line comes from the filing, so it is different for every company. The lines after it should not change much, because they are about you: what you sell, where, and the one thing you would like to know.

In Leadistry those two lines are written once, in your own words, and are never rewritten without asking. Any line on any card can be changed before it goes, and you can ask for the opener again, shorter, warmer or plainer, with up to six versions kept so you can go back. Your colour, logo and links sit under your name, and it is sent from your own mailbox.

Test the line, not your luck

Opinions about first lines are cheap, and replies are the only evidence. Send two openings to similar companies and count who answers. A/B testing cold email explains how to do that fairly, and cold email tracking that tells the truth explains why we count replies and not opens.

Start free with 25 leads and no card.