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How to write a cold email from one fact

A cold email gets read when it is built on one true thing about its reader. How to find that fact, use it, and check it before sending.

How to write a cold email from one fact

By The Scrisly teamAll posts

A cold email is read in the first two lines or not at all. What earns the third line is not a clever opener but proof that you wrote to this person and not to a list: one true, specific thing about them, and a reason to write that follows from it. This post is about finding that one fact and building the email on it.

What counts as a fact

A fact is something the reader would recognise as theirs. "Your team" or "your industry" is not a fact; anyone could write it. These are:

  • a product or service they list on their own site ("you restore oak floors in listed buildings");
  • something they did recently ("you opened a second workshop in Cluj this spring");
  • a choice they made that says what they care about ("you publish your prices on the site").

The best place to find one is the person's own website, because it is what they chose to say about themselves. A fact from there is hard to get wrong and easy for them to recognise.

Build the email on it

Once you have the fact, the email almost writes itself, in four parts:

  1. The greeting, by first name if you know it.
  2. The fact, quoted or put in your own words, in one sentence. This is the line that shows the email was written for them.
  3. One benefit tied to that fact, not a list of everything you do. If they restore floors in listed buildings, talk about the one thing you do that helps with that.
  4. One question or one small next step, and a plain way to say no.

Keep it short. Four to six sentences is enough. A price belongs in it only if you would say it out loud on a first call.

Check it before it goes

A wrong fact is worse than none: it shows you did not read the site you are quoting. Before sending, check three things.

  • Is the fact on their site? Open the page and look.
  • Is the address real? An email that bounces never had a chance. Verify the address before you write, not after.
  • Would a spam filter set it aside? Links, images and some words push an email towards the spam folder. A spam check tells you which drafts a filter would likely flag, and why.

Send it as yourself

Send from your own mailbox, at a human pace, and stop at once when someone asks you to. Put your postal address in the footer and make leaving one click. None of this is extra polish; it is what keeps your domain trusted, and in many countries it is what the law asks.

How Scrisly does it

Scrisly does each step above for every lead. It reads the lead's website, picks one fact, and shows it above the draft as "Built on" so you can check it at a glance. If the lead's site gives no fact, the draft is still written but marked "No personal detail" and held for a person, and a claim check flags anything your company profile does not support. Every address is verified before a draft is written, every draft goes through the rspamd spam check, and nothing leaves until you approve it, or until your sending domain passes its checks and you let clean drafts with a verified fact to valid addresses go on their own. The email then leaves from your own mailbox, with your postal address and a one-click unsubscribe.

If you want to try it on your own leads, create an account.