How To Write Cold Emails & LinkedIn Messages Using ChatGPT?

How To Write Cold Emails & LinkedIn Messages Using ChatGPT?

Last update: September 6, 2024

6 minute read time 6 minute read

Back to Blog

By Ilya Azovtsev

GPT writes bad cold emails & LinkedIn outreach messages. 

Here is a typical example of a cold email / LinkedIn outreach message that GPT creates:

how to cold message on linkedin

It’s a bad outreach message, and here is why: 

  1. The long Subject line doesn’t catch the attention 
  2. The intro line is too generic and overused 
  3. The call to action is too long 
  4. This message brings 0 value to the recipient 
  5. Almost no personalization 

In general, it’s a generic, not personalized message that doesn’t bring any value. It’s the same copywriting style that 99% of salespeople use. 

As a result, you will get 0 replies and will get rid of outbound lead generation. 

But GPT isn’t just another tool, and we all know about it. If you know how to work with GPT, you can prepare unique and amazing cold outreach messages that only 1% of salespeople send. 

We all know that you can use ChatGPT for content marketing and other tasks easily, but today, we’ll share with you a step-by-step guide on how to cold message on LinkedIn ChatGPT for content writing.

Here is the full dialogue with GPT (you can copy my prompts and adapt it)!

linkedin cold message

GPT-4 & New GPT features

First of all, let me share with you how I use GPT: 

  1. I use the GPT premium version 
  2. I use Beta Features (like Browse with Bing)
    linkedin cold message template
  3. I turn on the search feature
    cold message linkedin

If you use the same features, you’ll get the results I’m getting. 

Cold Email & LinkedIn Outreach Strategy 

First things first – how to cold message someone on LinkedIn or via email.

Whenever you create a cold email or LinkedIn outreach campaign, you need to follow a few really important rules: 

  1. Be relevant (people need to understand why you reach out to them right now)
  2. Personalization (hook people’s attention with something unique that relates to them) 
  3. Be different (if you use the same tactics and templates that others used for years, your results won’t be good)
how to cold message someone on linkedin

The key to crushing the cold email game, as revealed by the best in the biz:

80% on building the right list,

15% on personalized communication, and

5% on killer writing skills.

Don’t miss the lesson here. 💡

— Ilya Azovtsev (@ilya_azovtsev) May 7, 2023

That’s why while we’re creating an outreach sequence with GPT we need to spend some time to crystalize the audience’s needs and whether it fits our expectations. And only after that, will we dive deeper into copywriting. 

Writing cold messages using ChatGPT for sales

Here is the full dialogue with GPT (you can copy my prompts and adapt it)!

Prompts are the building blocks of any app that uses AI. So, what’s a prompt? It’s like a set of instructions you give to the AI software telling it what to do.

When you start a conversation with ChatGPT, it’s like starting from scratch. It doesn’t remember past chats or know anything about yourself. You need to give as much information as possible to get the most detailed replies.

So before we ask ChatGPT to write an email or LinkedIn cold message template, let’s “feed” AI with information about us and our Target Audience.

Note: The more we train GPT the better results we’ll get.

Check out the example below to understand better:

cold text message template

There are 3 important things in this initial prompt: 

1. Act as a … 

Whenever you start talking to GPT, it’s better to show the model in which it should act. For example, when it comes to writing a blog post, tell GPT to “act as a content writer”. The reason is – GPT starts thinking and acting like content writers. 

For our use case, we need GPT to act as a salesperson who is writing cold emails and LinkedIn messages to generate leads. 

2. Do the research

Since now GPT has access to the internet, it can find valuable information about yourself or your ideal customer profile.

3. Ask me

We need to “feed” the information to GPT so it actually understands what we want to get at the end. 

The best way to start it’s to tell GPT to ask you any questions needed, so it understands your audience, goals, and product better. 

Usually, at the very first prompt, we say: 

“Ask me any clarifying questions before you start to understand what I actually want to make the results better”

Here is the prompt I used: 

Act as a professional salesperson with a huge experience in outbound sales. 

You have perfectly fluent English. You balance well between the ultra-formal and informal ways of speaking based on the audience you’re working with. 

Your main and only goal is to generate leads through LinkedIn outreach for Expandi.io. 

For this I need you to understand: 

  1. My Target Audience, to do it, pls use these 2 ways:

– Ask me any questions (and as many as it’s possible) to understand the audience deeply

– I can send you the links of our best clients

– Do the research on the web or if you already know something suggest your vision on the target audience 

  1. Our product/service and Value Proposition:

– Ask me any questions about what we do 

– Find competitors (or you might already know them)

– If you already know us, suggest your ideas about our Value Proposition or Key Differentiator for the audience we discuss in the first block. 

Once you understand it, we can move to the next part in the next prompts. Only in this order, pls don’t create the outreach text right away. Let’s start with an understanding of the audience and what we do, and then we could move to the next tasks.  Which will be:

– finding unusual and unique ways to find the audience

– finding unique ways to personalize messages

–  preparing the structure of the outreach

– copywriting

– style

Answer GPT’s questions

In just a few seconds, GPT will ask you a few really good questions to understand your audience, goal, and what you provide: 

writing cold message on linkedin for referral

You need to be extremely detailed in your answer. Try to explain everything. For this example, I used a real case with us reaching out to Lead Generation Agencies (companies who are driving leads through outbound sales to companies). So all my answers would be about them: 

using chatgpt for sales

If you do everything correctly, GPT will summarize the information you fed to it: 

chatgpt for content writing

It asked me: 

Is everything correct? 

My answer: 

chatgpt for content marketing

Ask GPT to find prospects 

Now I’m sharing all my struggles regarding my target audience and asking GPT to help me with finding the right way to reach out to this audience: 

how to cold message on linkedin

It provides some ideas. To be frankly honest, the majority of these ideas are quite obvious, but I like the fact that it tries to adapt the finding approach according to my audience:

linkedin cold message

Detailed instructions from GPT

We’ve made the preparation: 

  1. GPT knows our audience and what we do 
  2. GPT knows where to find these people 

Now we need to execute it. The best way to do it is, to ask GPT to tell you what you should do in a step-by-step tutorial:

linkedin cold message template

I do everything GPT told me and give the results of my search to validate it with GPT: 

cold message linkedin

The results are pretty good! 

It takes every single person I mentioned and gives me the explanation why they might be a good target audience for this outreach campaign:

how to cold message someone on linkedin

Writing cold messages using GPT 

Now it’s time to ask GPT to write cold messages for this audience. First of all, we set up the rules: 

  1. We need to find unique ways to personalize outreach 
  2. We need to create the structure of the outreach first (before writing a cold message)
cold text message template

Once we set it up, GPT can prepare personalized messages for those people I mentioned  earlier: 

writing cold message on linkedin for referral

We should also ask GPT to organize it as a table so it’s easier for us to navigate: 

using chatgpt for sales

Now our goal is to create the full sequence, so I used this prompt: 

chatgpt for content writing

Cold email & LinkedIn outreach copywriting style with GPT

Ok, now we have some examples of a cold text message template. What we can do right now, is to change the style according to what you’re doing already. 

I want GPT to write as I write. So for this, I’m using this prompt: 

Write this text in the style of the provided example, capturing its tone, voice, vocabulary, and sentence structure. Example: 

don’t fully rewrite, try to get inspiration from how I write:

Example 

Change “Example” with your templates: 

chatgpt for content marketing

The results are pretty good! 

how to cold message on linkedin

GPT didn’t copy my example, it just adapted the style I already have to new messages. 

Send LinkedIn & Email messages automatically 

We have all the text templates we can use! 

Thanks to GPT!

Now it’s time to build a Lead Generation campaign. For this, I’ll use Expandi’s Multi-channel Smart Builder. 

  1. Sign up for Expandi for FREE
  2. Go to Campaigns, create a new one, and choose “Campaign Builder”
    linkedin cold message
  3.  Add a name
    linkedin cold message template
  4. Add steps you want to have in this outreach campaign. Here is my example:
    cold message linkedin
  5. Once you’re ready, click Activate your campaign
    how to cold message someone on linkedin

Summary

If you’re reading this, here are a few more useful things:

  1. Sign up for Expandi Free Trial
  2. Connect with me on LinkedIn
  3. Join our LinkedIn Outreach Family community (we share a lot of exclusive things here)
  4. Watch this quick video

Only the best strategies will bring the best results

New articles straight to your inbox