{"id":715,"date":"2015-07-23T12:20:45","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T12:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/?p=715"},"modified":"2025-01-21T10:28:24","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T09:28:24","slug":"how-to-make-my-cold-emails-personal-vol-3-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodpecker.co\/blog\/how-to-make-my-cold-emails-personal-vol-3-tools\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Make My Cold Emails Personal? Vol. 3: Tools We Use"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ok, so we\u2019ve done some research<\/a> on our prospects and we\u2019ve prepared our tailor-made copy<\/a>. How do we combine the two, so we don\u2019t have to copy\u00a0&\u00a0paste each piece of information one by one from our contact base to each message when it comes to sending our cold emails? Here are two tools that can help you carry out highly personalized outreach at scale.<\/p>\n

How to create a database<\/h2>\n

Tool #1: (Excel) spreadsheet<\/h3>\n

I put Excel in the brackets here because it doesn\u2019t have to be this particular tool. For this part of personalizing your cold email campaign, you\u00a0can use any program or app that allows you\u00a0to export your database to a CSV file afterwards.<\/p>\n

Ok, so let’s get to the very process. First things first, even before I get to collecting my detailed contact base in the spreadsheet, I try to come up with the\u00a0copy of my email template<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Seems kind of counterintuitive, but this way I can quickly realize\u00a0what custom fields I\u2019ll need for my email. And that’s how I make sure I fill in my contact base with\u00a0all the necessary data. Then, I\u00a0put them all in the spreadsheet with appropriate labels.<\/p>\n

So, for instance, here\u2019s the template I used for one of my campaigns (already described in one of my previous articles<\/a>).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\"Woodpecker-Content-Personalize-Example\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As you can see, it involves numerous custom fields\u00a0like {{SNIPPET_1}} in double curly brackets. I customized both the subject line and the body of my email.<\/p>\n

This looks kind of awful here, right? But wait till you see it after I\u2019ve imported my data base and all the weird double curly brackets are filled in with real prospects’ data.<\/p>\n

Did I mention the import? Yes, so in order to weave our personalization snippets into our copy, we need to prepare a CSV file with all the data we need.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example of such a spreadsheet. I used here some fake data of just two prospects I made up just to show you the workflow.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\"How-to-make-prospects-database-spreadsheet\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When you compare the template and the database, you\u2019ll see that all the data I need for my template are included in the table.<\/p>\n

As soon as our CSV database is ready, it\u2019s time for Woodpecker to take over.<\/p>\n

How to send personalized cold emails & follow-ups at scale<\/h2>\n

Tool #2: Woodpecker<\/h3>\n

Again, did I mention the import? I guess I did, twice already, so it\u2019s time to explain what I meant (finally! \u2013 sorry for that).<\/p>\n

To let Woodpecker send our highly-personalized emails, first we need to feed it with a CSV data base including the personalization data.<\/p>\n

To do that, we just click Import, and choose the CSV database we created for our cold email campaign.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\"Woodpecker-Import-CSV\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Given the file, Woodpecker will ask us which columns from our database should represent the corresponding custom fields in our message. Sounds a bit complicated, but in fact it\u2019s easy. Just take a look below how I matched the fields.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\"Woodpecker-import-step2-match-fields\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the next step, we just confirm the import and Woodpecker will show us how many contacts have been imported successfully, right next to the number of dupliates and errors. Mine was a tiny import indeed, so Woodpecker just gulped it within a second.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\"Woodpecker-import-step3-completed\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And now, let me show you the magic. Remember the weird-looking template with all the curly brackets inside? Now take a look at the preview of my actual personalized messages.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the one I\u2019m going to send to Joe:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\"Woodpecker-preview-prospect1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the one for Jane:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\"Woodpecker-preview-prospect2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u00a0used the very same template for the email to both of my made-up prospects, remember? Do these two look like automated bulk emails sent to thousands of people at once?<\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t say so.<\/p>\n

How would you react if you got such an email?<\/p>\n

What\u2019s in it for you?<\/h2>\n

In order to make your emails personal, you\u2019ll need to take some time to\u00a0research your target group and to create the copy that will make them reply. If you really care about personal outreach that brings some valuable relationships, you simply won\u2019t avoid that.<\/p>\n

What you can avoid is spending hours on the copy & paste ritual<\/a> sending your emails one by one. You can avoid\u00a0that by automating the process of delivery.<\/p>\n

Many people are afraid of the word “automation”. I often see or hear that all automated emails equal SPAM. But do they, really?<\/p>\n

Following the workflow I described above:<\/p>\n