How to start an email to someone you don't know

Part of my Sales and Marketing process is to send emails to potential clients, what is the best way to address them

Hi, Hello, Dear Mr X etc

Hi for me...

To me it seems more friendly, and that's the impression I want to give. Everyone will differ though, and there is no right or wrong answer.

Paul, are you doing this on behalf of a recruitment company? 

Yes it for an Automotive Recruitment Company

Ok.. so it's an obscenely competitive industry... And  It's the classic neural pathway reflex.

Imagine you walk into a clothes shop and what do they always say...

"Can I help you"....

And what do you say?

"No/just browsing etc" - without thinking

If they asked you "Have you seen our spring collection?" - you'd atleast stop and think for a split second, the reflex is less likely to be triggered!

....Or you're driving down the motorway and the brake lights come on ahead, you immediately do the same - its just a reflex.

And it's just the same with Hi/Hello/Dear etc...

From working with recruitment companies what we have found is that you have to got to sidestep these reflexes, because they get so so many emails. You must be different, sidestep the reflex and earn your right to get your message across.

To answer your question, go straight in with the first name and a killer attention grabber.  We did this with another niche recruitment agency and their response quadrupled.

Happy to have a chat about this if you like (at no cost of course!)

Adam, just emailed draft 1, what do you think, i would follow Hi with a first name

''Watcha Matey'' usually gets a response

Kev

I'd follow Adam Stevens' advice. It will surely grab attention. However, if you need to go more formal I would go with the simple title (Mr, Mrs, Ms) followed by a second name. Try to do the research necessary to get the second names. The time spent doing it will be worth it. People are much more likely to read something addressed to them personally than something with a generic 'Hello'.

If you really don't know the name and you can't get the name then Dear Reader is a good one...in fact, some of the best sales letters I've ever read started with Dear Reader. Not sure why it works, it just does.

Anyway, good luck with it.

James

I tend to write to people as individuals and am always formal, even with customers who have been with us for the best part of fifteen years. It is always "Dear Mr. .........".

Gary

Hi ,                                                                       

      would normally be my 1st choice.....

It is a numbers game and unless you have a 'No brainer' proposition the responses (not orders) will be a very small percentage of the total number of emails you broadcast.  Even when you email to current clients the opening rate can often be less than 10%.

Telephoning people can be more effective in terms of the percentage of positive results, but it is very time consuming, emails on the other hand are not. We have an opted in database of over 200,000 addresses that we regularly broadcast offers to and on average this generates around ten to twenty orders everytime. This may not seem spectacular, but this equates to £5,000 to £10,000 of business for us for less than an hours worth of effort creating and broadcasting the emails so it is worth it to us.  We now have our own in-house mailserver so the cost to us is practically zero. 

Getting back to the original question we have found Hi works best followed by the receipients Christian name - sure this will upset a few people who will object to you being so familiar when you don't personally know them but as I said at the start of this post it is a numbers game!

how did you build a list of 200k?

"Good Morning Nigel" is a good compromise in my opinion.

I don't like receiving a 'Hi Nigel' from someone I have never heard of.