(old - pre update) How to end an email: 7 closing line tips to book more meetings Copy

You spent a lot of time researching your prospect and personalizing your email, but still no reply? Maybe your prospect didn’t get that you’re actually waiting for an answer from them. So let’s see how you can boost your reply rate by using strategic closing lines.

To make it simple, the closing line is the last line of your email before the signature. Its goal is to give your prospect a clear point of the next step and tease them to send you a reply.

Even though it’s usually a short phrase, finding the right way to close your email can be time-consuming. And you would rather use that time on actual meetings than on overthinking one phrase, right?

So how do you pick the right closing lines for your emails? Let’s go through 7 tips that can help you get more replies from your prospects!

#1 Focus on relationship-building

Even though cold outreach is a great way to get new customers and boost your revenue, your emails should never be about selling. If you write a sales-y closing line only aiming for a trial download or purchasing a service, prospects might find you spammy.

Why? They don’t know you enough, and you're already up in their wallets.

Instead, focus on building a relationship first just like Nadja did. This email got her an 80% open rate and a 23% reply rate:

What makes this closing line successful?

• Instead of being pushy with purchasing actions, she’s focused on creating a connection with the prospect. Ending an email like this is a great conversation starter and can get you more replies, hence, build more relationships.
• The personalized image allows prospects to see that Nadja is a real person. When prospects feel like they’ve been contacted by another human, not a business, it’s easier for them to relate and reply.
• In the end, the idea of having a chat is way less informal and fun than a meeting or a demo.

#2 Use calendar links

Sending emails back and forth on what meeting time works best for your prospects can create lots of friction. And, in the end, the more effort from the prospect, the lower are chances of actually meeting with them.

Instead, save you some time and make your prospects’ life easier by sending a calendar URL, such as Calendly. This way, you can cut unnecessary conversations and get your prospect to easily book a meeting. No friction - just an easy process to book a meeting and more reply chances.

To confirm how helpful this tip is, we run an A/B test to see what prospects prefer.

As you can see:

• version A asks people for a meeting at a specific point in time
• version B gives them directly a Calendly link

Can you guess the results?

• version A brought 12 meetings in a week vs.
• version B that brought 19 meetings in a week

That’s 1.5x more meetings booked when using Calendly.

Why did version B get the most results?

Because clicking on a specific link made prospect's life easier! They don’t have to waste their time sending additional emails and figuring out time zones on their own.

But, beware! Your email needs to be attention-grabbing, so that when the time comes for them to click on your calendar - they truly want to do it.

Plus tip: Instead of sending a link or hyperlinking a phrase, you can personalize the link for each prospect.

What would that look like?

Imagine you’re sending cold emails to Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos.

• Elon will see calendly.com/for-elon
• Jeff will see calendly.com/for-jeff

This extra personalization helps your email stand out from the hundreds your prospect gets which increases the chances to book a meeting.

#3 Connect it to the pitch

Here’s the deal: most of your prospects don’t read your emails. They scan them. So if you want them to pay more attention to what you’re talking about in your pitch, connect the closing line to it.

Your email ending can help you get your prospects excited about pitch content, especially if you added personalized videos. And if your video provides tons of value, it’s a win-win situation that gets you more replies.

Let’s check out how to make a smooth transition between pitch and signature:

Why should you do it too?

• First, a video with personalized thumbnails is a warm invitation to click. The closing line that is connected to the pitch triggers the prospect’s curiosity.
• By simply asking “What do you think?” you can intrigue the prospect and make them want to click on your video.

#4 Make it personalized

Personalizing your cold emails boosts reply rates and helps you grow your business. But, how do you personalize closing lines?

There are two ways to personalize the closing line for each prospect in your email list.

The first option is to leverage the CSV file and custom tags, just like this:

How can you do it too?

1. Add a closing line column and name it any way you want in your CSV file. In our case, the column is named "Ending".
2. Add the {{Ending}} custom tag in your cold email template to pull the information automatically from the spreadsheet:

3. lemlist will make sure that all closing lines are in the right emails, and your prospects feel like each email was specifically written only for them.

This is a great option if you have narrow, ultra-targeted campaigns with closing lines that need to differentiate from competitors.

However, if you want to scale the operation and be even faster, try using the second option aka liquid syntax.

lemlist liquid syntax editor helps you automatically adjust the closing lines according to the criteria you choose. The goal here is to take personalization to the next level and get more replies.

For example, you can split your email list into 3 segments and divide them into buckets. Let’s say these three segments are: agencies, sales teams, and startups. So, each of them can have a different closing that is most relevant to them.

Here’s how you can do it too:

1. Add a segmentation column to your CSV file, just like this one:

2. Write different closing lines for each segment

3. Add your liquid syntax in lemlist (btw, if you need a detailed walkthrough on how to set up liquid syntax, Charlotte made a quick tutorial for you)

The liquid syntax will then separate different segments automatically, as shown below:

#5 Aim for a reply first

Based on thousands of cold emails that we analyzed during the past years, we figured out that the best-performing endings are helpful rather than pushy.

Instead of immediately asking for a meeting, you can try to help them first and confirm if there’s any interest at all. Why? When you prove you’re genuinely trying to help, rather than signing one-off deals, your chances of getting an answer only increase.

Let’s check out this prospect-focused example that got Alan a 69% open rate and a 51% reply rate:

Why did this closing line work?

• Alan didn’t write “Can you add the link please” which wouldn’t take into consideration what’s in it for the prospect. Instead, he asked if the link would be useful which completely changes the approach and puts the focus on the customer.
• No meeting or demo request, but only a value for the prospect is what brought him this high open-rate.
• From there, he can get to know more about his prospects, and see if there’s a true interest to get them into the next step of the customer journey.

#6 Make the next step clear

When writing your closing line, make sure to focus on one, clear and specific action you want your prospects to take. Why? Without knowing what next step to take, your prospects feel lost.

So how to make your prospects understand what’s the next step in less than 3 seconds?

Let’s check out this outreach campaign example that got us 4 deals out of 12 pitched influencers:

Why should you use this approach in your next outreach campaign?

• This end of the email is short, sharp, and focused on getting a yes-no reply before sharing additional information.
• There aren’t too many links that make the prospect choose what’s best for them which saves their time.
• The process is frictionless for the prospect as there aren’t any unnecessary efforts which makes them more likely to reply.

#7 Sign-off as you talk

When speaking about tactics for how to end an email, many salespeople tend to worry about sign-offs. “Will take care make me sound disrespectful and too chill? Is thank you in advance too formal?”

The answer is simple - sign it off in a way you would talk to these people.

If your closing line even needs any sign-off word (and in many cases, it doesn’t), stay true to yourself. If your style is more chill, signing off with “best” or “cheers” would work like a charm.

Why? You’re setting a friendly tone at the start of your conversation. When you talk to them as you talk to your friends, they'll be more likely to continue a conversation.

The key takeaways

While they may not get as much attention as subject lines, your email closing lines or CTAs are just as important in writing an effective cold email. They are the final push to convince your prospect to take action or not.

And since your goal is to make your prospects go to the next step, here are the most important key takeaways to remember:

• be short, clear, and concise
• create a smooth transition between the pitch and signature
• get prospects excited about the next step
• use personalization to stand out
• include 0 friction (make your prospect’s life easier 😉)

…. and, always try to build relationships before trying to sell!