Why Buyers Aren't Responding to You

Writing a cold email that is going to be opened and responded to by any potential recipient is an art form in today’s cold outreach landscape.

Thousands of brands are fighting for a finite amount of buyer attention and you have to stand out from the neverending amount of emails that a buyer has in their inbox.

Unfortunately, most cold emails that are intended for a retail buyer are not going to move the needle enough for that buyer to respond.

The main reason your buyer email isn’t getting a response is that your often writing cold emails as if you are emailing a consumer and not a retail buyer. You have to have multiple pitches, you can’t tell the same story to a consumer that you would a buyer, and that buyer story is different than a potential investor story. You have to keep evolving for your audience.

From what I have seen from hundreds of brands over the past five years, an email to a prospective retail buyer will read something like the below example, which I will be writing from my fake brand persona, Cameron’s Caramels.

Dear Whole Foods Buyer,

I am with Cameron’s Caramels, the first 100% organic caramel on the market and the only caramel that is using locally sourced sugar to make our candies. On top of being organic, we are also non-GMO and have less than 1 gram of sugar in each of our caramels.

I started the company back in 2021 when I couldn’t find any organic caramel options for myself or my family. As a dad of two young boys, it was important to me that they have access to treats that they not only enjoyed, but that were also good for them. We now have three amazing flavor options including Rocky Road, Original, and Butter Pecan.

Since starting we have grown to over 500 retail doors and customers absolutely love our products, you can check out our most recent press cover here.

We know Whole Foods would be the perfect partner for us and I wanted to send our brand deck over to you and see if we might be a good fit for your stores.

Thanks so much and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best,
Cameron

Ok, so first, this isn’t actually a terrible cold email, it’s just not differentiated enough to get the attention of the buyer and you’re not hitting on things that the buyer actually cares about.

Let’s go over a few of the issues…

1) Using words like “first” or “only” will make the buyer’s eyes roll so far back into their head that it will be hard for them to take anything else you say seriously.

You aren’t the only brand doing something. You just aren’t. I get that you think you are, but I need you to understand that you’re not. Even if you are the only brand using a certain ingredient or process, it doesn’t matter to the buyer, because you're still competing against those other products in the set, and being “first” or the “only” is rarely a strong enough value proposition for the consumer.

2) You're selling your personal founder story, which consumers care about, but buyers rarely do. Way too many founders spend too much time on why they started the brand instead of why they're going to drive value for that buyer. You have to evolve past your consumer language and move towards value-added language that is going to create FOMO and make that buyer feel supported.

3) The call to action is too vague. Getting into new retail accounts is a SLOW process and you are just trying to get to the next station and not the final destination all at once (that is a terrible analogy, but I am on an Amtrak right now and decided to take what was in front of me). A request to send samples is the best CTA here.

• Bonus tip - if you get approval to send samples. One thing I used to do (when samples went to the retailer HQ) was say that I was actually going to be in town next week and if I could drop by.

  I already got the sample approval so why not try for a meeting? You want to push to be there, but not make the buyer feel like your coming out just for them.

  It is always better to be there when a buyer tries your product because of all the issues that can happen when sending samples. They can get lost, be prepared incorrectly, or just be misunderstood by the buyer completely. I used to get got a ton of in-person meetings using this technique, but with Zoom being so popular now, I might just push to ask if you can do a Zoom cutting (tasting) of the product, so you can walk them through it as they try it.

4) You use press coverage in lieu of data. I get that a lot of emerging brands don’t have access to data, but buyers don’t care about your press coverage. It’s a throwaway slide in your deck - however many slides you have in your deck, subtract it by how many press or customer review slides you have and that is the actual number. You have to bring data into the conversation and not vanity metrics

5) It’s too long. This is actually pretty short in comparison to what I see, but it is still too long. Use single sentence lines, break them up to be skimmable, and make the CTA the star.

Let’s try this again, now that we understand those points.

Dear Whole Foods Buyer,

I am with Cameron’s Caramels, an organic caramel company that has exploded into 500 retail doors since starting in 2021.

We have waited to approach Whole Foods until we felt ready to support your stores to the fullest, and now is the time!

We have a plan in place to be successful, but we know taste is the biggest driver for repeat purchases, which we deliver on.

I would love to get your feedback on our product and send samples out to you this week, please just let me know the best address.

Thank You,
Cameron

This email isn’t perfect, but it’s clear and makes the buyer feel like you understand their position. We are in and out, with the main goal of moving to the next step in the conversation, sending samples.

Making the buyer feel like you understand their role and what their accountable for in that role is something that most brands miss.

You want to show that you know you are going to have to support their account, drive incremental sales, and not only ensure your brand wins but that you are going to drive the entire category forward.

We talked about this in issue #2

I am happy to allocate some time this week to go through some cold emails for brands and punch them up.

I will take a look at the first 10 I get, and if you’re ok with it, I would love to share the before and afters on this newsletter (crossing out any sensitive information of course).

Thanks for reading!