The Emails Looked Good, But They Didn’t Feel Like Anything

The emails looked great, ticked all the right boxes, and still got ignored. What we changed had nothing to do with design, and everything to do with honesty.

A mid-sized SaaS company reached out to me for help with their email nurture sequence. They offered a powerful analytics dashboard for revenue teams—plenty of logos, strong testimonials, great product-market fit.

But their email open rates were tanking by email #3. Click-throughs? Practically nonexistent.

I read through the sequence. It was polished. Well-designed. Written in perfect grammar. But every email felt like it had been written by a polite robot stuck in LinkedIn-speak.

You know the kind: "In today’s fast-paced market, leveraging data for informed decision-making is no longer optional." 😴

So I asked: “What do your customers actually say when they talk to sales?”

The answers were gold. Stuff like:

• “Everyone’s yelling about metrics, but we don’t even trust our own numbers.”

• “My CRO keeps asking for pipeline projections and I’m just guessing.”

So we rewrote the entire sequence like a real person who gets it.

The new subject lines?

• → “Still guessing your pipeline numbers?”

• → “Your CRO isn’t buying another ‘gut feeling.’”

We shared stories. We used plain language. We included one clear action per email. No fluff, no “industry insights,” no webinars shoved down people’s throats.

In 8 weeks, open rates went up by 47%. Click-throughs tripled.

And the biggest win? Sales said leads were “actually warmed up” before hopping on a call.