How to Write a Value Proposition for a Cold Email

Start with a problem they would recognize

Gong's cold email data, as reported by 30 Minutes to President's Club (30MPC), found that emails leading with the prospect's priorities did better than emails that pitched. On cold calls, Gong's data found plain problem language beat buzzwords. So open your value line with the problem, not with your company.

Salesforce's survey of business buyers points the same way: most said they are more likely to buy when a company understands their goals.

A good test: could the reader say this sentence about their own week? "Your dispatchers re-key every order by hand" passes. "We help businesses streamline operations" does not.

Based on: 30 Minutes to President's Club, 202530 Minutes to President's Club, 2024Salesforce, 2022

Use plain words, not buzzwords

30MPC's coaching method names the words to cut: vague nouns like "single source of truth" and vague verbs like "streamline," "automate," and "centralize." Describe the job the buyer hates doing, then what it costs the business.

Two psychology studies outside sales support plain words. In one, jargon made information harder to take in and made people push back on the message. In the other, needlessly long words made the writer seem less intelligent, not more. Neither is a sales study, so read them as a reason to write plainly, not as a sales result.

Based on: 30 Minutes to President's Club, 2025Public Understanding of Science (Bullock and colleagues), 2019Applied Cognitive Psychology (Daniel M. Oppenheimer), 2006

Skip the bare return-on-investment promise

In Gong's cold email data, return-on-investment language and multiplier claims like "3x" went with lower success. Gong's reading is that the promise has no context yet: the reader does not know what problem it solves. Describe the problem instead, and save numbers for later in the conversation. A number from the reader's own world, such as one they shared, is different and can stay.

Never invent a number to make the line sound stronger.

Based on: Gong Labs, 2020Gong, 2021

Fit how senior the reader is

30MPC notes that a manager feels the daily problem while a vice president feels the business impact. Gong's research on personalization found company-specific topics helped with leaders, and its guidance for executives is to skip words like "AI" and "platform" and speak to their priority.

So for a hands-on reader, name the task that eats their day. For a senior reader, name what that task costs the business.

Based on: 30 Minutes to President's Club, 2025Gong Labs, 2023Gong, 2026

Keep it to one or two sentences

Gong found shorter cold emails got more replies, and that pitching cut replies sharply. A value line that runs to a paragraph is usually a pitch. Aim for one sentence on the problem and one on what changes.

Based on: Gong, 2025

Optional: name a cost they had not weighed

In a messaging experiment by Corporate Visions, a message about a need the buyer had not considered beat a pitch about a need they already knew. If you know a real cost the reader has not thought about, it can make your line stand out. It is optional, and skipping it is fine.

Based on: Corporate Visions, 2018

Before and after

Both lines are invented to show the pattern. The companies are made up.

Invented example, for illustration only

Before: We are an all-in-one, AI-powered platform that helps businesses of all sizes streamline operations and get 3x ROI.

After: Your dispatchers re-key every order by hand, so customers hear about late deliveries before your team does. We flag a late load the moment it slips, so you can call the customer first.

Sources

• 30 Minutes to President's Club. The Data-Backed Cold Email Formula (The Exact Words & Length) (2025). Read the source
• 30 Minutes to President's Club. How To Build The Perfect Cold Call Pitch (2024). Read the source
• Salesforce. State of the Connected Customer, 5th Edition (2022). Read the source
• 30 Minutes to President's Club. 4 Questions to Write Painfully Triggering Cold Emails (2025). Read the source
• Public Understanding of Science (Bullock and colleagues). Jargon as a barrier to effective science communication: Evidence from metacognition (2019). Read the source
• Applied Cognitive Psychology (Daniel M. Oppenheimer). Consequences of erudite vernacular utilized irrespective of necessity: problems with using long words needlessly (2006). Read the source
• Gong Labs. Critical Cold Email Mistakes to Avoid for Better Results (2020). Read the source
• Gong. Before You Hit Send: 7 Sales Email Statistics To Boost Your Email Game (2021). Read the source
• Gong Labs. 4 effective ways to boost your email reply rate and book more meetings (2023). Read the source
• Gong. Do execs really reply to cold email? Here's what the data says (2026). Read the source
• Gong. Does cold email even work any more? Here's what the data says (2025). Read the source
• Corporate Visions. Defeat Your Prospect's Status Quo with Unconsidered Needs (2018). Read the source

Advice marked as writing practice is common sense for clear email, not a study result. See where all of our guidance comes from. No statistic on this page is invented.