Cold emailing remains a vital tool in digital marketing. But success lies not just in sending emails, but in crafting engaging ones. Discover actionable tips to boost your cold emailing response rates by up to 24% in our blog. Let's turn cold emails into lead magnets!
The short answer
A cold email to a company in the Benelux succeeds or fails on three things, and the writing is the third of them. First, whether you are allowed to send it: in the Netherlands you generally may not cold email a company without consent, while in Belgium you may email the general, impersonal address of a legal person, and in Germany a first commercial email to a business needs express consent. Second, whether you have a reason to write to this company this week. Third, the email itself: one subject line that describes rather than teases, an opening that names the reason, one problem, one ask, under 150 words. Everything below is that in order, with what to measure at the end. For the rules in full, channel by channel and country by country, see is B2B cold outreach legal in Europe?
What you may send, and to whom
This is the part most cold email advice skips, and in the Benelux it decides your channel before you write a word.
Market | Cold email to a company | What to do instead, or first |
|---|---|---|
Belgium | Permitted to the general, impersonal address of a legal person | Personal mailboxes of named employees are a different case; the phone is open once you have screened against the Do Not Call Me list |
Netherlands | Generally not permitted without consent | Calling an incorporated company is permitted, which is why Dutch outbound leans on the phone |
Germany | Express consent required for a first commercial email | A call is possible where there are concrete indications that this business has an interest in this specific offer |
Two consequences follow. In the Netherlands, an email-first sequence into companies you have no relationship with is the wrong shape; telephone acquisition is the compliant opener and the email is the follow-up you agreed on the call. In Belgium, email works, but only to the general address, which means the message has to survive being read by someone who is not your buyer.
The reason comes before the writing
An email without a reason is a template, and the recipient can tell. The reason is a fact about that company, from the last few weeks, that connects to what you sell: three open vacancies on one team, a new director in the Official Gazette, a new establishment unit, a filing that shows a jump in headcount, a visit to your pricing page. Finding Belgian companies that are hiring and who is visiting my website? are the two most usable sources for this in practice.
The test is the same one that applies to the phone: if you cannot say in one sentence why you are writing to this company today rather than next year, do not write. Put it back in the pool with a date.
The structure that gets answered
The subject line. Describe, do not tease. "Three vacancies in Ghent" or "Question about your Antwerp site" beats "Quick question" and beats anything with an emoji. It should read like a colleague wrote it, and it should still make sense when the recipient sees it again in a week.
The first line. Name the reason. Not who you are, not what you sell. "I saw you are hiring three engineers in Ghent." The recipient decides in that line whether this is a mailshot.
One problem. What teams at that moment usually run into. One, not a list. If you name three, you have named none.
One sentence on what you do about it. In outcomes, not features. Not "54 filters and an AI agent", but "you would know which Belgian companies fit and are moving, without a rep spending Mondays on research".
One ask, with a time in it. "Would twenty minutes on Thursday work?" is answerable. "Let me know if this is of interest" is not.
Under 150 words. If it does not fit, the problem is not the word count; it is that you are trying to cover more than one thing. The B2B sales pitch has the same four components in their spoken form.
Personalisation: three levels, and only one of them works
Level one, the merge field. "Hi [first name], I see you work at [company]." This is not personalisation, and every recipient has seen it a thousand times. It signals a list.
Level two, the segment. The message is written for accountancy firms of 10 to 50 people, and that is what the recipient is. Better: the problem is at least plausible. But nothing in it proves you looked at them.
Level three, the researched reason. One fact about that company, verifiable, recent, connected to the problem. This is the level that gets answers, and it is the only one that scales through data rather than through writing time, because the research is a query rather than an afternoon.
The practical rule is that level three needs to survive one question: could this sentence appear in an email to any other company? If yes, it is level two wearing a costume.
Visuals: when they help, and when they cost you
A screenshot of the recipient's own site, a chart with their sector's figures, or a short demo recorded for their use case can do work that a paragraph cannot, because the recipient does not have to imagine anything. Three caveats that matter more than the idea.
Keep them light and keep them relevant. A visual that exists to look impressive reads as marketing; one that shows the thing you are talking about reads as preparation. Avoid animated images: they add weight, load unevenly across clients, and buy you nothing a still image does not. And remember that images are often blocked by default in corporate mail clients, so the email has to work with the images switched off. If the argument only lands when the picture loads, it is not in the text yet.
Sequence and follow-up
A single email is not outreach and eight are harassment. What works in B2B in the Benelux is a short sequence, spread over two to three weeks, where each message adds something rather than repeating the first. The second can be the thing you promised; the third can be a different angle on the same problem; the last one closes the loop politely and says you will not write again. Then stop, and put the company back in the pool with a date and the trigger you want to restart on.
Every message needs a working way to opt out, and an opt-out has to be honoured across the whole sequence rather than on the message it came from.
What to measure
Opens are the least reliable number in email and have been since mail clients started pre-loading images. Two numbers tell you what you need.
Reply rate per segment. Not per campaign. If one segment answers and another does not, the problem is the list or the problem statement, not the subject line.
Meetings per hundred sent. The only number that connects to pipeline. A sequence with a high reply rate and no meetings is having the wrong conversation politely.
Test one thing at a time and give it enough volume to mean something. A subject-line test on forty recipients tells you nothing at all.
Frequently asked questions
Is cold emailing companies allowed in Belgium and the Netherlands? In Belgium you may email the general, impersonal address of a legal person. In the Netherlands you generally need consent to email a company, which is why Dutch outbound usually opens with a call. In Germany a first commercial email to a business requires express consent. The detail per channel and per legal form is in is B2B cold outreach legal in Europe?
How long should a cold email be? Under 150 words, one problem and one ask. Length is a symptom: an email that will not fit is usually covering more than one thing.
What makes a good subject line? One that describes the content in the recipient's own terms, ideally naming the reason you are writing. Teasers, urgency and emoji all signal a mailshot.
How many follow-ups should I send? Three or four over two to three weeks, each adding something new, and a final message that closes the loop. Then stop and set a date to revisit.
Is cold calling better than cold email in the Benelux? In the Netherlands the phone is usually the compliant opener for companies you have no relationship with, and the email follows the call. In Belgium both are open, with a do-not-call screening step before you dial. Decide per market rather than per campaign.