🧲 Cold DMs That Trigger Responses

In a world where cold DMs are starting to feel like ChatGPT and your marketing team had a boring baby… You can't afford to sound like everyone else.

Not in DMs. Not when your prospect scrolls past 30 others just like yours every hour.

And it’s only getting harder:

That’s why your message has to trigger something real. Like:

“How did this person know I was venting about this exact thing yesterday?”

Most DMs fail because they're either:

• All about your offer (nobody cares yet)

• Or too generic ("Do you want more leads?” — duh)

Instead, steal this cold DM breakdown to write messages that hit.

1. Hide Your Solution Behind a Pile of 💩

Nobody wants your solution until they’re sick of the problem. That’s why the first step in writing a triggering DM is to talk about the pain, not the product.

To do that, take your offer and invert it.

Instead of asking “What do I help with?” ask yourself: “What’s the crappy thing they’re stuck doing without me?”

Why it works: Prospects don’t wake up thinking, “I need a better Google Ads consultant.” They wake up thinking, “I can’t waste another afternoon fixing my analytics just to answer one client question.”

So instead of bragging about features or deliverables, highlight the pain they’d instantly recognize.

Examples:

• Recruiting service → Prospect is sick of sorting through underqualified candidates or chasing people who ghost interviews

• SEO consulting → Prospect dreads writing content that ranks on page 5 and brings in zero traffic

• Instagram content management → Prospect spends Sunday night trying to think of 10 posts because they forgot to schedule anything all week

This pile of 💩 is the emotional anchor. If they feel it, they’ll keep reading. If they don’t, they scroll past.

Don’t water down your language. Bold, clear language is what makes it land.

2. Make It Sting

Now that you’ve exposed the problem, ask: why does this slow, annoying task actually matter?

Why it matters: It connects the pain to something measurable — revenue, time, churn, risk. Now your DM has teeth.

To use it: Bridge the personal frustration to a business consequence.

Example:

• Wasting time on bad candidates → Means critical roles stay open → Means team performance and delivery timelines suffer

• SEO content that doesn’t rank → Means you’re invisible in search → Means your competitors get all the traffic

• Scrambling for Instagram posts → Means no consistent presence → Means your followers forget you exist

This is how you show the pain isn’t just annoying — it’s expensive.

3. Show Relief, Not a Pitch

Now give hope, but skip the features. Focus on what your service makes disappear.

Why it matters: You don’t need to explain how you do it. Just show that the painful job and its consequences no longer exist.

To use it: One sentence. Dead simple. End with a soft CTA.

Example:

• “We find and vet qualified candidates so you’re not wasting hours on the wrong ones.”

• “We write SEO content that actually ranks and drives qualified traffic.”

• “We plan and schedule your IG content 2 weeks ahead — no more Sunday night scrambles.”

Then: “Want a quick peek?” or “Should I send over a few examples?”

Remember: You only get one chance to not sound like a bot. Don’t waste it.

That’s it for now, everyone! We’ll meet again next week to discuss some more of this!

Feel free to reply to this email. It goes directly to me.

Cheers,

Yannick