Email makes it possible to reach just about anyone, anywhere, at anytime. This gives us the opportunity to reach out to a potential client with the right message, at exactly the right time. However, if you’re not doing something to stand out in a crowded inbox, your email will likely go unopened.

Email can be a powerful tool for building new relationships and landing new clients, but you need to learn how to capture their attention right off the bat. In order to master the art of making great first impressions over email, it requires a deep understanding of how people interact with their inboxes and what’s going to make them read and respond to you, before your competitor.

To make things more challenging, you’ve got but a limited amount of time to make that stand-out first impression. On average, it takes a person around 100 milliseconds to form an initial impression of someone. Email recipients take a similar amount of time to process whether your message is worth reading. If your email even remotely looks like spam or comes off disingenuous, expect it to remain unread forever.

Here are my 6 steps to writing cold emails that make an incredible first impression.