Cold email outreach is one tactic that can help you close more deals, build connections and boost your business. Email marketing is a much-loved marketing tactic because you get a return 30 times more than what you invested initially.
Despite such impressive statistics, most people are not very confident about cold emailing as they haven’t been very successful in the past and feel that such emails will look like spam. However, when done right, cold email outreach can be pretty effective in giving your business a boost.
Cold email outreach - What does it mean?
Cold emailing involves contacting individuals you don't already know via email in the hope of getting an opportunity, a favor, or for making a sales outreach.
In the world of sales, you will be sending cold emails to potential customers intending to get connected to them. It may not always hit the bulls-eye, but the chances of that happening are high when you use the best practices.
You can choose to send a cold email to thousands of recipients in one go. This method involves using a template where you only have to make a couple of changes, like the recipient's name. However, you can't expect great response rates with this approach. For better open and response rates, the process has to be more targeted and personal.
What is the right time to send cold emails?
Research says that the best time to send emails is between 9 am and 5 pm, i.e., during office hours minus lunchtime. The open email rates are at their peak before and after lunch. Also, 47% of emails are opened during non-working hours, with most of the opens happening on mobile devices. Also, it is worth noting that mobile email is checked three times more than desktop.
Effective Cold Email Outreach Tips
To make your cold outreach campaign a hit, here are a few practical cold email outreach tips that will be useful to you.
Find out why you are sending the cold email
You must identify the purpose behind sending the cold email. Do you want to build business connections, sell your product or service, or do market research? Cold emailing is not only for selling. Once you know the purpose, it will be easier to draft a compelling email.
Focus on the prospect
With cold emailing, you must focus on the prospect to taste success and not on your product or service. You have to understand the requirements of the prospect. You have to make the prospect feel that they need your product or service instead of pushing it towards them forcefully.
Your email should have something that adds value to the lives of the target audience. Ask yourself how the contents of the email resolve the problems they are facing. Most importantly, a prospect should find the email relevant enough.
Don’t stick to templates alone
A lot of cold email templates are available online, but you mustn't fall for them. Though templates increase efficiency and help save your time, they cannot leave a lasting impression on the recipient's mind. This concept of mass outreach will not work too well.
If all companies send the same kind of generic emails, how can you expect the prospect to reply to yours? To get your message read, you have to make sure that your message stands out, or else the recipient will delete it. You have to be creative and send your message across in a distinct fashion.
Keep the subject line catchy
The first thing that a recipient sees is your subject line and opens the email based on it. This puts a huge responsibility on your shoulders to make it look catchy and impressive.
You have to look at your emails and see what has worked for you in the past. Tried and tested subject lines are way better than somebody else's advice.
However, here are some common points to bear in mind:
- Keep the length of the subject line short. When it is too long, it will get truncated and look incomplete. Also, as more people use mobile devices to check their emails, you have to create subject lines that fit their screens.
- Tell what you are offering in the subject line to grab the attention of the recipient.
- Create a sense of urgency to make the recipient open the email immediately. However, be genuine in this, or else you will lose the prospect's trust.
Skip the introduction part
It is better not to introduce yourself in the cold email. Many people make the mistake of providing elaborate details about themselves and their company. Most often, people don't care about who you are. They are highly likely to get bored and ignore your email if you try to give an introduction to yourself. The clear-cut fact is that prospects read your email to know how it is of use to them and not for who you are.
Just add your digital signature to the email. In case they want to know about you, they will have a look at it.
Come straight to the point
You have to value other people's time, and that's why instead of beating around the bush, come right to the point. Begin with how you are there to help resolve the recipient's problem. The chances of them reading the email till the end will be higher this way.
As already said, you have to focus on the prospect and not on selling your product or service. Keep their needs in the spotlight and grab their attention by providing them with valuable information from your end.
Keep the email body short
Some of the most convincing cold emails are not too lengthy. Keep it to a maximum of 4 to 5 sentences. Anything longer will make the recipient lose interest, and there will be a drop in the response rate. Put yourself in the recipient's shoes and ask yourself whether you would like to read a lengthy email from someone you don't even know. You will get your answer.
Just give importance to the first few lines. They have to be striking. It has to capture the interest of the recipient only then they will read it thoroughly. Mention why you are getting in touch and avoid words that are not needed. Keep it clear, short, and crisp.
Add a call to action
It is evident that when you are emailing a prospect, you expect something from them. Mention your call to action at the end of the email but remember to add only one CTA to an email. Also, make it a point to keep it natural and in sync with the email.
It can be anything like - "Get a free ebook on the benefits of communication" or "Schedule your free demo."
Add a P.S.
Add a P.S. to your email, and the recipient will look at it. It can be a question, a reminder, or an opt-out statement.
It can be something like this-
P.S. If you are not the right person, kindly let me know.
However, ensure that the postscript does not add a different CTA to the email. Too many CTA in an email is not a good idea.
Keep the tone personal
You may be seeing cold emails to businesses, but they would be read by people at the other end, right? So, it is better to address the recipient casually.
Instead of the formal 'Sir,' 'Ma'am' and the like, you can make things more personal like 'Hi Sally!'
It is better to keep the tone of the email conversational. Draft it the way you would talk to your prospect when they are face to face with you. This would help the prospect grasp the details better.
This kind of personalization works, but you also need to know more about your prospect if you want to leave a lasting impression. It would also help you start a conversation with the potential customer.
To ensure that the spam filter doesn't filter you out, you should try to use casual language with all your content typed in lower case. At times, certain words make an email look like spam, but you can minimize the chances of it ending in the spam folder by being careful.
Give time and space to the prospect
Upon getting a reply from a prospect, you would be on cloud nine. In your excitement, you would want to schedule a meeting and close the deal asap, so you rush to reply. There is no reply; maybe they didn't get yours, so you send another one followed by another one. Their silence and your responses keep going on a turn by turn.
Do you know what your mistake is here? It would help if you gave the other person a breather. Give them space and time to reflect on things, or else they would run away. Let the conversation take a natural course and keep your enthusiasm in check.
Your follow-up strategy has to be such that you don't annoy the prospect. For that, you have to space the emails right.
Bonus tip: While you give importance to prospects, don't undermine your own worth. Just because you are emailing a stranger does not mean you have to be apologetic about it. Avoid saying things like - 'Sorry to bother you. They occupy space and don't add value to your email. Such things are better removed.
How to improve a cold emailing campaign?
After sending your emails, it is time to assess the effectiveness of the campaign. Only then will you know whether your strategy is working or not.
There are a few metrics for that, and they are the following:
Bounce rate - If the bounce rate is high, you have to check your email list.
Open rate - A low open rate means that the subject line is not attractive enough, and the target audience feels that the email is not worth opening.
Reply rate and click rate - If this is low, your CTA is not strong. So, it would help if you worked on them.
Therefore, you can work on the area where you are currently lacking and see how you can improve your next email campaign. You can’t expect different results when you are doing the same thing each time.
Before analyzing the data, you must ensure that you have sent at least 1000 cold emails. Testing too early will not give you enough data to act upon.
The Bottom Line
As long as the email service providers are offering email services, cold emailing will exist. It is not going anywhere any time soon. When you have a highly effective cold email outreach strategy, you can get in touch with potential customers and eventually turn them into long-term customers. The implementation has to be suitable to get the desired results. You can try different strategies till you get an approach that seems to work in your favor and boosts conversions.
The tips mentioned above will help as long as you keep the human touch alive in your emails. Even in a cluttered inbox, it is easy to find out which email is from a human and which is not. You have to email like a human so that the recipient feels like reading your cold email and knows what you are trying to say. The primary intent is to sound like a real person, be convincing and win the prospect's trust.
