Using a cold email to start a conversation with a potential customer who you have had no previous contact with, in order to generate leads, is an effective and budget-friendly outbound sales prospecting technique
After you have started this relationship, it is much simpler to take care of the people who answer your cold emails, and eventually turn them into customers. That is what cold email campaigns are supposed to do!
What Is a Cold Email?
A cold email is an email you send to someone you haven’t talked to before in order to try and start a relationship.
If anything, they come off as helpful and informative. Cold emailing is similar to cold calling in that you contact potential customers to see if they’re interested in what you’re selling. However, cold emailing is less intrusive than cold calling, and, if done correctly, doesn’t push a hard sell. Instead, a well-written cold email can come across as helpful and informative.
If you craft your cold email correctly, it will engage your ideal customer and provide them with the information they need to respond.
Although it may be easy to say that successful cold emails are key to receiving good engagement, it is much harder to actually do.
Why?
First, if you don’t know the person receiving your email, they might not be interested in what you have to say. Second, you can’t tell their reactions to your email since you can’t see their facial expressions or body language.
However, despite that, cold emails are incredibly popular since you only need email addresses to reach out to new potential customers.
Emails are a great investment because they cost almost nothing to send.
Email tools can help you create campaigns that will reach a large audience quickly and effectively.
Cold Email Is Not Spam
Here’s how cold emails differ from spam:
- A sales rep sends cold emails only to qualified leads, while spam emails go out to an indiscriminate mailing list.
- Successful cold emails are usually personalized on a one-to-one basis. On the other hand, spam floods tons of recipients’ inboxes with the same message.
- While cold emails provide information and add value, spam emails usually mislead their recipients or spread malicious content.
Is It Legal to Send Cold Emails?
YES, it is legal to send cold emails.
Although it may be technically considered unsolicited, cold email is NOT SPAM as long as it is personalized and has an appropriate subject line.
The email needs to contain the sender’s real name and valid contact details, including their job title, phone number, and links to their website and social media profiles.
The text includes a clear request for something specific, as well as customized content that would be valuable to the recipient.
The goal of the text is to start a conversation and build trust, rather than to force someone into buying something.
If you want to stay on the good side of the law when using cold email in your business, you need to be familiar with the USA CAN-SPAM Act.
Open Rate for Cold Email Outreach
If you have an open rate of 25% or more for your cold email outreach campaign, it is considered good. If your open rate is over 37%, your campaign is considered very successful.
Email open rates can give you a better idea of how successful your future cold email outreach campaigns will be. However, response rates are a more accurate metric to focus on.
What Is a Good Cold Email Response Rate?
Since the average response rate to cold emails is only 1%, a good response rate would be anything from 5% to over 40%. The higher the percentage, the better.
A response rate that is half of your open rate can be considered good.
There’s no simple answer to what makes a good response rate for cold emails, as it depends on a variety of factors specific to your goals, audience, industry and skills.
But here’s the good news:
You will learn how to create effective cold email copy step-by-step so that you can increase your cold email response rate.
When Should You Send a Cold Email?
According to some recent Prospect.io stats, the best time of the day to send a cold email is either between 5 and 6 am or between 7 and 9 pm. This is evident in the image below:
According to GetResponse, a marketing software company, the best time to email prospects is between 8 am and 3 pm. However, every company will have its own unique suggestion about the best times to email cold prospects.
Do you want to know what day is best to send cold emails?
Another study found that Monday and Wednesday are the best days of the week to send a cold email, with the highest open rates.
There is no one way to do things that will work for everyone. It all depends on your goals, your audience, the time zone you are in, and other relevant factors.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to cold emailing, and the perfect email will require some effort to create.
The Perfect Cold Email Outreach Campaign
Skip the following cold email campaign steps at your own peril!
Setting Your Goals
Before taking any further action, you should determine what you hope to achieve with your cold email campaign. This will allow you to plan and execute your outreach more effectively.
What’s the purpose of your cold email? Are you selling a product or service, trying to schedule a meeting, or looking for a job?
What is your desired goal?
Answering the questions below will help you gain clarity over your goals:
- What product or service are you selling? (make your offering specific – go for a single goal)
- Who would be interested in your offering? i.e. which company to approach, whom exactly to email there – define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and Buyer Personas.
- When is the perfect moment for reaching out to your prospects?
- How many follow-up emails are you going to send them and in what sequence?
- Gather in-depth insights into your prospects’ current objectives, needs, issues, how your product or service can help them to resolve their problem, what motivates them, etc. so that you can personalize your cold email pitch.
- Create a system to keep track of every prospect (which step each one is currently in and what your following steps with them involve) and the effectiveness of your campaign (open, response, click-through rates, etc.).
Identify Your Potential Customers
You don’t want your emails to end up in the recipient’s spam folder, do you? Of course not. Never base your cold email outreach campaign on guesswork!
Do extensive research to identify your potential customers rather than just looking at surface level information. The more you understand about their motivations, fears, and goals, the more targeted your cold email campaign can be.
The first step is to identify the correct individual within the relevant company department to speak to.
You can identify your potential customers in different ways such as:
- Performing research to build custom B2B lead lists.
- Check their LinkedIn profiles to find out more about their interests and careers.
- Searching for Tweets where people are asking for help with a problem you may help them solve.
- Explore relevant Facebook Fan Pages where people may ask for the help you can provide with your specific product or service.
- Asking your existing customers for referrals.
- Finding your competitors’ customers will help you understand who your customers could be.
- Review job descriptions of your ideal prospects if you’re targeting a B2B audience.
Create an Intriguing Subject Line
The subject line of your email is very important because it is the first thing the recipient will see.
Why?
This means that the subject line is the most important part of the email for determining whether or not it will be opened.
The subject line of a cold email should be short and interesting in order to capture the attention of the recipient.
The goal is to write a subject line that is curious while still being clear about what the email is about.
How do you do that?
When creating your subject line, think about your target audience:
- Will they find this relevant?
- What appeals to them?
- What’s the buyer persona?
After you have a good understanding of the answers to these types of questions, write a brief but interesting subject line.
Make sure your subject line sounds like you care about the reader and do not make it sound like you are demanding something from them.
The most important thing to remember when sending a cold email is to never use a misleading subject line. Clickbait subject lines can make the recipient lose trust in you and damage your credibility. Additionally, they might mark your message as spam.
Examples of effective subject lines:
- “A quick idea for improving [topic of interest for the prospect]”
- “Save [dollar amount/%] on [business expenses]”
- “Did you know [competitor] ranks higher than you for ‘[keyword]?’ This is why.”
Personalize Your Cold Email Content
If you send a message that is not personal, you will not receive a response.
Your prospect’s inbox is flooded with hundreds of emails every day, so your email needs to stand out.
You need to demonstrate that you are not a spammer by emailing people only about things that you know.
B2B marketers can create efficient personalized emails by doing thorough research. They should study the recipient’s organization, understand what matters to a specific potential client, find a common interest, and evaluate how they can help boost their mission.
After conducting sufficient research, draft personalized outreach emails that emphasize how you are the only person who can assist them with what they want.
Even if you have a lot of emails to send, you can still make them personalized. Software like GMass can easily add the person’s name, company name, company information, and other fields you gathered during the prospecting research phase.
If you want to increase your chances of getting a response from a potential client, make your sales email more personalized and specific.
Establish Your Credibility
Remember, your recipients know nothing about you.
It is important for your cold email to explain who you are and why you are the best person to talk to about their needs.
When writing a cold email, be sure to explain your credentials in order to build trust with the recipient. Connection or commonality can be established by sharing why you are reaching out and what you hope to gain from the interaction.
If you’re looking to build trust with potential clients through cold outreach, a great way to do so is by including social proof examples from companies you’ve worked with in your emails. This will show them that you’re credible and have experience working with similar businesses.
You could use:
- Testimonials
- Media Mentions
- Social media shares
- And more
If you want to seem like less of a stranger to an ideal customer and be seen as the right person for the job, then using social proof is a good idea.
Highlight Your Recipient’s Pain Points
If you want your research to be effective, try to focus on a problem that your recipient may be experiencing. Include this information in your cold emails for the best results.
It shows that:
- You’ve done your research on them.
- You share a common interest: boosting their mission and helping them achieve their objectives.
Here are a few ways to identify a pain point your prospects face:
- Look up company press releases and news coverage.
- Follow their social media updates on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and others.
- Observe their digital marketing campaigns through tools like Ahrefs or SpyFu, etc.
- Find out what software they use by studying their website.
- Speak to people familiar with the company.
Remind your audience of the problem at hand and how it is hindering their goals. Explain why it is important to address the issue.
Help your potential customers visualize how much better their business or initiative could be without a specific pain point. Finally, show them how you’re the right person to help them with that.
You don’t always have to talk about a pain point when you’re sending a cold email. For example, when you’re contacting a journalist to ask for a media mention, it would be irrelevant to talk about their pain point.