Marketing is well known to be permission-based but cold emails are the exception, they are unsolicited messages. When you send cold email messages, your recipients do not know you and are not expecting your emails. So cold email campaigns require extra care and effort to make sure you can get results without irritating your prospects.
Marketers go the extra mile to make sure their emails don’t turn into unwanted messages, so in this guide, we will show you how you too can achieve this and generate quality leads using cold email outreach.
What is Cold Email Outreach?
Cold email outreach is a process of sending emails to recipients with whom you have no prior contact. The emails are mostly sent for sales purposes, targeting potential customers. Cold emailing includes creating a list of potential customers, creating personalised email sequences, and using a cold email tool to send the emails.
The Do’s: Best Practices for Cold Email Campaigns
Do Spend Time Researching Your Prospects
Cold email outreach is all about increasing the number of subscribers in your email list, but it doesn’t end there. There is a need to build a quality email list instead of a large one, so you don’t spend time sending emails to 500 people when only 150 of them are interested.
Therefore, take time to do a little research on your prospects, understand their needs and how you can provide solutions to them, and then you can send more personalised emails.
Do Insert A Catchy Subject Line
Your subject line may be the only chance you will get to grab the attention of your audience, it is the first thing they will see and it will encourage them to read the email. So make it catchy, to make your audience know that someone is intentionally sending the email and it is not spam. also, let it stir up questions within them that only the email can answer, they will be encouraged to read the email.
Do Get Creative With the Sales Email
A business email should have a professional tone but it doesn’t mean it should be boring, your email should be creative and engaging since you don’t have any connection with your audience, this will give you an edge.
Do Keep It Direct and Simple
People will only spend a little time reading an unexpected email, so keep it simple, go straight to the point and let them know why they are getting your email and what you need them to do without boring them with unnecessary details.
Do Personalise Your Cold Emails
Although you do not have a prior relationship with your audience, you still have to personalise your emails, so that they know it is intentional. From the research you have done, add details of each recipient in your emails to create an immediate connection with them as they read through your cold emails.
Do Kick It Up a Notch With Visual Personalisation
Research has shown that people respond better to visuals than plain text, so adding visuals to emails will keep your audience engaged and attentive, it will also help to explain certain concepts faster.
Do Provide More Value With Each Follow-Up Email
When you finally get the attention of your prospects through cold emails, it is now essential that you keep in touch with them and build their interest in your brand through valuable content and consistent emails. With each email, you improve your relationship with them till they become willing to engage with your brand.
Do Add a Custom Email Signature
A custom signature will help you better introduce yourself to your audience since you are a stranger to them, and it also gives the recipient the information they need to contact you if they need to. Your custom signature should include your name, name of company, title, and contact information.
Do Add a Persuasive Call to Action
People can read your cold emails and just leave without doing anything even if they like the information you provided, so a call to action is very important. It tells your readers what you need them to do after reading your email. Your CTA should be persuasive, it should be the last thing in your email and the next thing they should do.
Do Keep an Eye on Campaign Stats
It is good to keep an eye on your email campaign stats, so you can improve your startegy, get rid of the things that are not yielding results and find a better approach to the outreach.
The Don’ts: Cold Email Tips to Avoid Common Errors
Don’t Send Emails to Generic Email Addresses
Avoid sending emails to addresses that are not going directly to your prospects and are probably not even checked regularly. Email addresses such as support@yourprospectsdomain.com, contact@yourprospectsdomain.com, no-reply@yourprospectsdomain.com, Info@yourprospectsdomain.com, etc. are not personal email addresses so cold emails may likely be ignored.
Don’t Sound Like a Bot
People can easily ignore emails written by bots just like robo phone calls, so write your emails by yourself and make them sound humane, with a sense of emotion and humour. This can help people relate more to your emails and show them you are intentional about your campaigns.
Don’t Abuse Your Follow-Up Email Sequence
Follow-up is essential with cold email reach; don’t do it, space your email adequately and don’t bombard your audience with emails, since they were not interested in the first place you have to take time to stir up interest in them, and this won’t happen by force.
Don’t Ever Make It About You
Don’t be self-centred when sending cold emails, your prospects do not know you and do not care about you, so you must make it about them, what you can offer to them, how they can benefit from your business, and how you can make life easier for them.
Don’t Be Overly Salesy
When people open your emails, they probably already know you will try to sell something. However, it is left for you to make them see that they need what you are selling but don’t be too pushy, and don’t come off as desperate so you don’t irritate them, or make your offer lose value. Instead, just focus on building a relationship.
Don’t Send Emails Before Proofreading
No matter how good you are at this game, you are bound to make mistakes, so don’t assume your emails are errors free, proofread them, and use reliable writing tools to check for errors and readability before sending to avoid putting off your readers even before they can become full subscribers.
Don’t Write War & Peace-Length Emails
Remember you are writing an email for someone who doesn’t know you or your business, so don’t think they will spend up to 5 minutes reading your email. Keep your sentences short and straightforward so you can pass valuable information within a few seconds. Keep your paragraphs short as well to keep them interested because people no longer read long walls of unbroken text due to the fast pace of this internet age.
Final Thoughts
Cold email outreach is no doubt a very quick way to generate new leads and increase conversions and ROI, all you have to do is to understand how it works, your audience and the cold email infrastructure. Also, it is very important to get strong outreach software for your cold email campaigns. Some of the best software for creating cold email campaigns include Segnivo, Gmass, Lemlist, Overloop and so on.
FAQs
Is it Legal to Send Cold Emails?
Yes, cold emails are legal, but you have to follow certain rules and regulations according to your state and where your prospects are in the world. Different countries have laws that govern such practices, so make sure your cold emails align and don’t violate any laws.
How Long Should You Wait Before Sending a Follow-up Email?
There is no rule for the time to wait before sending a follow-up email after a cold email campaign. However, 2 to 4 days make sense so they don’t completely forget about your email and still don’t feel disturbed by your follow-up email. Following up too quickly may make you seem too pushy or aggressive and waiting for too long also makes you lose the prospect’s attention.