Updated on January 5, 2023
Is it a pain to acquire lists of high-quality prospects, design a cold emailing campaign, and then have no one respond? Do you struggle to turn even one of those prospects into customers?
If the answer is yes, I feel your pain, but luckily, the problem ends here.
In this blog, I have created a list of 8 best practices to ramp up the success rate of your cold email outreach so you can benefit from every aspect of email marketing!
Without further ado, let’s check them!
What Is Cold Email Outreach?
A cold email is an e-mail sent to a receiver without previous contact. They are usually used for sales purposes by sales development representatives in order to promote content, products, or services.
In simple words, when you email someone you don’t know for some particular reason is cold emailing. The purpose of this mail is to gain benefits in terms of sales, favor, opportunities, or any other dual-sided gain.
Such emails aim to build a relationship with the prospect (future customer) and move them forward in the sales funnel. The simplest example of this type of email might be in your inbox right now.
Cold email outreach has become popular in the digital world because it is a way for marketers to target specific individuals and organizations. This tactic has been around for decades but it has been increasingly popularized by the internet and social media platforms.
The whole process of cold email marketing can be broken down into four steps:
- Find contact information
- Write an email
- Follow up with the contact
- Evaluate response
These steps are only a subset of the larger topic of email marketing, so keep in mind that there is a lot more going on in that marketing field.
Continue reading to learn about specific tips for improving your cold email outreach!
8 Best practices for Cold Email Outreach proven to increase your success rate
Marketing productivity is an important part of every company. You need good marketing KPIs to evaluate the marketing department’s performance.
It assesses the effectiveness with which marketing inputs (like email outreach) are used to produce the desired levels of marketing output.
A well-designed marketing structure can boost sales productivity. Consider a perfect email outreach campaign in this case. The sales team receives fantastic leads, and their sales numbers naturally rise.
Cold Outreach Strategy #1 Identify and Target the Decision Maker
A successful outreach strategy is one that identifies and targets the decision-maker. This is a key point in the email marketing process because it will allow you to tailor your message to their needs and make your pitch more persuasive.
In order to identify the decision-maker, you need to know three things:
- Who is making the decision?
- What are they looking for?
- What are they trying to achieve?
And don’t forget to take their industry or specialty into account as you compose your message. Email marketing that targets specific niches can be more successful than one-size-fits-all pitches.
Don’t let the safety of being behind a screen lead to a lower-quality conversation. I know that doing the research before reaching out sounds a bit boring, but believe us, it will do you miracles.
Identifying the right people can assist you in expanding your email list. There are, however, other methods for effectively collecting email addresses from your website for your business or retail operation.
Identify & Target the Decision Makers with Sales.Rocks
Cold Outreach Strategy #2 Use a Disarming Subject Line
According to Michael Masterson’s great work Great leads, the headline or first line is the most important part of the copy. The subject line is the headline in the case of email outreach.
Subject lines are what people see before they open an email. Thus, it is important that the subject line is catchy enough to capture their attention.
One of the most popular and successful ones among them is disarming subject line.
This type of headline is used to disarm your audience and make them more receptive to what you have to say.
To be more precise, here are some examples of great subject lines:
“I’ve been thinking about you,” “I feel like we’ve been out of touch,” or “It sure has been a while since we talked!”
A disarming subject line will help get your message across without being too intrusive or pushy.
Cold Outreach Strategy #3 Get personal
Nobody wants to feel like they’re getting the same email as hundreds of other people, especially when you’re offering something “exclusive.”
Personal emails indicate that they are sent directly from a person rather than your company. This means you should send emails from a personal address rather than a generic corporate or organization email address.
Let’s see an example template that can help you.
“Hi {{first_name}},
Congrats on your new job promotion! It poped-up on my LinkedIn feed, so I wanted to reach out and congratulate you personally.
I’m {{Amelia}}, account manager at Sales.Rocks — software solution for B2B data and cold email outreach. Nice to e-meet you!
As the new Chief Revenue Officer at {{their_company}} you must be very excited, but at the same time under a slight pressure to improve the company’s MRR, right?
I recently used a unique sales approach to help our client {{SaaS company/competitor}} triple their monthly run rate. And it was a huge success resulting in X clients subscribed to their services.
Care to find out more? Let’s schedule a quick 10-minute call so I can share the idea with you. When works best for you? Feel Pick a time-slot in my calendar here.
Best,
Show interest in getting to know the person who represents the company. This is significant for a number of reasons.
For starters, sending from a personal email address increases the likelihood that your recipients will open your email because it feels like a personal message from you to them.
Second, your personal address will frequently have an avatar associated with it, allowing your leads to recognizing your face in their inbox.
If you must send emails from the company’s email address, make sure to personalize them to some extent.
You can accomplish this in a variety of ways, including segmenting your prospect list into tightly targeted groups that share the same problem or have a commonality.
At the very least, include your name and the name of their company or publication, as well as a brief explanation of why you believe they would benefit from what you have to offer.
Outreach Strategy #4 Be Concise and to the Point
Every word has a weight and the more words you add to an email, the less likely it is that the person on the other end will read it. That’s why it is so important to keep your emails concise and to the point.
To avoid clogging email with unnecessary words, follow these three key things as a guide:
- A brief introduction of the product
- An overview of the benefits it provides
- A call to action
Long story short, you should aim for a short outreach email with at least two follow-up emails.
A follow-up email aims to gather information after a significant point in the customer journey. Therefore, when writing these emails, remember to:
- Add context by mentioning a previous interaction or message in your new email
- Always offer value to your follow-up messages by upping the ante
- Explain why are you sending the email
- Include a Call-to-Action
If you are unsure how to do it, you can use a template to create concise messages. This way, when you need to send an email, all you have to do is fill in the blanks with your information.
If you are sending an email with multiple recipients, put each recipient’s name in brackets after their job title so they know who you are talking about.
Promotional emails are a great way to generate interest in your company and its products. However, they can be overwhelming and off-putting if they are too long or too wordy.
In order to get people excited about your product, it is important to keep your email short but informative.
Outreach Strategy #5 Identify and Demonstrate a Pain Point
You will most likely lose your future consumer unless you can create a hook that encourages the recipient to read your email all the way through.
Therefore, you must first identify and demonstrate a pain point that your prospect is experiencing before demonstrating how you can assist them in overcoming it.
This is very much a ‘what’s in it for them?’ approach, and unless you can demonstrate this, your efforts may struggle to gain traction.
In reality, this is the ultimate icebreaker. And once you’ve successfully demonstrated how you can assist in the resolution of a problem, you’ve got a foot in the door.
The best practice is to create emails with specific content formats that are known to produce content that answers important questions.
Here are a couple of examples:
Break down your product’s relative strengths and weaknesses in terms of relieving specific pain points in comparison to its competitors.
A selection of the “best” products. Survey your audience’s options for addressing their need, and present them in a way that demonstrates why your product or service is the best option.
To alleviate your audience’s pain points, show the value-versus-price breakdown between your product or service and your major competitors in the market.
Outreach Strategy #6 Use Emojis
The recipient’s mail is already clogged. Almost each and every mail they receive is just empty words. Make your emails stand out from the rest by simply adding emojis.
With fun and interactive emojis included in subject lines as well, increase the chance of your email being open. Particularly when targeting millennials or younger generations, they are proven to capture their attention successfully.
You can do A/B testing and add emojis in the subject line as well as in the email body copy to see how your prospects react.
One of the most commonly used emojis are ⭐ 🎉⏰⚡.
However, emojis are not the only ones that can do miracles for you. GIFs as well can make your email interactive, fun, and interesting.
GIFs will, for sure, make your message stand out in the sea of boring, all-the-same cold emails. Plus, if you use some of the fun GIFs from popular shows, there is a high chance that the recipient will have a good laugh and read your mail ‘till the end.
Outreach Strategy #7 Add Call-To-Action Button
A call-to-action button (CTA) is a great way to increase cold email response rates. It encourages prospects to perform an action they will benefit from.
This doesn’t mean that you should fill your emails with CTAs. Too much is also not good. Therefore, ask yourself what action do you want your prospects to take?
Once you answer this question, it will be much easier to place your CTA button accordingly. The prospect will also benefit from knowing what exact action they need to take.
For example, if you have a special offer, you should create a sense of urgency, “Only 1 day left to get (product name)” or “30% discount for the first 50 customers.”
Outreach Strategy #8 Create Partnerships With Influencers
I’ve found that if you have a really good email, people will open it from time to time.
But the way to really get your emails opened is to find someone who is influential in your niche and send them an email with a question or comment on their post.
It doesn’t matter if they are not in your niche, as long as they are influential in some way. You can find these people by looking at their followers on social media or by looking at how many comments they get on their posts.
But another question pops up, where to find them?
Where Can You Find Influencers?
According to Insider Marketing Hub’s annual influencer benchmark report, nearly four-fifths (79%) of brands use Instagram for influencer campaigns, compared to 50% for Facebook, 46% for TikTik, and 44% for YouTube.
Apart from these numbers, this strategy has helped me get my emails opened more often than any other strategy I’ve tried. You can also use software for automating your email outreach campaigns and reaching more people.
The Bottom Line
Effective cold emails enable you to initiate conversations with people with whom you have no prior relationship.
When sending cold emails, remember to personalize them, establish your credibility, and discuss how you can assist the recipient.
Place a CTA button, keep them short and sweet (like this article), and make sure to target the right audience!
You’re just a cold email away from working with your ideal prospects.
Send it today!
