For sales and marketing professionals, cold emailing is a robust tool. But it may quickly become a nightmare and do more harm than good if you don’t know what you are doing. If you want to grasp people’s attention, drafting a generic cold email template will not do the trick.
Instead, you must draft the cold email with great precision to skyrocket lead generation, establish a powerful brand presence or expand your network. Here’s what you must know about mastering the art of cold emailing in 2023.
What Are Cold Emails?
The process of sending emails to prospects who have not had any previous interaction with the business is called cold emailing. It is an effective way of reaching out and connecting with potential companies. It allows businesses to introduce themselves and showcase what they have to offer.
In cold emailing, an essential step is to find potential companies to send cold emails to. If you need help identifying companies to contact via cold email, go through this guide.
Cold Emailing 101: Best Practices to Increase Open Rates and Responses
Once you have found your list of prospects to send cold emails to, you must know how to create attractive emails that impress the recipients. Also, it is critical to know when to send cold emails.
1. Short and simple
Keep your emails short and simple. Brevity is the strength of cold emailing. Therefore, your emails must be brief, crisp, and concise so that the focus is on the message you are trying to convey.
Short emails are the best way to communicate that your intent is clear and you want the recipient to take a specific action. It has been found that the best open and response rates are achieved when the cold emails are 1400-1500 characters.
2. Personalization
Do you want prospects to spend time reading your emails? You must know your recipients first. Suppose you send the same cold email to 6 prospects and pitch them the same service. You must study each prospect and gather insights to personalize the email content.
With personalization, your cold email will be noticed. The mail must be composed as if you are talking directly to Bret, Sarah, or whoever your client is.
3. Catchy subject line
Capturing the attention of the recipients within the first thirty seconds is essential. This will increase the open rate of your cold emails.
Since there’s such a brief window to work your magic, it is essential to come up with killer subject lines that instantly grab your prospects’ attention. Similar to the content, the subject line must be kept short and extensively personalized.
The best subject lines are those that promise value, create a sense of urgency, or evoke a sense of curiosity.
The subject line must not be more than 30-40 characters, and you can use action or power words. Also, it would be great if the subject line made an affirmation, asked a question, or conveyed an interesting fact. It is critical to excite your prospects, so they click and open the email.
4. Powerful CTA
If there’s no solid CTA or call to action, it is not a cold email because the purpose of cold emailing is to ask recipients to take action. For example, the action might be to visit your website, subscribe to your newsletter or contact you.
However, remember not to go overboard with the CTA because you cannot overwhelm your prospects.
5. Know when to send cold emails
Sending cold emails whenever you want will not help you achieve the desired results. One of the primary reasons why cold emails are ignored or deleted is because they’re sent at the wrong time.
Although people tend to check their emails throughout the day, there are particular times when you are likely to get a response.
For example, the best time to send cold emails in North America is between 6-6:30 AM PST on weekdays and 5-7 PM on weekends.
You must do your research before sending cold emails. Nailing the perfect time will enhance the open and response rates.
6. Send a follow-up email
If your first cold email goes unnoticed, do not hesitate to send a follow-up email. It is found that about 80% of cold emails require five follow-ups after the first email. It might be that the recipient overlooked the first email or forgot about it.
A follow-up email is a gentle nudge to show the recipient that you are interested in hearing back. Ensure to keep your follow-up email’s tone conversational and send it out after a week of the initial mail.
Conclusion
Keep these points in mind to strengthen your cold email strategy and convert prospects into actual customers. No matter how fancy you get with social media marketing or other advertising tactics, cold emailing yields a higher ROI than other strategies.
