Cold Email Marketing: Break the Ice and Make Solid Deals

There’s always been a lot of debate around the effectiveness of cold email marketing. Some people have become millionaires using this method. Yet, it’s only natural for prospects to hesitate when a stranger comes knocking for work.

But here’s the thing. If you send general emails that sell aggressively and don’t provide much value, you probably won’t get a response.

Instead, you should focus on starting a conversation. Once you’re no longer a stranger and have proved yourself to them, they will be happy to work with you.

So, it all comes down to whether or not you’re following the right strategy. If you’re ready to send the right cold emails, let’s start the discussion right away.

From Outreach to Opportunities: What Is Cold Email Marketing?

First things first, what is cold email marketing? It is the act of using emails to reach out to people and businesses who don’t know you yet.

While people mostly use this method to introduce their products and services to potential customers, that isn’t the only reason.

You can also send cold emails to recruit employees, build links, and network with people in your field. But whatever the reason, don’t forget to personalize your email. Otherwise, it would land in the spam folder, and your outreach would have failed even before starting!

Now, while cold emailing is about sending unsolicited emails, it isn’t spam. If you do it the right way, you won’t be sending these emails to everyone on the planet.

Instead, you’ll create customer profiles and send them to targeted people with a legitimate reason. When you send bulk sales emails that lack personalization, that’s spam.

With that said, let’s look at some metrics. Firstly, the average open rate for a cold email campaign is 23.9%.

Secondly, the average response rate for these emails is 7%. If you send the email to 3 or 4 people from the same company, this rate rises to 7.8%. But if you make the mistake of sending it to more than five people, it drops to 2.5%.

This shows the importance of subtlety in cold emails. While your goal should be to get as many people on board as possible, you shouldn’t seem too clingy. We’ll tell you exactly how to do that later in this article.

Busting the Myth: Does Cold Email Marketing Work?

At this point, asking, “Does cold email marketing work?” is justifiable since nobody likes to talk to strangers. However, the answer isn’t that simple.

It can be yes or no, depending on what you’re doing. First, let’s talk about the positive situation. Before you sit down to write your cold email copy, you must follow some prerequisites:

• Buy a professional domain name
• Add the necessary security settings that email providers suggest
• Know how many emails you can send in a day
• Make the perfect outreach signature and profile
• Verify your email address
• Clean up your email list by removing contacts that aren’t active anymore

As mentioned earlier, personalization is of utmost importance for a cold email strategy. Following these and sending follow-up emails after the initial one can help you reach a wide audience and generate leads.

However, this marketing campaign won’t reach the other side if your profile lacks real information.

And if it does, it will make your prospects skeptical. They might think you’re a robot trying to sell them fishy products even before opening the email. This is a common email marketing mistake that can also hinder your cold email strategy.

Firstly, your email isn’t professional. While you can use personal email accounts, company domains are better.

Secondly, your email only focuses on making sales. Mentioning your prices and using the wrong words might be another reason.

Thirdly, you’ve used cold email templates. You haven’t put time and effort into researching your ideal customer. When you don’t know your prospects, you can’t personalize your email. People don’t even open general cold emails, let alone read them.

However, there are various examples of people who have businesses that work solely on cold emailing. So, the effectiveness of this method depends on your strategy.

How To Do Cold Email Marketing: 6 Steps to the Perfect Outreach

Did you know that Ember Tribe used cold emailing and webinars to win 7 figure deals? Or that cold emailing got Dhruv Ghulati an investment of $500,000 from Mark Cuban?

Yes, it’s that effective, and you can get similar results if you follow the right steps. Remember, it’s not just your words that matter.

What you do before writing those words and even after has equal importance. So, the following sections will shed light on how to do cold email marketing and successfully close deals. Follow these steps, and you’ll stop leaving money on the table.

Step #1: Make a List of Prospects and Their Emails

It might surprise you to learn that the first step isn’t to come up with a subject line. You must first gather prospect names and build email lists.

Research your target industry and find people who might need your products or services. Not following this step and sending emails to everyone in the industry will send you straight to spam folders. Plus, why would a person read your email when they don’t even need what you’re offering?

Moreover, your target shouldn’t only be the big names in the industry. They probably already have everything they need. That’s why they’re operating on such a big scale.

So, have a mixture of big and small companies and create a sheet to record the entries. Here are some helpful columns: company and owner names and the name of the person relevant to your offering.

For example, if you’re offering recruiting services, the HR manager will be the person to contact.

Additionally, research the receiver and try to find some common ground with them. Next, you must find the right email address. Don’t send cold emails to contact or support emails because the people viewing those emails don’t make decisions.

Therefore, it’s important that your email reaches the right person. Another point to remember here is that you shouldn’t send these emails to the receiver’s personal email address. Otherwise, you’ll be breaking the rules.

To find the right email address, you can try guessing it. Or use social media profiles or search engines. Subscribing to the company newsletter and searching the website can also help.

However, if none of that works, you can simply use paid extensions that help you find emails. Remember, though, that low open rates are normal when it comes to mass email marketing, especially with cold leads.

Step #2: Study Your Prospect and Their Business

Once you have the prospect list and email addresses, the next step is to study them. Find things that can help you personalize your email. Here’s how.

Follow the prospect on social media and keep a close eye on their posts. Learn their pain points and determine if they need what you’re offering. Sometimes, they won’t directly post about wanting your product or service.

But they might post about a problem that they’re facing. Once you find their pain points, you can create an offer that they won’t be able to resist. Let’s understand this with an example.

Suppose you own a content business and want to email the content manager of a real estate company.

Their posts on LinkedIn give you the impression that they’re not happy with their website copy. Here’s what you can do with this information.

Go to their company website and study the copy. Find what it’s lacking and pinpoint what might be bugging the content manager. Maybe the copy doesn’t appeal to the target audience. Or maybe it’s too long.

Once you know what’s wrong, create a report for the content manager. State the things that you think are wrong with the copy.

Then, tell them the ways you can improve it, and be sure to include an example. The information you give them should be a balance between the complete solution and just enough to pique their interest.

This way, the content manager will get the impression that you know what you’re doing. They’ll trust you since you gave them a solution instead of directly asking for work.

Step #3: Craft an Enticing Subject Line

Until now, you were following steps to make your case stronger. Now is the time to start writing the actual email.

Personalize every word you say, starting with the email subject. But pay extra attention to this part because it’s the first thing that your prospect will see. It will determine whether or not they will open your email.

Moreover, your prospect will probably be receiving thousands of emails every day. Catchy subject lines will also help you stand out in that crowd. So, here’s how to craft a compelling subject line for cold emails.

Firstly, this line should be less than 60 characters because that’s all your prospects will see. Any longer than that, and the email app will truncate it. Secondly, try to add the prospect’s first name in the subject line. This will personalize your email from the very start.

Reading their name will capture their attention and attach them to your email a little better than the others.

Thirdly, it’s better to ask questions here because they spark up conversations. Your language should compel your prospect to take action.

Moreover, touch their pain points and tell your prospects what they’ll get out of opening and reading your email. This way, you can show that you come with good intentions that will work for both of you.

Lastly, there are some words that take your email straight to the spam folder. These words include “discount,” “help,” “urgent,” “free,” etc. These words trigger the spam filter.

A good example would be, “John, how does a 20% revenue boost sound?”

Step #4: Write a Short Introduction That Says It All

The next step is to write a short introduction that grabs the receiver’s attention. You have a maximum of three seconds to persuade readers to keep reading after the introduction, so make it count.

But the irony is that this introduction shouldn’t be about you!

A common mistake people make here is that they talk about themselves and their company. The receiver isn’t interested in that. They only care whether or not you have something that can help them.

But starting directly with your offer will seem like you’re selling aggressively, which will alert the spam police. So, where do you start?

Well, as we mentioned earlier, you must find some common ground with the prospect. If you’ve followed the right steps, you should already know a lot about them. Here are three ways to start the email with that information.

If there’s a common person you both know, that is the best way to grab their attention. You will be able to build trust since the receiver can easily verify this fact from the common acquaintance.

The second way is to ask them questions about the problems you noticed they’re facing. Talking about a person’s pain points never fails to capture their eye. They’ll instantly be able to see that you’ve put time and effort into researching them and their work.

Lastly, flattery hits the mark when it comes to cold emails. If you add some of their achievements and appreciate them, it will instantly hook them.

However, don’t add all of the things they’ve ever mentioned on their social media. Instead, go for their latest achievement that is closest to your offering and industry.

Step #5: Create a Pitch That Relates to Your Prospect’s Struggle

Being a business owner, you must have created the perfect elevator pitch to entice customers. You must’ve added all the benefits and summarized the product or service in one or two sentences.

But that won’t work with cold emailing. If you do that here, you’ll come across as desperately trying to make sales. That’s not the image you want to create. Here, you must set yourself as the authority who’s there to give solutions, not to sell something. Of course, that’s the ultimate goal, but not in the initial email. So, what should your pitch include?

Remember the report you created earlier? Now’s the time to use it and close the deal. After the introduction, say that you’ve created a report showing their current standing and what you can do to alleviate it.

For example, you can say, “I noticed that you were having trouble with automated email deliverability. I’ve created a report about how [product name] can help you with that. If my solutions seem acceptable, I would love to chat with you about other problems you might be facing.”

Then attach the report, and that would be your pitch. However, if you’re unable to create a report, you can use storytelling to show how you’ve helped other similar businesses.

For that, state the problem that your customers normally face (the prospect will probably be facing it too.) Then tell your solutions which helped them. Ensure your pitch is comprehensive, clear, and concise. This is one of the advantages of Email vs SMS. Therefore, use it!

Don’t fill the pitch with product features. Instead, tell your prospects the benefits it will provide them. That’s the only thing they care about.

Step #6: Close the Email With a Call to Action and Email Signature

The last step is to close the email with a call to action and email signature. Don’t assume that your prospects know what to do after reading your email. They rely on your call to action to figure that out.

The call to action can be anything that you want the prospects to do. It may be to respond, buy a product, join your loyalty program, etc.

But keep your ask small. Don’t expect them to be willing to have a long conversation with you after the first email.

And as for the absence of an email signature, it will take away all the credibility you’ve built earlier. It should include your name, designation, company name, and address.

But don’t fill it with too much information, and keep it clean. Otherwise, it will be hard for your prospect to make sense of it.

Use Cold Email Marketing Software To Make Your Job Easier

The above steps might seem extensive. But the good news is you can use cold email marketing software to automate them. Just set triggers according to your prospects’ intent, and the software will send the automated email.

This trigger might be something they posted on their social media, so again, the process will be the same. Only this time, the software will perform it instead of you having to do it manually.

First, Saleshandy lets you schedule your cold emails according to your prospects’ time zones.

Another option is Reply, which claims to maintain a personal relationship between you and your prospects. But if you’re looking for something easy to use, Mailshake is the best software to start with.

With that said, not every business has the budget to invest in costly software plans. So, here are some free options to explore.

Start by warming your email address with TrulyInbox, so your emails land right in your inbox. It’s a free tool that helps you get the prerequisites right.

But if you’re in more need of tracking tools after you’ve sent the email, Right Inbox would be a good choice. Next, GetEmail.io is a free tool that helps you collect prospect emails.

Leverage Cold Email Marketing by Doing It Right!

Cold email marketing is still an efficient way to promote your products and find leads. Depending on your industry, you might have a high success rate. However, do not rely entirely on this marketing strategy. Moreover, try several approaches and see what works for you.

If you run a local business and you want to get more customers and grow loyalty toward your business, try Beambox. It is a WiFi marketing platform that can help you gather data and automate effective marketing campaigns. Beambox has no hidden fees and no extra hardware requirements. Start your trial now!

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