The Definitive Guide to Cold Emails

For your business to thrive, it needs customers signing up for your products or services regularly. This, in turn, requires multiple strategies to capture the attention of potential customers. Now, let’s assume that you have a popular lead magnet that’s had a very good response. You may also have a list of secondary leads through the lead magnet. However, you can't call them directly—because they are not ready to hear you out yet. So what channel could you use, one that is not only non-intrusive but also helps you break the ice? Yes, cold emails.
But aren’t emails losing relevance? No! On average, professionals have more than 200 emails in their inbox and receive 120 new ones each day. This popularity makes email a preferable medium to take your business to a potential customer’s inbox.

What is a cold email?

Sending out cold emails is the first step businesses take to reach out to potential customers who are not aware of the business or haven't engaged with it yet. These emails target people who will potentially benefit from the solution the business provides and help the business turn them into their customers. Cold emails, when done right, qualify a connection and turn strangers into buyers.

But aren’t cold emails spam?

In the past, businesses could reach out to anybody by purchasing a list of prospects and sending a bulk email to the contacts on that list. Today email service providers are smarter; they are active gatekeepers. Email service providers can identify emails that will not benefit or offer value to the user and send them straight to the spam folder.

So, how do you ensure your cold emails do not land in the spam folder? If done right:

Cold emails are sincere, informative and relatable as against reckless spam emails.
They appeal to a specific pain point the user is going through and offer solutions to resolve it.
They open up opportunities for the prospect to start interacting with the business through calls, webinars, and product demos.

How has the approach to cold emailing changed?

Cold emails should offer high-value content to the readers. They are not about targeting a huge list of contacts you acquired from a third party.

The best cold emails are highly targeted, personalized to appear like a 1:1 communication, and appeal to the prospect. They are crafted with the goal of “giving”, offering more value to the recipient rather than hard selling from day 1.

Cold emails

Target people who are looking for a solution that your business offers,
Are a perfect way to introduce your business to people who are using a competitor’s product and are unhappy with it,
Persuade prospects to consider a solution that they didn’t know about until they read the email.

And unlike before, cold emails today offer recipients a way to opt out. The freedom to opt out from emails sends a signal that the prospect is not interested in hearing from you. This also ensures that the business doesn't waste its time and resources on those contacts

1. Understand your recipient

Spend time to understand your prospect and their needs. The best cold emails treat recipients as people and not mere contacts on a list. Through a LinkedIn research, for example, you can uncover your prospect’s activity, engagement, information about their work, interests and what they care about.

2. Set an achievable goal

Do not be ambitious with your first email. Set a simple goal that's easy to reach. Consider easy ones like starting an interaction with a business, attending a webinar, reading a blog post, or downloading a content magnet piece.

3. Structure it simple and easy

Most prospects are likely to check their emails during work or on their phones before their bedtime. Keep your email content concise and structure the content for people to skim through it easily. Avoid long paragraphs and break down content using bullet points. Highlight key words to attract attention easily. Ensure that your email is optimized for viewing on mobile devices and tablets.

4. Highlight your benefits

Cold emails click when they offer value to the prospect. This is where the benefit comes into play. Back your tangible benefits with stats and intangible benefits with testimonials. Remember, you are the stranger who is reaching out. By promoting benefits with proof, you improve your credibility and assure the recipient that you are trustworthy.

Let’s take Coursera, an online learning management system that offers learners to sign up for specializations and upskill. The benefit highlighted in your cold email could be:

How to personalize your cold email?

Personalization is one of the core elements of a cold email that lets you stand out in your prospect's inbox. But it can either drive conversion when done right or drive the email straight to spam when gone wrong. Here are some ways to master personalization while writing a cold email:

Let's dive right into how you can craft a follow-up email that can make your leads and prospects take notice.

Leverage on commonality

It's not just social media, but the term "mutual connection" works even in the world of emails. You are more likely to respond to an email that's from a friend of a friend than a complete stranger.

Case 1: When you have a connection

If you have any sort of connection with the recipient, capitalize and go all-in. Is the prospect someone you know through a connection? Open the email with that.

But it's impossible to know everyone on your list.

Case 2: When you do not know the recipient

If you don’t have any connection, highlight your authority, credibility, or the impact of your work. Apply the findings of your research to highlight if the prospect is a part of a LinkedIn group or other forums or is a member of any popular forums.

Ensure that the automation you use doesn’t break

With cold emails, you have one shot to convince the recipient to take your word. With merge tags, you can dynamically add the first name and other fields to your emails.

But sometimes, the source of these tags may contain empty fields, causing the tags to break.

When you use automation, ensure that you have proper fall-back practices in place for cold emails that are sent in bulk. This ensures that even if these name tags fail, you can still have a placeholder text that doesn't disrupt the experience.

For example,
Using only “Hi {{contact::first_name}}” in your email and the system fails to match it with the recipient’s name.

Using only “Hi {{contact::first_name=there}}” in your email and the system fails to match it with the recipient’s name.

Personalize beyond the first name

Remember to personalize your emails with more than just the first name. Segment your prospect list and tailor messages that are relevant and connect with them. If you have prospects who belong to the marketing industry, sending cold emails with exclusive marketing insights and case studies will be more valuable than asking them to join a webinar on the principles of software coding.
Segmenting prospects lets you craft cold emails that are informative and valuable. It also helps you get the complete context of the prospects, group prospects based on age, gender, and other customer requirements for highly targeted cold emails. The email you send will appeal directly to the prospect's needs and attract responses.

Use a relevant "From Name"

People are likely to take note, follow or interact with experts from their field. Recipients will be under the impression that the email has come from a credible source, one who knows the industry and one who is in a position to offer valuable information.

Try adding a member from your marketing team as the sender if you’re reaching out to marketers. If you do not have anyone with industry experience, you can reach out and partner with influencers to run your cold email campaign with them.

Target only those who fit your Buyer Persona

Cold emails will never work if you are writing for the wrong person. Ensure you create a list of contacts who genuinely will benefit from what you have to offer. When you send emails to random contacts, you invariably damage the reputation of your business.

Amplify the pain point and offer the solution

Emphasize why they should take the time to read your emails. Communicate what you do clearly and how your solution will help the recipient. The content of your cold email should be in a language the recipient understands, with the words and jargon they closely associate with.

Aim for the influencer

Have you always been reaching out to C-suite executives or the leadership team? Chances are that their inboxes attract a lot of cold emails. Cold emails are ideal for connecting with people who are next in line or the ones who can influence the chief's decision. If you have to appeal to the sales head, for instance, the next best person who can help persuade them is the sales manager of their team.

Tie an incentive

Incentives can encourage readers to perform an action. But not all incentives can be as simple as a lucky draw for a $100 Amazon gift card. Send cold emails with an incentive that your readers will value, something which aligns with the solution you offer. For example, if you help businesses improve their sales strategy, you can offer free sales templates that can help sales teams improve their cold calling outreach.

Testing your cold emails

Your prospect will open an email from you only if they trust you and hope to find some value in it. And before you hit send, you need to ensure things are in order.

Check if your emails clear the basic spam filters of popular email service providers.
Ensure that your subject lines are displayed consistently across different devices.
Check if the name tags and other automation fields render correctly.

Once the basic tests are over, you need to optimize your emails to generate a good response.

A/B tests are an ideal way to derive the best-performing version of your email. However, it is difficult for you to run a full-scale A/B test when you have small segments. But that doesn't mean you cannot improve your cold emails. Here's how you test cold emails tailored for different segments:

Understand each industry’s open rate and base your goals according to the industry norms.
Create variants of email that you can measure easily. Try different opening lines, set different email goals, or test specific email subject lines versus general subject lines.
Analyze the results over a period and then compare how your emails performed.

How to send cold emails

Your prospects are likely to be from different industries and geographical locations. Sending cold emails, one after the other, from an inbox, can be a challenge.

Your sales team members need a smarter way to execute your cold email campaign. One that can automate emails, measure the performance, and most importantly, scale as your segments grow.
That's where a CRM software with email marketing capabilities can help you.