Cold Email outreach is basically contacting leads with who you haven’t had prior contact. These leads could be companies or individuals who may not know about your company, or people who do know a bit about you but haven’t reached out to you yet. If done right Cold Email outreach can boost your sales significantly and support your existing marketing and website efforts.
There are varied opinions on the efficiency of cold emails as a section of marketers believe that they are reliable and consider them a great way to acquire new contacts for their businesses, whereas another section believes cold emails do more harm in the long run by driving away prospects due to the annoying nature of it. At the end of the day, it’s completely up to you to select which side you want to be on. If you do decide to employ cold emails to acquire more contacts and grow your business, I suggest you continue reading as we will be sharing some essential do’s and don’ts when it comes to cold email outreach.
Tips you need to follow:
Have a good subject line:
In some ways, the subject line for your email is like a packaging for your message. The more intriguing and interesting it sounds, the higher the chances of it being read and even responded to. Ensure that it is relevant to the matter in hand and whenever possible add a bit of a personal touch to it, as this will show that the sender is genuine and a real person. Since it is the first thing someone sees on their mailbox, the subject line is one of the most crucial points to remember during your email campaigns.
Know your Prospects beforehand:
It always helps to know your prospect before you click on Send. Take a glance at their LinkedIn profiles and even their social media profiles as this will give you ideas on composing a personalized mail. It will also serve the purpose of understanding the requirements of the prospect and help you see where your offering might fit in. I recommend complementing the individual on their track record or mentioning something positive about a project they worked on etc. This will set you up a platform to build a better relationship with the prospect and create opportunities for you to bring up your offer at the right time.
Aim to build a relationship:
Don’t start trying to sell your product or service right off the bat. This will eventually make your prospect uninterested and you might even gain a reputation of being a mail spammer which probably will kill all your future potentials as well. Cold emails are never meant to close a sale, it is essentially a tool to build stronger connection between businesses. Learn about their needs and add value to the conversations which will build trust and rapport with your prospects. Eventually you will be able to show them how their business or project can be improved if they agree to your offer.
Track and evaluate:
Checking interaction data, open and click rates for your emails will help gauge the effort you are putting versus the results you achieve. Adding this to your inventory will help you understand the customer and refine your outreach efforts to achieve more success in your programs.
Things you should avoid:
Long emails: Don’t try to sell your product or business in the first mail itself. You have to understand that the mail is not a monologue with your prospect, it is just an opening to a conversation and there are various other factors you need to focus on before you make your offer. Try to squeeze your message into just a few sentences by avoiding unnecessary words and sentences that only drive your prospects’ attention away from the goal of your message.
Sending the same templates to everyone:
There are thousands of templates available online that claim to elicit responses from the readers. Although they might be effective, but there is a healthy chance that your prospects have already received them from other marketeers. Avoid the temptation to copy paste templates no matter how perfect they sound. Apart from being overly used by others there is also a chance that it will be filtered as spam as spam filters are sensitive to repeatable pattern.
Focusing only on sales:
As d=mentioned earlier, cold email outreach programs are essentially used to build rapport and trust with your potential clients. Focusing too much on sales by repeatedly mentioning the features on your offer might tun off your prospect. Try to provide vale to the recipient by adding article, blogs or any form of content that they might deem useful. The main idea is to get to know the client and provide them some sort of value in their routine.
Being unclear or vague:
Put yourself in the shoes of your recipient and imagine reading a mail that beats around the bush without actually relaying any value or a message. You will probably wonder why you wasted your time on the mail and in all likelihood avoid any mails from the sender in the future. Be clear on why you are reaching out and include a call to action depending on your objective. Maybe you are planning to sign them up to a newsletter or setup a meeting on Zoom, whatever the scenario, you have to ensure you have a clear goal and that the prospect also understand it.
Cold email outreach isn’t very complicated, all it takes is for you to understand your objective and provide something of value to the recipient. Follow the above mentioned tips and in most likelihood you will have a good deal of success in your campaigns.
