Have you seen the efforts you put into your cold email campaign go in vain? To end this problem, here’s a tip for you. Use personalized cold emails! Before, you could have slacked off time in your work and been a bit lazy being a sales representative. In the past, you would have loaded up a huge list of prospects into your mailing list, added some merge tags, and you would have easily found the leads.
“Hi [first name], looking at how you are the [job position] at [company name]….”
This looks familiar, doesn’t it? Generic mass emails are not effective anymore. Research shows that the LinkedIn team shows more interest to the buyers who send them personalized emails. A personalized email will increase click-through rates by 14 percent and conversation rates by 10 percent. Some users have reported that when you hyper-personalize your cold emails, there are chances that the response rates can increase even to 300 percent.
Sometimes you are given strict deadlines, and driven growth targets can make you depend on mass emails. But be careful as this might end up turning against you. It will be hard for you to stay motivated in your work when you are only seeing numbers go down due to the great number of generic emails you have relied on for use.
Personalization is the process of adding a piece of text or information depending on your prospect’s interest. It is not just about using basic details like the prospect’s first name and their company’s name. Writing a personalized email involves writing the text to show to your prospect that you have made efforts to get their care and attention. And you have to make sure you send it uniquely.
Before being apprehensive about it, let me remind you that personalization, when done right, shows a difference in making your campaign either successful or a flop. People who follow personalization have high stakes of winning now, and it gives you the right to reach out.
WHY IS EMAIL PERSONALIZATION IMPORTANT?
1. It is Important for Email Deliverability
If you plan to send out a hundred identical generic emails to your prospects, ESPs like Gmail and Outlook will think that your emails are spam. Instead of landing in your prospect’s inbox, your email ends up in the spam folder, and there is now less chance for your prospect to see your email.
But if you personalize each message you are sending to your prospects, there are PLENTY of chances that your email reaches the prospect’s mail and stays away from the spam folder. Personalization shows ESPs that the sender is trustworthy and will bring more engagement to your emails. And you will also get fewer spam reports, as people won’t mark your emails as spam. They will realize that you are making an effort to learn and reach out.
2. Personalized Emails – The Key to More Replies
Consider which email you would reply to? A generic email with a common template like this:?
Hi,
I am a vlogger. I make weekly vlogs. Here <link> is the one that I published this week. I just wanted to email you and see if [company] would be interested in a series similar to this?
Best,
[inbox name]
This is not too compelling, right? But what would you do if you received a personalized cold email like this?
Hi,
I’m Bryan. I’m a huge Hubspot fan. I particularly liked your recent work on business card design. I work with companies like KISSmetrics, and I make weekly videos for their blog. Here is the video that I published earlier. I just wanted to email you and see if Hubspot is interested in a similar series.
This is a demo I made to show you what my work looks like.{insert work}
Let me know if you guys are interested in something like this.
– Bryan
This person, Bryan, has made efforts to look into the background and add a compliment. He even added a personalized demo to show his prospect. It is hard for anyone not to reply when someone puts in that much effort. If you try to understand your recipient, you will understand why personalized cold emails are important.
Research shows that sending a personalized email to your prospects will give you an extra edge, and there are a lot of chances that you get replies too! When the recipient feels like the email is relevant to them, it is more likely for the recipient to open your email. Personalization gives you the outreach you need with your prospects more than just getting your cold email clicked. Personalization is, in fact, a very brilliant email marketing tool. An email marketer should differentiate between cold emails and email marketing and implement which type they should adopt for their business.
Apart from helping you receive more replies, personalized emails give you high deliverability. This is mainly because when you stop sending generic emails with the same template to everyone, the spam filter detects this and will get suspicious. Thereby, it will stop your email from reaching the recipient’s inbox. But you can prevent this by sending personalized emails.
If your emails aren’t delivered to the recipient, there is no point in spending time and sending emails. If your emails are stuck in the spam folder, your whole business campaign will become fruitless. But you might expect to receive a reply from your prospect so that you can take the conversation to the next level. Prospects will only reply to you when they think you have done enough research to know them and get their reply.
Here are different ways in which you can create personalized cold emails:
- Use the name of your prospect
- Use the buyer persona
- Use compliments
- Focus on your prospect’s interests
- By using the visual representation
- Use their existing technology
- Use mutual connection
- Use specific pain points
LEVELS OF PERSONALIZATION
You might be ready to personalize your emails, but before starting to cold email someone, doublethink if it is feasible or not. It is practically impossible for you to curate a personalized email for every prospect. Likewise, putting in the same effort for all prospects is not possible either. So you need to segment and categorize which prospects bring how much revenue to you. Then you can go to the next level of personalization.
Listed below is how you can go about segmenting your prospects:
1. Small Size Deal – Basic Personalization
The first segmentation includes listing the prospects who bring the lowest revenue. Many times, lots of prospects fall under this segment. You can use this basic personalization only by adding the first name, the company prospect works for, and the industry.
2. Medium Size Deal – Semi-personalized
This segment prospects who have connections that bring medium-sized deals. For this, you can increase the level of personalization in your email to have higher response rates. Instead of just adding their name in the emails, you can do a little research and send them. Also, don’t forget to add the achievements of their company and your shared interests.
3. Large Size Deal – Hyper-personalized
This last segment includes the list of prospects who bring the highest revenue to your business. Though these prospects are only a few, you might have to pay maximum attention to them. Before reaching out to the prospects, make sure you have in-depth research and write the cold email. For example, you have to look at all the challenges that the prospect’s company is facing.
The first segment will have the prospects who bring a minimum deal value, and most of your contacts will come under this category. The personalization here can be very basic, with the majority being done using placeholders in the email templates like using the prospect’s name, company name, and designation. But as you move from small-size deals to midsize deals, you need to level up the personalization to get more responses.
This can be simply done by doing research that does not include their name and designation—for example, mentioning the mutual interests and connections you share and developments in their company. The last segment is of the highest deal value. This level includes less than 5 percent of your prospects, so they are only a handful in number. When reaching out to these prospects, your emails should be crafted with extensive research, and they should be hyper-personalized in nature. For example, addressing the pain points specific to the prospect’s company.
BEST TECHNIQUES FOR GETTING A REPLY TO YOUR COLD EMAIL
Following are the different techniques you can use to write personalized emails for your sales campaign:
1. PERSONALIZE USING THE PROSPECT’S NAME
The most basic way of personalization is addressing your prospect by their name. It is a simple yet effective strategy to use when sending out cold emails. How is this simple task a powerful strategy?
Dale Carnegie says, “A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
According to science, when a person hears their own name, it triggers a unique reaction in their brain, leading to greater brain activation and paying more attention to what you say. But adding a name alone is not an effective strategy; you shouldn’t use their name at the beginning of every sentence. Just learn to use it appropriately wherever needed.
Tip – Use your prospect’s name in the subject line of your cold email as personalized cold emails have 29 percent higher open rates and 41 percent click-through rates!
2. PERSONALIZE AROUND BUYER PERSONAS
The best way to take your personalization to the next level is by addressing your emails based on different buyer personas. Here is how you can do this:
Categorize your prospects based on similar job profiles, company size, priorities, and pain points, and then create a personalized email that is crafted uniquely for each group. For example, the VPS of Marketing from SMB companies will be experiencing similar pain points. You can grab their attention by telling them how your project will help them solve their pain point.
In this manner, you can create different buyer personas, craft emails, and send them at a scale.
Note – To make this technique work efficiently, you ought better to understand the pain points of your different buyer personas. A business with just a few customers might find this difficult initially. You can choose different personas and see which ones are working.
3. PERSONALIZATION ON TRIGGER EVENTS
There are some events that obstruct businesses. These obstructions can open up new opportunities, which are called trigger events. These events bring opportunities for sales reps to reach their prospects with personalized emails relating to the event.
Listed below are a few examples of trigger events:
- New hires from top of the ladder: A newly appointed C-suite executive would be open to purchasing a new product to show signs of shaking things up and establish their authority in an attempt to prove their value.
- A move from a competitor: Developments in your prospect’s rival company may enable them to seek new software to match their competitors.
- A new round of funding: A company that has secured a new round of funding will be willing to invest in new software.
Personalizing your cold email around the trigger event is necessary because you are reaching out to your prospect when they need a business or service.
Tip – Owler and Google Alerts notify you about the trigger events. Act quickly and make the most out of it in situations like these.
4. PERSONALIZATION WITH A COMPLIMENT
To build a good relationship with your prospect, it is important to give compliments about your prospect’s business. Research has shown that receiving a compliment has triggered the same reaction as receiving money in our brain. When your prospect reads your compliment, you immediately get their attention, and they will be more interested in what you are about to say.
Here are few examples:
Winning an award – If your prospect has been rewarded or recognized in their field recently, then you can use it in your email
Blogs and Seminars – If your prospect has published an article in their blog or has given a seminar that you have high interest in, then tell them that you enjoyed it.
A leader in their field – If your prospect is a leader in their field, then start your cold email with your admiration for them.
5. PERSONALIZE BASED ON PROSPECT’S INTERESTS
Nothing attracts people more than the things they like and the things which mean a lot to them. With this being said, why don’t you highlight these things in your cold emails?! How to learn what your prospect is interested in?
Use social media. Browse your prospect’s social media profiles and be properly informed about their interests. Look for the frequent comments, mentions, and posts and get information of what they like – it could be anything, be it a sports team, movie character or favourite place, it will be helpful to you.
When you mention your prospect’s interest, here are two things you achieve:
- It shows the prospect that you have made an effort to learn more about them and
- It will for sure bring a smile to their face.
This is helpful in creating a good first impression and thereby helps you build a better bond with your prospects.
6. PERSONALIZE USING EXISTING TECHNOLOGY
If you dig deeper about your prospect, you can find what software they are currently using and personalize your emails based on that. Many tools like Builtwith and Datanyze list all the software used in the prospect’s website. With this information, you can check to see if they share similar tools to your product. For instance, when you know that your prospect is using your competitor’s product, you can change the lines of your email and make your product a better buy than the product they are currently using.
Personalizing emails based on the company’s already existing technological stack will give your product a different angle. How? Your prospect might be using the product that the majority of your customers use. By mentioning this in the cold email, you will bring them a sense of familiarity to your product.
7. PERSONALIZE WITH VISUAL REPRESENTATION
One best way to personalize your emails is by including a graphic representation like image or video that is relevant. Visual representations are great in garnering the attention of the recipients.
What makes them powerful?
- Makes communication efficient – When done in visuals, communication is very much effective. Our brains can process visual images at 1/10 of a second. So by including an image, you are immediately grabbing the attention of your prospect!
- Gives human touch – Emails lack the human touch. You can personalize all as you want, but it will never equal the interaction you have with your prospects. Adding visual content doesn’t give the actual experience but at least gives your prospect a sense of interaction.
8. PERSONALIZE BY HIGHLIGHTING YOUR MUTUAL CONNECTION
One of the reasons for your cold emails to be unanswered is the disconnect between you and your prospect. Well, here’s how you can use mutual connection to build that gap.
Mentioning your mutual connection is a great way to earn your prospect’s trust and connect with them. When you mention your mutual connection, you no longer feel like a stranger to them and the cold email isn’t cold anymore. Psychologically, we trust people who are quite similar to us. Since your prospect can find the email relatable, they are more likely to respond to it.
But how to find a mutual connection? Here’s social media to your rescue again! Just a simple search through your prospect’s profiles will help you find the mutual connection and you can mention it in your email. Some of the mutual connections you can use are given below:
- You both may know the same person
- You both might hail from the same town or high school
- You both could be a part of the same LinkedIn or Facebook group
- You both might have attended the same seminar or conference
9. HYPER-PERSONALIZE WITH SPECIFIC PAIN POINTS
One powerful and effective way to personalize cold emails is to address the pain points and give a solution to the prospect. The other personalizing methods can be done in a scale, but this cannot be done like that. These emails require maximum research and preparation with carefully curated precise messages to be as relevant as possible to the prospect. And this precision cannot be done at a scale.
When you personalize your email, highlight the reason why you are reaching out to their company. Brief them about their company size and recent developments to show them that you are paying attention to your prospect and their business. Talk about their pain points and tell them how your product will fix their already existing problems.
Do not mention your product’s features; instead, tell them how they can benefit by using your product. You can progress to the next level by even making small snippets on how you can help the prospect.
TEMPLATES TO MASTER EMAIL PERSONALIZATION
- Example of personalized email with just a name
Sub: [Prospect’s name], You might find this interesting..
Hi [prospect’s name] Based on the data we are seeing with the other sales organizations, your company’s sales reps are wasting at least 60 minutes daily on manual data entry.
[Prospect’s name], Are you a stickler for saving time? Our product can help [company name] sales reps to save considerable time by automating data entry in your CRM. I will be glad to schedule a quick phone call to explain about it.
Thanks!
2. Example of a personalized email based on buyer personas
Hi [prospect’s name]
Being a [describe the prospect’s experience], you must be aware of the importance of your company’s content performing well across the channels. At [your company], we help businesses to improve engagement rates for their content.
I would be happy to schedule a quick call to explain how we can help your company bring the optimized results.
Cheers!
3. Example of personalizing around a trigger event
Hi [prospect’s name]
I have been following your [company name] for quite some time and I noticed that you recently joined as [their new position]. I’m really excited about the enthusiasm you will bring to the role with the great experience you have! With a new focus on [objective], I think you will benefit greatly from our sales tool.
Can we schedule a quick call this Wednesday to discuss this? Here’s the link to my Calendly: [link]
Best wishes,
4. Example of personalized email with compliments
Hi [prospect’s name]
I recently found your [prospect’s work] on [which platform you found] and I think your thoughts are insightful and amazing. In fact, I too, share a similar view on that topic. While we are on it, I want to brief you on how [prospect’s company name] can benefit by using our software.
I can gladly schedule a quick call this Thursday to discuss.
Wishes,
5. Example of personalized email based on prospect’s interests
Sub: Curated for the sales reps who love [prospect’s interests]
Hi [prospect’s name]
I wanted to ask to you,
What are your thoughts on [development based on the prospect’s interests] ?
[Prospect’s name], I also wanted to ask if you have 15 minutes of your time, so I can tell how [your company] can help [prospect’s company] to manage the sales pipeline in an effective way.
Feel free to choose the time that works best for you. Here is the link to my Calendly.
Cheers,
6. Example of personalizing emails around technology
Hi [prospect’s name]
I see that you use [the CRM they are using] for managing the database. At [your company], the majority of users use the same platform too. In fact, the native integration makes it easy for you to find a solution, without even having to switch to another platform.
Here is what the other users, who use [their CRM] tell about [your company]
If you are up for a quick chat, I can tell you it is simple to get started.
Wishes,
7. How Freshdesk landed TimeDoctor with a single personalized image
Sub: Personal note to Liam from your follower
Hi Liam,
First of all, a huge congratulations on your brilliant idea! The uniqueness of your concept and service is amazing. After seeing my father use it for his company, I remember using TimeDoctor to see how my preparation for the exam is. I totally loved it! My warm wishes to your team.
Just as TimeDoctor, ease and simplicity are our greatest strengths at Freshdesk. We enable you to interact with your customers through multiple support channels like email, chat, widget, forums, phone and more just under a single platform. Freshdesk helps you to manage inquiries using advanced features like canned responses, bulk handling of emails, converting Twitter and Facebook inquiries into tickets, customer satisfaction surveys and much more!
Liam, can you please connect me with your Support Head. I would love to discuss the value Freshdesk adds. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Truly,
8. Example of using a mutual connection to personalize
Hi [prospect’s name]
This is [your name], a close of [your mutual connection].
I am reaching out to you because [mutual connection] thinks, [prospect’s company] can largely benefit from [your company] where we provide you a hassle-free billing platform for your business.
I will be glad to schedule a quick call this Wednesday to explain more about it.
Thanks!
[your name]
9. Example of hyper-personalized email
Hi [prospect’s name]
I have been keeping track of [prospect’s company name] for a while and I have noticed that you are looking to hire an experienced executive to head your Sales division in the South Bay area. Along with a new face leading the team, and 20 new account executives who are set to join, I’m pretty sure it is an exciting phase for [prospect’s company].
I think you can easily beat your company goals for this quarter that [company head] addressed in the Techcrunch conference last January. With the team about to get started, a perfect complement for them would be [your company] ‘s CRM software that will save up 60 minutes every day by eliminating manual data entry, thereby helping your team focus on other priorities.
Do you think we can schedule a meeting at 4:00 pm this Wednesday to discuss how [prospect’s company] will benefit from our software?
Wishes,
DON’T FORGET TO PERSONALIZE YOUR SUBJECT LINE
The main aim of the email’s subject line is to draw the recipient’s attention. While drafting the cold email’s subject line, put yourself in the prospect’s perspective and ask, ‘Would I open this email if it was in my inbox?’ You will now get an answer. To be honest, the fate of your cold email will depend on the subject line. If it is not too catchy, then the email will not be different from the rest of the emails. You have to put efforts to make sure your email is unique even in an unorganized inbox.
There are many ways in which you can capture the attention of the prospects. Creating a sense of urgency will make the prospect curious. Also, add elements of personalization. This is a sure-shot way to make your email stand out. The truth is we have now grown immune to the generic emails. And this is one main reason why we need to walk the extra mile and personalize the email’s subject line.
Personalize based on the geography by mentioning the activities that took place in the area they are residing. Check professional sites like LinkedIn and social media like Facebook and Twitter for your research.
Here’s a few examples:
- [first name], Check it out
- Looking forward to see you at [event name], [first name]
- Congratulations [first name] for [achievement]
- Your article on [blog post] was knowledgeable.
PRO TIP – TIMING YOUR COLD EMAIL
Research suggests that, if you are considering sending a cold email, then Thursday is the best day. Thursday has the highest open rate and the highest click rate. Many candidates will read your emails within the first 60 minutes. Get the best results by matching it with your own data.
THE OUTDATED TRICK ABOUT EMAIL PERSONALIZATION THAT DOESN’T WORK ANYMORE
Just using [first name] and [company name] doesn’t work anymore
If you see an increasing open rate than earlier times, it is perfectly fine. But you can’t rely on this basic tag to see quick results. If you are running short on time, but you still want to generate leads through cold emails, then do segmentation. Convert your usual list into smaller lists by
- Industry
- Geographic region
- Time zone
- Other relevant information
You can use these for personalizing your cold emails. Telling them relevant information like the school they went to or the city they are in will come off as personal and will be more relevant to the recipient. By segmenting your lists, you will be able to write relevant messages to each of your ideal clients. But this is quite a far from optimal approach. So what can we do now?
The solution: personalized cold emails
Writing personalized emails will yield the best results for you both in the long and short term. Finding a common ground and taking time to write a personal message is a great way to start new relationships with potential buyers. Some other options include mentioning their favourite sports (not in all cases), about the blog they posted, or a hobby, or something you found on their LinkedIn profile.
Speeding up the process: personalized introductions
Okay but you might wonder, “Who has the time for that?” This is a common problem to many sales reps. Prospecting takes too much of your time, and it is the most challenging part of being a sales person. But luckily, it is not all bad. By using personalized first lines, adding them to your mails using merge tags, you can reach out in a hyper-personalized way. A personalized few lines of the email will make it stand out even before the recipient opens your mail.
NEVER GIVE UP BECAUSE OF THE PROBLEMS YOU MIGHT FACE WHILE COLD EMAILING
Many people give up on cold emails because they don’t get instant results from it. But if it didn’t work, it wouldn’t be used by growing startups like Fortune 500s, and other successful agencies. The problem with most of the cold emails is that they are simple. They are compelling or intriguing enough to catch the attention of the recipient. If you are on the recipient’s side, you’ll know what this is about. Let us take some main reasons why many cold email campaigns fail.
1. Fake or surface-level personalization
The key to seeing results is by using personalization. Without doing personalization, you are about to show your prospects that you are putting the bare minimum to join hands to do business. You would have just gone with the basic personalization [prospect’s first name] and [company name] and you would have expected results. These would have worked five years ago, but not anymore. So you have to step up and compete. Avoid sending the generic emails with fake personalization, and you will get lots of replies and more sales.
2. Too focused on scaling quickly
Another reason your cold email isn’t working might be because you might be focussing too much on the volume. Though you need to focus a little on volume, the main key here is to get replies. By that it means that you have to send emails one by one. It might be slow at the start, but still it is better than sending a hundred emails and still not getting any replies. Next, let’s take a look at how to personalize your cold emails to get more replies.
WHERE TO FIND INFORMATION TO MAKE PERSONALIZED EMAILS
As you know, LinkedIn profiles are the best way to start researching your prospects. But here is the list of other things you need to know about sales personalization.
1. Crunchbase
This is one of the best resources to extract business information. You should consider using Crunchbase, if you are serious about cold email personalization. They offer information on acquisitions, funding rounds, company news and other insights.
It is probably one of the widely known tools. While they help you in researching your prospects, they also keep you in the loop on some personalization opportunities. By adding people to your lists, the Sales Navigator feed will show you updates it has attained from web sources around the world.
3. LinkedIn about sections
People who are serious about developing careers will keep their LinkedIn profiles updated. Being a sales professional, you can use this opportunity to obtain information about your prospects without spending much time.
4. Social media
While you are using social media for research, ensure you’re not stalking their profile. It is good to use it for reference, but don’t cross the line and enter stalking territory. Some safe social media to watch out for is Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn articles.
Conclusion
Cold emailing has been an effective marketing tool for years and more and more companies are adopting it nowadays. While you might be a bit apprehensive, there is nothing wrong with trying out personalizing a cold email and learning from it. The higher level of personalization you use in your emails, the more responses you get from people. In a sea of emails in prospect’s inbox, a carefully crafted cold email will be prominent and catch the attention of the recipient. This will increase the chances of you getting a reply from the prospects too!
