Cold email outreach is alive, well, and thriving. Cold emails are simple in concept and a critical part of personalized prospecting that you send out to someone you have never conversed with to start a business relationship with an account-based strategy.
However, this incredible sales channel works well only when it is done right with the help of professionals.
So what are the ways to perfect cold email outreach? Before answering this, here is a more in-depth manner that explains what cold email isn’t.
Should not be confused with spam emails:
What are spam emails? Those which are sent to countless addresses at once, without researching the relevance of the recipient, and all about generic, copy-paste messages that go straight to the trash. In contrast, cold email outreach programs are designed properly to target only qualified prospects with personalized content after some research.
Should not focus on what you offer on the first go:
Getting more replies when sending cold emails requires work and research. However the formula is simple, the prospects you are reaching out to don’t know you and they have no reason to care about how amazing your product or service is. The problem is people prefer shortcuts and hop on to market themselves and end-up empty-handed. Cold email is all about focusing on the pain points of your prospective client and helping them solve their problems.
Should not focus on making the sales:
Thankfully, we have moved from the days where sales reps send mass emails to the list of individuals based on the job title and territory that may be in the focus of making a purchase. However, cold email is a more intentional and account-based approach that starts the conversation now and helps get conversion later.
Now, the game has completely changed like a lot more people started to think about cold email, spam filters are getting smarter and react much earlier than before to potential spam signals. So marketers need to be better equipped with strategies now to perfect cold emails to be successful, and this guide will help you with that.
#1 Find the right prospect
People are constantly inundated with unwarranted emails, and when they receive a message that doesn’t pertain to them, they will either ignore it or send it to the trash. That is why it is important to choose the right prospects. Evaluate the things like the fundings they receive, the number of employees, the company’s revenue, and the type of business.
Moreover, experts also leverage social media to contact target accounts. They can build a strategy of interacting with the audience and sharing relevant content that can make your prospects engaging and help them make a buying decision.
Various marketing teams utilize proprietary technology to monitor your niche prospects so that it becomes easier to drive an outstanding open rate.
#2 Do your research about the prospect you want to target
Does your cold email outreach plan look like this:
Day 1: To establish and increase conversion, we will use cold emails.
Day 2: We have multiple email lists that can be used.
Day 3: Template ready to be sent out, we can start the campaign tomorrow.
If this is what you plan, then it is time to snap out of the fantasy cold email marketing world you are living in!! It is important to understand the wants and needs of your prospects for your outreach efforts to yield results. For instance, you should know more about their events, raising a funding round, or hiring for a new marketing executive, and personalize your message according to the information you have gathered about your outbound prospect.
You can’t just expect results without first taking time to actually get inside the head of the customers. Do your research and find out what they care about and segment the leads accordingly.
#3 Use a Personal Hook
To stand a chance of standing out, personalize your outreach email. A specialized team can look on social media for interests and find flashpoints that prospects will recognize, causing them to open the email. Explain to them why you have contacted them and why they are a special or favored customer. If you state that you admire their work or how they are unique, it serves as a point of connection, sometimes even the start of a relationship.
Before you showcase what you offer or how your product can help them in the best way possible, you need to identify and demonstrate a pain point that your prospect has. Knowing what they need is the ultimate ice breaker.
For instance, you have been trying to reach out to potential users of your product on the phone several times but it is rebuffed over and over again. Experts can help you make research and reach out to them with solid pointers that can cinch the deal in your hands.
#4 Stick to schedules
Once you have determined the cocktail of prospecting strategies and personalization that works best for your business, it’s time to optimize and establish a regular cadence of send times. Here it is necessary to toe a fine line between contacting them enough so that they don’t forget about the product or service you are selling. For best results, give them enough space and time so that they don’t feel smothered. Plus, it is also important to identify which time of day your prospects are most active and send the outreach emails when they are most willing to read them.
#5 Create an authentic campaign of each segment rather than automating
Every business’s goal is to reach as many people in a short span. However, this does not mean that email templates with a slight personalization can come into play. When constructing campaigns you need to be cautious and use authentic content as copy-pasted content is easier to spot and can immediately turn prospects off. Fluff and formalities are not required as no one has the time to go through them, keep it short and sweet to stay connected with your predetermined niche persona. Here are a few steps that can be followed:
Focus on their benefits:
Straight-up sales pitches rarely work and are not the right approach to create a human connection. It is not recommended to write a cold email that raves about how good your product is, attaching customer reviews, and how good you are at what you do. Instead, focusing on their needs will immediately position yourself in a different light.
Self-test:
Never write a pitch in the very first email. Once you have drafted the cold email, self-test it. How? Check whether it appeals to you, would you respond to the same, and does it sound like a person writing to another person? If the answer is ‘No’, you need to make further adjustments.
End with call-to-action:
Be sure to end on a clear CTA so that your prospects know the next step to be followed. Keep one specific option as too many options can lead to confusion.
Conclusion
To dramatically level up your sales outcomes don’t hesitate to switch up your winning formula from time to time. The key is to find tweaks and put those principles in practice to start seeing monumental results.
