Revolutionize Marketing Outreach with Persuasive Cold Emails

In times of social media boom, marketers and businesses are still relying heavily on cold emailing; ever wondered why? It’s because cold emails work.

Cold emails are 40% more effective in customer generation. However, it’s not as easy as it seems.  

In order to hook your audience and get responses, a cold email needs to be simple and short yet powerful. An average office worker receives around 120 emails a day, so in order to stand out, you need to create a smart cold email strategy to stand out. 

In this blog post, we have discussed the modern-day cold email approach in detail. Keep reading on to revolutionize your marketing outreach with a high-converting cold email strategy. 

Send Email Warmups for Improved Deliverability

Email warmups ensure your emails always reach your prospects’ inboxes rather than spam folders. It increases deliverability, thus improving the chances of success for cold emails. 

You can send emails to your internal team so they can open the email, reply, or move them from spam to the primary inbox. This activity of sending email warmups signals ESPs (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.) that you are a reliable sender. 

You can easily send automated email warmups from cold emailing tools, but here’s how you do it manually: 

• Step 1: Set up an email account
• Step 2: Personalize the email account with name, location, job role, company, etc. 
• Step 3: Use the email account for signups and other activities. 
• Step 4: Set up a test email campaign.
• Step 5: launch your campaign.

How to Write Persuasive Cold Emails that Convert? 

1. Write a Compelling Subject Line

The subject line is the first thing a prospect notices in an email. In fact, 64% of email recipients decide to open or delete an email based on the subject line. That’s why subject lines should be interesting. 

Another interesting study states that adding your prospect’s first name in the subject line increases email open rates by 22%. For example, “{prospect’s name}, got a minute?” get higher email opens than ‘Got a minute?”

That being said, the ideal length of a subject line is nine words or 60 characters. You can use the ‘FOMO trigger’ method or emojis in subject lines to increase your cold email open rates.

However, make sure you are avoiding spam trigger words (i.e., free, sale, discount, etc.) and always A/B test different variations of a subject line to check which one works best. 

Additional Tip: Give a brief and personalized overview of the email in the preheader text to stand out in your prospect’s inbox. 

2. KISS: Keep In Short and Simple

If you observe our internet reading habits, you will notice that we don’t usually read; instead, we skim through content. The same goes for emails. 

An average office worker receives around 120 emails every day. That’s why it is very important to keep your email short and simple. A Boomerang study has found that short emails (75-100 words) get the highest email response rates of 51%. 

So, keep your emails within 50 – 125 words. To make it easy to read, keep sentences and paragraphs short and simple. Moreover, use simple language and focus on your prospects’ pain points and offer solutions. 

3. Personalize Your Email Body

Cold email is the first communication with a potential customer. And generic email content is a buzzkill for cold emails. Personalization in your email based on prospect data shows that you care about individual prospects and focus more on solving problems rather than selling aggressively. 

In fact, multiple personalization fields in a cold email can increase response rates by up to 142%. Use prospect data such as first name, job role, location, age, professional achievements, interests, purchase habits, mutual connection, and other demographic data to personalize your cold emails. 

For instance, addressing your prospects by their first names gives a personal touch. You can also congratulate your prospect based on their recent professional achievements. Even if you are using generic email templates, use a sales automation tool or a cold emailing tool to personalize your cold emails at scale. 

4. Add Value to Your Prospects

Adding value to your prospects is very important to build solid relationships with your prospects and turn them into paying customers. It is tempting to write salesy content, a cold email, however, is not the ideal place to showcase your creativity. 

Put yourself in your prospect’s shoes and try to understand how you can add value to your potential customers. Instead of a sales pitch, make your cold email a valuable piece of content that adds value to your prospects.

Research and understand your prospects’ pain points, their goals, industries they are in, job roles, and other demographic factors to offer real value. For example, if your prospect is running a SaaS business, you can point out how a sales automation tool can help scale their business. 

5. Include Only One CTA 

While writing cold emails for outreach campaigns, marketers often get tempted to add multiple CTAs in one email. Although it doesn’t sound wrong, this practice can drop your click-to-open rates drastically. 

Multiple CTAs often confuse prospects and dilute the importance of the main CTA. In fact, a study has shown that including only one CTA in a cold email can increase click-through rates by 42%. 

So, always add only one call-to-action in your cold email to persuade your prospects to take action. Research your prospects and their pain points to write a compelling CTA based on the solution they are looking for. The tone of a CTA must be persuasive but not salesy and pushy. 

For example: 

• Available for a 10-minute call tomorrow at 5 PM IST?
• Mind if I share a quick demo?
• Book within 6 hours to get the early bird offer.

6. Use Brand Optimization and Visual Treat

Long boring texts might not catch your prospects’ eyes, but a visual treat can improve click-through rates for your cold email campaigns. Using emojis in your subject line or email body gives a color splash to your emails. 

Although debatable, you can A/B test relevant GIFs for your cold email campaigns. A recent case study by Dell revealed that GIFs in emails had increased their revenue by 109%. 

Moreover, you can experiment with branding with your logo, tagline, color palette, etc. And always make sure your emails are optimized for mobile devices. 

What is the Right Time and Day to Send Cold Emails?

Choosing the right time and day to send cold emails is a crucial part of your cold email strategy. No matter how crafty and informative your email is, it will be left unread if you send it at the wrong time. 

75% of cold emails are usually opened within an hour of sending them. That’s why it is important to send cold emails at the right time and day to improve click-through rates. 

Mixmax data shows that the ideal cold email sending time is between 8 AM – 11 PM in your lead’s time zone. And the ideal days to send cold emails are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, respectively. Weekends followed by Monday and Friday see the lowest email open rates and reply rates. 

However, the right days and times to send cold emails depend on the industry, age group of potential buyers, demographics, and other factors. That’s where an ideal customer profile (ICP) and buyer personas come in handy. Research your potential clientele and send cold emails during peak working hours. 

Follow-Up Strategy: How to Craft a High-Performing Email Sequence?

According to recent data, successful conversions require at least five follow-ups or more. Many marketers make the mistake of not following up with their prospects, resulting in poor conversion rates. 

In fact, 44% of sales reps never continue after one follow-up email. Once you send the initial cold email, wait for at least three business days to send the first follow-up email. Your follow-up email should consist of a brief overview of the initial cold email and offer some value. 

Although the frequency and type of your follow-up email depend on the engagement of individual prospects, here’s a cold email sequence you can follow: 

• Day 1: Initial cold email
• Day 3: First follow-up email
• Day 7: Second follow-up email (value addition in a new thread) 
• Day 12: Third follow-up email (pushing the CTA)
• Day 18: Fourth follow-up email (pre-breakup email, permission to follow up) 
• Day 23: Fifth follow-up email (new email thread with value addition) 
• Day 28: Breakup email 

As you can understand, sending follow-ups on time and tracking them is a daunting task. So, we highly recommend you use a sales automation tool to at home your email sequences. 

Conclusion

As 80% of people prefer sales reps to communicate with them via email, cold email is more relevant than ever. However, in order to succeed, you need to chalk out a foolproof cold email strategy. 

Here’s a brief step-by-step breakdown to help you create money-making cold emails: 

• Build a targeted email list and send email warmups. 
• Choose the right cold emailing tool for higher deliverability and automation. 
• Personalize your emails – subject line, greetings, first line, CTA, etc. 
• Write value-adding cold emails. 
• Create follow-up sequences and turn on custom conditional email-sending triggers. 
• Schedule to send at the right time and day. 

Always A/B test your emails and pick the most effective emails for your campaign. That’s all for now; follow these steps to leverage your cold email strategy and generate higher ROI.