If you’ve ever made a phone call to someone you either didn’t know in person or had no prior connection with, without prior notice, then you already have an idea what cold email outreach is all about. The only difference here is your contact method.
In this case, you’re sending an email to individuals and prospective customers in an attempt to start a conversation with them and kickstart a relationship that could, eventually, persuade them to do business with you.
You should, however, note that cold email outreach isn’t just related to sales opportunities. According to Detroit Internet Marketing, email outreach can be used in marketing for lead generation, conducting market research, pitching for blog posts, content promotions, link-building activities, networking opportunities, and even recruiting new talent.
So, how do you create an effective strategy for your outreach campaigns? Here are five tips and tricks to get you started:
Determine Your Desired Results
The first—and most important—thing you need to do is to identify and clearly state the purpose of your outreach campaign. Are you looking to find a new partner for your business, conducting market research, following up on an action a prospective customer has taken, spreading brand awareness, offering a live demo, or just informing prospective customers about a new product you’ve just launched?
Take the time to think about what exactly you want to achieve, as this is what will determine what success really looks like. Having a clear purpose will also help you plan the nitty-gritty of your campaign and make it easier to diagnose its strengths and weaknesses.
If you start sending cold emails carelessly and without a clear purpose, you train your audience to ignore you. It’s a waste of time for everyone. So, start by identifying the purpose of your campaign and then focus on that specific purpose in your cold email and throughout your campaign.
Define Your Target Audience
Once you’re clear about your desired goals, the next step should be to determine your target audience. Your cold emails should be inclined towards your target audience and their needs. Make the extra effort to hone in on your target market. Otherwise, your cold emails will be seen as nuance, your campaign will be worthless, and you may even be flagged as spam.
The more you know about your ideal prospects’ interests, preferences, pain points, and aspirations, the easier it’ll become to fine-tune and plan your campaign. Take the time to conduct thorough research and develop the best-qualified list based on the information you gather about your prospects from social media platforms like Twitter, Linked In, and Instagram. Also, consider connecting with them both on these platforms and in real life (at networking events) and see if you can get their contact information. Never buy email lists.
Tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Voila Norbert, ContactOut, Link Prospector, and Sales intelligence software can be useful when it comes to finding and verifying your prospects’ phone numbers and email addresses. Once you have your list, it’s time to now craft a compelling cold email that grabs your audience’s attention.
Always remember, the better you know and understand your target prospects the easier it’s to initiate a conversation and establish a finer relationship with them.
Craft a Winning Cold Email Copy
The best thing you can do to honor your target audience’s time is to keep your emails short, clear, and concise. Chances are your target prospects are busy people and have tens of emails dropping in their inboxes every day. You’re not the only one trying to get their attention. Add this to the shrinking human attention span (currently at a mere 8 seconds) and you see why it’s crucial to keep it simple when crafting your cold emails.
To craft a winning cold email, you need to open with a clear, specific subject line and then create an email body that provides value and delivers on any promises you might have made in your subject line. Note that 35 percent of people who receive emails open an email based on the subject line alone.
Test out different subject lines and record the results you get. Once you find a subject line strategy that resonates best with your target audience, stick to it. For best results, personalize your subject line by including your prospect’s name or any other insider information you have about them in order to grab their attention. Social proof can be a great way to establish credibility and get your prospect’s attention as well. Be careful not to over-promise or say anything that compromises your credibility. And remember to write in a conversational tone— write as you talk.
Use an Outreach Platform
The entire process of finding prospects, creating lists, validating your prospects’ emails, crafting cold emails, and following up prospects is time-intensive, tedious, and sometimes demoralizing. And even after applying the best cold email outreach tactics, you may still find yourself struggling to see success in your campaigns. The good news is that you can streamline your campaign and make the process simple by using the right outreach tools.
Tools like Mailshake, Ninja Outreach, Streak, Quickmail, and can help you personalize cold emails at scale, automate time-consuming repetitive tasks, schedule follow-up emails, and improve collaboration across and within your team. It’s important that you look for tools that allow for easy scheduling and personalization and efficient tracking and reporting. And if you are working with a team, make sure your tools have collaboration features.
Don’t Forget to Follow Up
Ask any successful salesperson or marketer and they’ll tell you money is always in the follow-up because you can’t close a good deal in a single conversation or one email.
The fact that you haven’t seen a reply in your inbox doesn’t mean your prospect isn’t interested. It’s possible that your prospect didn’t find time to get back to you or they’re still planning on reaching out. It’s also possible that they may have crafted a reply message but left it in the drafts or they just missed your email for one reason or the other.
There’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the number of follow-up emails and the best day and time to send your emails. However, sending anywhere between 3 to 6 follow-up emails is fine. The best time has been shown to be in the evening (3 pm – 4 pm) and in the morning (8 am – 10 am). Tuesday and Thursday Through trial and error you should be able to craft a follow-up strategy that works for you.
