If done right, cold emailing is one of the most effective ways to land clients. If you have never attempted cold emailing due to some bad reviews that you have maybe stumbled across, you should know that you are missing out on a lot of good opportunities to convert leads into customers. Most of those bad reviews are due to the poorly written emails with a questionable strategy that often come across as borderline spam. So, if despite your best efforts, your cold emailing shows little to no success, maybe it is time to follow the advice of industry experts and review your cold emailing process.
The difference between cold emailing and spam
Just to make things clear, there is a very big difference between cold emailing and spam. Spamming is non-targeted advertising. Sending emails to random people without doing any research will always come off as a waste of time and effort. Cold emailing, on the other hand, requires prospecting. This is the first step in the sales process. It implies identifying your potential customers by making a list of people who might be interested in the product or service that you offer. You can send a thousand spam emails and get nothing in return since email services filter them out making them even less likely to reach anyone. But even by sending ten times less well-targeted and properly composed cold emails, you should be able to see results right from the get-go.
Cold Emailing Mistakes That Are Lowering your Conversion Rate
Having the best strategy when sending cold emails is crucial. This is usually the main reason why some companies are landing clients regularly and others struggle. In this article, we will share our advice and experience with some common cold emailing mistakes that prevent people from landing clients. If you should recognize yourself in any of these mistakes, consider making some changes.
Don’t send the same email to everyone
Although using a template can make cold emailing much faster, sending the same one to all your contacts will not work to your advantage. Most templates sound too generic and lack sincerity and genuine interest to help people. Your recipients see this and it affects their response. Especially if you address your emails to the ever-popular “To Whom It May Concern”. This doesn’ t mean that you have to write a unique email to every recipient. Using templates is a good thing, but you need to avoid copying and pasting the same content over and over. Make a few revisions now and then, and your effort in improving the content will increase your conversion rate.
Always end with a call-to-action (CTA)
A CTA is put at the end of an email to encourage your potential client to take action. Ending your email with a weak CTA like “Looking forward to hearing from you” does not prompt your contact to do anything. Consider opting for these simple but effective techniques if you want to have more success:
- Propose a scheduled call. If your goal is to set a meeting with your prospect, providing a date and time for the proposed call can go a long way in getting a response. Instead of saying something like “Are you available for a chat?”, try using “Are you available for a quick chat on July 14 at 11:00 am PST?” This kind of CTA makes it easier for your potential customer to decide on a response, whether they accept the invitation or set another time and date.
- Ask relevant questions. This is always a good way to start a conversation. Your questions can either be open-ended or answerable with “yes” or “no”. The goal is to engage your future customers and spark an interest in what you have to offer.
- Ask for permission to share resources. If you have a video or a short eBook that can show your future customer how the services you provide can help their business, ask if you can share it with them at the end of your email. This will help them get more familiar with your company and is also a great conversation starter.
Talk about the benefits that you bring
The most important thing you have to talk about when sending cold emails is the benefits that your product or services bring to your clients. Keep in mind that this is not about you and your company. It is about them, and how you can make their job easier with improvements that you will be able to help them accomplish. All of your credentials, achievements and service technicalities can be explained detail by detail at a later time.
Send a follow-up mail
While sending cold emails, you have to be prepared to get ignored a lot. This is quite usual, and you shouldn’t take it personally. More often than not, first emails get ignored, but this shouldn’t discourage you. Wait a couple of days, and then send a follow-up email. There is a higher chance of getting a reply on the second or third try. Just remember that your second email must be different from the first one. You don’t want your prospect to get the impression that you are resending stuff.
Keep it short and clear
Nobody likes reading long emails. The longer they are, the more exhausting to read your prospects will find them, and the greater the possibility is that they will just ignore or delete them. Our advice is to keep them brief and to the point. They should be as quick and as easy as possible to read, so your future customer can go through your whole email without losing time and patience. All of the additional information can be provided later on.
Work on your subject line
A good subject line matters a lot if we know that 35% of recipients open an email because of it. Some of the companies receive hundreds of emails each day and get to the point where it is not possible to finish reading all of them. That is why your email needs to stand out. You need to catch their attention, otherwise, there is a huge possibility that they are going to skip your email and move to the next one. There is no formula for a subject line that will guarantee clicks, and you will have to try different styles until you find the one that suits you the best. Since email services sort emails automatically, your email can either land in the inbox or it could go to spam. To have the highest chance of success, you need to aim for the Primary tab in the inbox, and here are some of the email marketing tips on how to achieve that:
- Make them short. Your subject line should contain between 20 and 50 characters. If you use more than that, your email might end up in the spam folder where it will be automatically deleted after a while.
- Don’t use multiple punctuation marks. Avoid using “?????” or “!!!!!” in your subject line since this kind of repetition is often associated with spam.
- Don’t touch the caps lock key. Using all uppercase letters can come off as aggressive and trigger a spam alert.
- Avoid spammy words. Don’t use words like “bargain”, “best price”, “success”, “solution”. These words are associated with spam and can prevent you from reaching your prospect.
Use an email signature in your cold emailing
Always use a signature line at the bottom of your content. This makes your email look professional and your prospects will get the impression that you are offering a legit service. Add only the basic information – your name, position, company name, and contact information.
Keep experimenting
Never be afraid to experiment, that’s the motto of our digital marketing agency. There are many ways to do cold emailing, and you need to try different methods until you see what is working the best for you. Gather data on your metrics while testing different variables. Note differences that you have made on each template and track the quantity and the quality of the responses you get. This will help you build a reliable cold outreach strategy. Follow this advice to help you with your testing process:
Consistently challenge your methods. Today’s society is rapidly progressing, and your strategy needs to change with it. You can’t rely on it to offer long-term effectiveness, so you have to always be open to new possibilities and on the constant lookout for improvements you can make on your current system. Don’t wait to see a quick decline in your results before you start testing new strategies, Testing is a process that can take weeks and even months. It takes a lot of trial and error, and you don’t want to be behind the schedule. Make staying updated and competitive a part of your business process. Also, be sure to track your metrics as you do this to determine if your new strategy works or not.
Review your numbers. You can see which techniques work best through the results you get by keeping track of the open rate and the response rate of your emails. Also, take note of how long it takes for the recipient to respond and how many times you were able to successfully schedule a meeting with your future client.
Check for spelling and grammar mistakes
You would be surprised to know how many people don’t check their emails for spelling and grammar mistakes before sending them. This kind of error will have negative effects on your conversion rate and certainly won’t make you look good in the eyes of your potential clients. So, it is very important to remember to double-check your content from the subject line to your signature line before hitting that send button.
