A cold email is an email sent without prior permission. In a simple way, cold email means you’re sending an email publicly available to someone you don’t know or receiving it from some unknown. Usually, getting someone to respond to a cold email is difficult.
Cold emails are like cold calls but less annoying and intrusive. However, one must understand the difference between cold email and spam. Spam is a one-to-many email that doesn’t include the sender’s personal information, while cold email is one-on-one. In general, cold emails are only sent to potential clients.
A user probably gets 50-200 emails per day. So why should he/she open your mail? Writing a proper cold email can enhance your business strategy. Hence, find the key to standing out among hundreds of emails. The main goal is to build a relationship to become business partners.
As the business is changing, you may face challenges. As a matter of fact, cold emails that work on converting and generating sales are not too easy to write. That’s why this article brings you 10 ways to write cold emails that quickly convert sales.
What is Cold Email? Is it A Spam?
Before proceeding, it’s important to know what is cold email. Here, you’re sending an email regarding a business purpose to someone you don’t know. The person can be an influencer, editor, business associate etc.
Cold email includes
- Your personal information like name, website address, social media links, phone no. etc.
- Customized and specific content.
- A conversation starter.
Generally, cold emails are sent to get feedback from an influencer or start a conversation with a potential client. Or also, it can be to a business associate, doesn’t require a commercial motive. Except they don’t know you. Since the first time they hear you, it’s referred to as cold.
In contrast, spam uses fake names, doesn’t provide personal information and has commercial motives. Unlike spam, cold emails have a specific request and address the recipient directly.
So, now you have a brief idea about what cold email is. Now let’s dive into how to write it to convert into quick sales.
10 Steps Tutorials to Write Cold Emails
1) Identify and Focus on Ideal Prospect
The product meets the customer’s needs. With this in mind, identify your ideal prospect and keeps stick to it. Finding targeted audiences is the primary step to write cold emails. Start analyzing your customer base. Know their demand, interests, style and brand.
Now, as you’ve identified your customers, try to communicate. Find someone from the organization with whom you can connect. Convince that person about your business idea or goal before selling. Let them know how much you’re engaged to achieve the goal. Eventually, persuade them to join you for further improvements.
Additionally, make it clear why you’re contacting them. Try to motivate them to feel worthy and unique for your proposal. Then only, your request can be fulfilled.
2) Set Sales Prospecting Email Templates
Before sending cold emails, organize the template. It’s easy to set automated sales templates. In that case, you may use HubSpot to save your templates. So don’t need to rewrite them.
Additionally, it helps you to keep track of how they are performing. Hence, you can personalize and change the templates as per the requirements. With a well-managed sales template, you can build a rapport and close the deal.
3) Get Email Addresses and Build the List
Start building an email list of your prospects. Make sure you focus on the targeted customer base. Henceforth, create relevance of your cold emails and increase the chance to get a response.
You can start with manual prospecting for leads. Generally, here you search on Twitter, LinkedIn, or the company’s website for the email addresses. Yes, this is time-consuming but effective.
It’s also important to realize that buying data to build the prospects’ list is not helpful. Those data are incomplete and inaccurate to mislead you. So, better to put your time and effort to get the email addresses.
4) Write A Catchy Subject Line
Do you know that the recipient does not open 77% sales email? This is because of a poor subject line. Cold email subject lines should be catchy, not cheesy.
Make the subject line clear. Try to come up with a creative one. Otherwise, you’ll face the consequences like the addressee won’t get interested in your mail or even worse. They can mark you as spam, which will affect your email deliverability.
Remember some general rules.
- Be conscious while writing a cold email subject line.
- Understand your prospect’s point of view.
- Tie it to the rest of the email.
- Don’t do self-promotion, rather personalize it.
- Build curiosity.
- Lastly, be honest.
5) Cut to the Chase
Be direct and to-the-point. No one has the whole day to read your cold email. So, it’s better to be brief and concise. The more interesting and convincing the email body is, the more it captures the attention.
However, try no to close the deal in the first email. Deliver a proper introduction in 2-3 sentences. But not about yourself or the company you’re working for. Rather focus on the recipient, his/her expertise, work and achievement. Otherwise, your mail will end up in the trash.
In that case, follow the below rules.
- Explain your motive clearly.
- Use “you”, “yours” instead of “I”, “we”, “us” or “our”.
- Avoid phrases like “how are you doing?”.
- Be quick but effective.
- Explain to the recipient what’s in there for him/her.
- Above all, show the prospect of why you choose them to contact precisely.
6) Lead Them to Convert- Call to Action
Try to think about what you would do if you receive such a cold email? What would be your next step? Here comes the importance of writing a call to action (CTA).
If you want an effective conversion, then do a clear call to action. Otherwise, end up involving in “When are you available?” back and forth. A call to action defines what you want the prospect to do next after receiving your cold email. In a word, schedule a call.
If your proposal is interesting, they may like to have further communication. Simply request a call to action. Use meeting scheduling sales software. It automatically connects with your business calendar to show your availability. So, decide on an appropriate CTA to link within your email.
7) Make it Personal
Try to focus on the prospect’s business needs rather than yours. Personalization has a great impact on how they respond to your email. The study founds a 17% reply rate for a personalized email, whereas, only a 7% reply rate for a non-personalized one.
So, how much should you personalize the cold email? The answer is lead scoring. Focus on some basic metrics for this purpose.
- Do some research on their industry, job, business criteria.
- Know if your prospect has some recent promotion/achievement.
- Whether you’ve contacted them before.
- Be clear that you’re writing this email only for them.
8) Offer Creditibility-Talk Benefits
Try to avoid being sales pitchy but talk benefits. Don’t highlight your company or action. Rather focus on the benefit they’ll gain.
Additionally, write to build a business relationship with your prospects. Provide them value, make them centered on your pitch. Otherwise, why will they care about you or your proposal? You’ll be just cold for them as your email.
Further, with a personal approach, you can avoid being forceful to them. Proper research can convert your mail into a sale.
9) Don’t Spam- Follow Up With Prospects
Remember to follow up with your prospects from time to time. If they don’t reply to your first email, it doesn’t mean wipe them off from the contact list. Contact them again after 2-3 days.
However, don’t send emails frequently. Otherwise, it’ll end up in the spam folder. Research shows 18% reply to the first cold email, whereas 27% reply in their sixth email. So, have patience. Wait for at least few weeks to send your next email.
In that case, engage your prospects in some interesting manner. Like invite them to a webinar or send a link to the case study.
On the other hand, try not to be intrusive. If the prospect doesn’t reply after 3,4 emails, maybe he/she is not interested.
10) Work on Your Cold Email Signature
Lastly, don’t ignore your email signature. A well-constructed signature can make your email more realistic rather than fake. Your signature defines who you are and where you are from.
Keep few things mind while writing a cold email signature:
- Make it look trust-worthy.
- Don’t put less information like only your name.
- Avoid a messy HTML signature.
Conclusion
Finally, to conclude, cold emails start a conversation online to build up a business relationship. Express your gratitude to them and be appreciative. Try to keep your email body short and easy.
Has the prospect not heard about you before? Then give them a reason to talk to you. Being straightforward is the main key to cold email. Spend your time and research the cold email subject line. Refine your message to improve the quality of the mail.
In the final analysis, cold emails are not a waste. At the same time, you have to be thoughtful, creative and tailored to hit your prospects’ needs.