How to Improve Cold Email Responses?
Let’s make those unsolicited emails less intrusive
Cold emailing can be a great way to reach new customers, but it’s often difficult to know how to personalize your messages and follow up genuinely (and not in a spammy way).
It’s no secret that personalizing (as well as other techniques) can help boost your response rate, but most people don’t have the time or resources to do this effectively.
This article shows you how to boost your campaigns with cold emails that get more responses.
Personalization
These days, personalization is crucial to cold email marketing campaigns, but marketers are often unsure of where to start.
Personalized emails have improved click-through rates by over 14% and conversion rates by a substantial margin.
However, many marketers still don’t know how to personalize their campaigns.
We’ve found that the best way to personalize your email marketing strategy is by using ICPs (Ideal Customer Profiles), analyzing their interests on social media such as LinkedIn, and recent interviews.
So, once you get the prospect lists from the email finder, you can create highly personalized messages that resonate with each recipient. And, when done correctly, personalization can significantly impact your bottom line.
In one campaign, Brightestminds saw a 17% increase in response rates by using ICPs to segment our list and create personalized messages for each group.
Now is the time to start if you’re not already using ICPs in your email marketing strategy.
A well-thought copy
It’s important to describe why your proposal is timely, meaningful, and necessary for the client.
Using parallels is an excellent idea for your first line (to evaluate similarities) before crafting a copy.
Just think of these parallels in this scenario. Both messages convey the same gist:
- With a one-in-the-field earthquake solution, you can make earthquake decisions based on metrics, avoiding unnecessary work disruptions;
- You’re based in a seismic area, so our unique earthquake solution can help you make metrics-based decisions, avoiding unnecessary work disruptions.
However, bringing up “being based in the seismic area” in the second example clarifies the idea even more.
It shows that earthquake solutions are crucial for the client as it is often a serious threat to their business.
A captivating subject line
A subject line is a compelling message that should be thought-provoking to catch the reader’s attention and motivate them to read its content.
Some tips for writing effective subject lines:
- Most subject lines encourage recipients to read on, so be sure to make it catchy and interesting.
- The subject line should motivate recipients to act. Use action words to encourage recipients, such as: improve, boost, strengthen, etc.
- If negative actions are brought up, readers are less likely to read further since certain actions will not be likely to be performed (for example, a CTA).
Keep it short
We couldn’t agree more with Louise Brooks when she said, “Writing is 1 percent inspiration and 99% elimination.”
The same goes for cold emailing. You want to keep your overall copy short, sweet, and to the point.
As the average person receives over 120 emails daily, you have to stand out from the crowd.
Keeping your message simple and concise will help you achieve this goal.
Another tactic to increase email deliverability is using an SPF record checker and following other email security steps.
Related: How to Effectively Embed Explainer Videos in Emails
Brief vs. informative and long
As George Costanza would say, “hit the high note and go quickly.”
Encourage your writers to think about the average results produced by the email content lengths listed below:
- In the case of a copy that has 200 to 400 characters (30 to 100 words), the response rate is 3.5%.
- Copy between 900 and 1000 characters (130 to 250 words) has a response rate of 7.5%.
If you’ve read any Ernest Hemingway Classics, you’ll realize that he is forever known as a great writer because of his ability to put into a few words what most writers take three.
Follow his lead. In fact, there is an application named after him (Hemingway App).
With this tool, you can improve the degree of reliability of your writing. Essentially, it will simplify your writing.
Follow up on all your contacts
Most of us have experienced liking a salesperson and being ready to buy from them until, for some reason, we disappeared from their radar, resulting in the sale being lost.
According to studies, following up on emails can triple the response rate.
This goal is to maximize performance, reply rates, and conversion rates.
Automation (Automated cold emails) can significantly impact revenue and conversion rates.
However, the campaign’s success will be determined by more than just the tools and strategies you implement.
Email automation can nurture relationships by sending valuable content, creating drip campaigns, and setting up autoresponders.
Practice good follow-up etiquette
If you want an effective response to your follow-up email, you should be polite, brief, and willing to take a hint.
Ideally, you would want to be viewed by a prospect as respectful of their time and not desperate to meet or close a sale.
Here’s how you might structure a cold email nurture sequence:
Intro
A positive message complimenting what their company does.
Follow-Up
Your first message after connecting should provide information about what you can do for them.
2nd Follow-Up
You should explain how your product will benefit their business in the second follow-up.
Final Follow-Up
Send them a friendly message asking if they want to see a demo.
Your prospect may lose interest the moment they read a two-page message. So ensure your messages aren’t too complex or too long.
Automation speeds up follow-ups
As we discussed on Drip-campaigns above — the use of Automation makes it even more effective.
Tools like Woodpecker can autopilot your sales outreach through their software.
Now, Email providers will display Woodpecker messages in your “Sent” box.
Ensure you are aware of how many emails you are permitted to send daily by your provider, as Woodpecker will send emails following the rules defined by your email provider.
SPAM filters and sending rules
Rarely are people capable of sending an email more often than once every 45 seconds.
Multiple emails sent in a short period divided by even time intervals can trigger SPAM filters.
Those filters are sensitive to such regularities. For that reason, Woodpecker was designed to imitate human behavior in sending emails.
By default, Woodpecker will send your messages divided by random time intervals, yet no more frequently than every 90 to 140 seconds.
Following up with this solution will help you find the most engaging potential customers.
A/B testing features are also available with this tool, which enables your business to test multiple variations of your cold-outreach email.
Having a proper email signature builds authenticity and may improve response rates. You can use tools like Signature Generator to create custom signatures.
If the prospect of cold emailing stresses you, don’t worry. We’ve got you covered.
Check out this guide to writing effective cold emails that get responses to make your messages more persuasive and increase your chances of landing new customers.
You can reach out to us if you still need assistance putting these ideas into practice — we love working with businesses to achieve their goals.
