Cold email outreach is a process where you connect with people and potential prospects who do not have any connection with you or may not know you via email. As a salesperson it is your job to get the attention of the recipients through effectively written emails and encourage them to consider your services and products.
As this outreach campaign is digital, that is why it is less intrusive unlike a cold phone call. However, be sure to not confuse cold email with spam.
Salespeople have to put in sufficient time and effort to research qualified prospects. Then these qualified prospects become the recipients of their cold emails. If the people that you considered fit the list of characteristics of your ideal prospect, then that is who you will target in your outreach campaign.
Still not sure if cold email works? Well, if you are a business owner looking to expand your customer base by generating effective leads to grow your business, cold email is a great way to do so.
Steps To Using Cold Email For Business Success
Fill Up Your Email Lists
It goes without saying that before you start your email outreach campaign, you first need to find the prospects that you will contact.
Before you start going through hundreds and hundreds of profiles, make your job easier and more organized. Summarize the qualities and characteristics that you want your prospect to have. When you have a basic persona set, you can search out people who fit the profile and increase your chances of getting a response.
There are multiple ways for one to go about building up their email lists. But if you are a business owner just starting out, you are more likely to choose the most common and budget-friendly method to save unnecessary expenses.
One of the oldest and most effective ways of prospecting is manual prospecting. This strategy is time-consuming but it brings forth the most effective leads. This is because nothing can replace pure human intuition of who can be a good fit for your business. The best platforms for manual prospecting are Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter where you can search for targeted queries.
Tip: Having spreadsheets of data on your prospects is great but it is also important to keep on updating your datasets to get the most effective results and response rates.
Think From The Prospect's Perspective
You need to sell your product. There is a right way and a wrong way to do just that.
If you are looking to create and maintain a loyal customer base, sending generic and template based emails is not going to cut it. Marketers and salespeople tend to focus on what they want from the prospect and not enough on what the prospect needs. To achieve a greater response and click through rate (CTR), you need to personalize the message.
When you personalize an email according to the prospect, it shows that you have thought about who the person is, what their interests are, and most importantly, what they want. Personalization makes the prospect feel that you have chosen them among the many. People are more motivated to help others when they feel uniquely qualified to do so.
Tip: Do your due diligence in researching the prospect and their interests to best personalize your cold email.
Craft Your Emails To Get The Reader’s Attention
Writing cold emails may seem easy but unfortunately it is not that simple. Some people are naturally great at it but you can also learn this art with proper research and practice.
There are a multitude of templates spread across the internet that guarantee a successful email outreach campaign but it is not always a guarantee that it will work for you. This is because their prospects and products are not necessarily the same as yours. For you to get a response from your prospects, you need to be authentic and credible. Using a generic template will not get you a response and, in the worst case scenario, may even put you in the spam folder.
Read our article on how to write the best sales prospecting email to get a detailed guide on how to structure your emails when prospecting.
Tip: Write an enticing subject line that makes the prospect want to know and read more about what you have to say.
Make Your Reason For Reaching Out Clear
Always clarify why you are connecting with someone when doing outreach campaigns.
The purpose of a cold email is to reach out to potential leads and ask them to do something, whether it be buying your product or subscribing to your newsletter. If you are vague about what you want your prospects to do then you have failed at your email outreach. It is important that you communicate to your prospect why you got in touch with them. Add a call to action (CTA) in your email body and ask them what you would like them to do. Whether that is using your services, reaching out to your business to get solutions for their problems, or following your social media pages.
Tip: Make it known to the recipient why you chose them among others and how you would appreciate them taking the time out of their daily routines.
Do Not Forget To Follow-Up
Just because someone did not reply to your email does not mean that they are not interested. The first email is usually ignored or forgotten. This is why you need to send follow-up emails to successfully close a deal.
Avoid using the same old boring templates of follow up emails. Your prospects have been through it all which is why it is best to send effective follow-up emails. After your first email, you should wait a couple of days before sending the first follow-up email. With each follow-up email leave a bigger gap between each email to avoid spamming.
It is a salesperson’s job to take the prospect through the sales funnel to ensure the chance of closing the deal with the cold prospect. Do not only rely on emails to follow-up as they are rather impersonal. When there is space, you can schedule phone calls or in-person meetings to discuss the deal in detail so that the prospect can get their queries answered.
Tip: Keep your follow-up emails simple, human, authentic and personalized.
Conclusion
Cold email outreach is a great way to generate leads, when done correctly. It is a great way to tap into the market and connect with people who would otherwise not reply without prior contact. As a small business, using these outreach strategies can really up your marketing and sales game. So, polish up your email outreach skills by keeping in mind the points discussed above and start writing cold emails that bring in results.
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