Cold email outreach can be both an effective strategy and one that can bring unsubscribes and lost deals. Why?
Everything depends on how well the outreach is conducted, as well as the tools and strategies employed.
Your cold email is your first impression, so each word you insert, the subject line, the CTA, the timing, and the sending strategy all matter more than ever.
Think about the email from the potential customer’s perspective: when your email lands in their inbox, will it feel like another mass pitch to delete… or a relevant, well-timed opportunity worth opening?
The answer depends on your approach.
What Is Cold Email Outreach and Why Is It Important?
Cold email outreach is a sales and marketing strategy that involves sending emails to businesses and individuals with whom you haven't previously interacted. That’s why this is known as a “cold” type of prospecting.
Cold email outreach is an effective method for new conversations and relationships, connecting with potential customers and partners.
Like cold calling, cold email outreach can be an ideal way to present your company to potential customers and partners, drive traffic to your website, and close more deals.
While cold calling is becoming less preferred as a communication option for customers these days, email is becoming the dominant choice.
Recent studies have shown that 38% of people prefer to be connected via email when selling a service or product, while only the 19,8% voted for telephone communication.
Additionally, cold emailing is a cost-effective outreach tactic that most companies can afford.
The scalability of cold email outreach is another key benefit, letting businesses scale like no other lead generation strategy.
However, scaling can be effective when paired with cold email outreach best practices and effective tools.
How To Write an Effective Cold Email
Email quality is essential for the success of a cold email outreach. Here is a guide on how to create an effective cold email to inform potential clients about your interest and engage them.
Research Your Target Audience Before Writing
Before writing a single line of email, think about the audience you are writing for. Understand their position, role, main responsibilities, demographics, the company they work for, and similar criteria.
Remember, your goal is to stand out in the competitive inbox, and knowing your audience is your weapon to win the battle for their attention.
A well-researched email stands out, showing that you respect the recipient’s time and understand their requirements and needs.
Craft a Compelling Subject Line
The subject line is the first message your audience sees. Very often, the subject line is the deciding factor, whether to open the email or not. Even worse, your recipients may decide to mark your email as spam due to a poor subject line. So, think well before crafting one.
Here are some important rules to follow:
- Keep the subject line under 50 characters to ensure it is readable on mobile devices.
- Avoid generic sentences; be as specific as possible.
- Emphasize the value for the recipient. Speak about the potential customer, not about your products or services. For example, instead of writing “Check out our new product”, write “Increase your sales efficiency”.
- Use emojis. The usage of emojis is reported to increase open rates by 56%. The emojis must be relevant to the message and the target audience. You can use platforms like Emojipedia or Emojicopy to copy-paste emojis directly to your email.
Personalize the Content
Personalization of the email content is not only about mentioning the recipient’s name in the email body. Personalization goes beyond mentioning names and job titles.
To create a hyper-personalized email:
- Add some recent news from the targeted company and individual. Check out their LinkedIn and other social media accounts to gather the information.
- Note shared interests or connections.
- Use the recipient’s name not only in the greeting, but naturally throughout the email.
- Adjust the tone of voice of the email to the recipient.
- Offer response and next-step options based on the recipient's needs and schedule.
Present a Value Proposition
The recipient should know that you can help them overcome pain points. In 2-3 sentences, explain how you can help them by focusing on a specific issue.
Note that the value proposition should not be the same for all the recipients. Research specific pain points of each recipient and adapt the value proposition to the recipient’s role, industry, and main pain points.
Add a Clear Call to Action
Your value proposition should naturally end with a call to action (CTA). Try to keep the CTA low fiction: the easier the request, the more likely the recipient will agree to it.
So, don’t ask for a contract; rather, request a 10-minute call.
Offer the recipient a choice. Instead of a yes-or-no question, which may end with a no, offer two possible ways to connect.
For example, "Would you prefer a quick call this week or for me to send you a summary by email?".
How To Do Cold Email Outreach That Gets Replies
Crafting a great email is not enough to have a successful email outreach with the desired replies.
Each element of the email outreach should work together. Here is a step-by-step guide to doing cold email outreach that gets replies.
Create a List of Leads
Great outreach starts with the right list of the target audience based on your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
If you don’t yet have a lead list and want to save time on this process, use tools like Apollo or Apollo integrated with Pipedrive CRM. These platforms let you create high-quality lead lists automatically, saving time and resources. You can use filters like industry, company size, industry, decision-making roles, location, and more.
If you are using Pipedrive CRM, you can automatically sync Apollo data and update contacts, and keep your lead list accurate and professional.
Set the Timing
Knowing exactly when to send your cold email campaign can improve open rates and increase replies.
Recent studies have revealed that the best time to send cold emails is early morning. Emails sent between 8 AM and 10 AM get the highest reply rates. This time is especially beneficial when sending cold emails to C-level executives who check their inbox early in the morning.
It is also crucial not to send large email batches at once. This can significantly harm your reputation without even earning it. Do not exceed 50 recipients at a time.
Plan a Sending Strategy
Once you have created your lead list and decided on the timing, develop a sending strategy. The sequence and automation tools of Apollo can help you plan your sending strategy, including the initial warm-up email, the follow-ups, and more.
Apollo allows lead segmentation based on your priorities using dynamic variables.
You can also use Apollo’s Google Chrome extension and initiate prospecting right inside LinkedIn, send email campaigns on the go, and create AI-generated email content and subject lines.
Develop a Follow-Up Strategy
Most cold email outreach requires multiple engagements. According to research, on average, 80% of sales require over 5 follow-up attempts.
Apollo can help you send automated and personalized follow-ups.
When following up, avoid being pushy. Keep the message short, using relevant language and avoiding aggressive language and jargon.
Track Your Email Campaigns
Once your emails are sent, you need insights to optimize. With Apollo integrated into Pipedrive CRM, track opens, clicks, replies, and sequence performance directly in your workflow.Use Pipedrive dashboards to monitor conversion, how many moved from initial reply to next step (call/demo).
Combine Apollo’s analytics with Pipedrive to A/B test subject lines, measure deliverability trends, and identify gaps. Clean up unresponsive leads and focus efforts where you're seeing traction.
Common Mistakes To Avoid
Many cold email outreach campaigns fail because of small but crucial mistakes.
Here are the most common mistakes in cold email outreach to avoid if you want to get more replies.
Writing Long Emails
Most people don’t have time to read lengthy emails that go into detail about products or services.
The goal of your cold email outreach campaign is to start conversations. If your email feels overwhelming to recipients, they might just delete it or mark it as spam.
Try to keep your email not longer than 150 words. Use bullet points and emojis to make it more compelling and easy to read.
Using Generic Email Templates
There are tons of email templates, and many people use these templates for their cold email outreach. Probably, the recipient has already met the template in their inbox.
This type of template doesn’t have a personal touch and will blend in with the recipient’s inbox.
Instead of generic email templates, create a personalized email using the recipient’s information, like recent company news, industry specifics, pain points, and more.
Not Verifying Email Addresses
Email deliverability matters. Sending email campaigns to non-verified and outdated email addresses may result in high bounce rates and damage your sender reputation.
Always make sure to run your lead list through an email verification software. For example, Apollo offers built-in email verification, helping you increase email deliverability and open rates.
Not Syncing with a CRM System
You may lose critical visibility and miss out on essential metrics when you don’t sync with a CRM system. This can lead to huge mistakes such as double-contacting, failing to contact important recipients, forgetting to follow up, and similar issues.
Syncing your email campaigns with a CRM system (For example, Pipedrive) lets you easily find who you have contacted, who has responded, and not responded, plan the next steps, and much more.
Bottom Line
Cold email outreach gets recipes when it is clear, concise, personalized, and targeted.
When planning a cold email outreach, ensure to have a researched and targeted lead list, craft a personalized and relevant email content, check email addresses, develop the sending strategy, and set the right timing.
Following the cold email outreach best practices will help you see the difference and easily land your next big customer.
