Email is the most trusted and effective channel for reaching out to and acquiring prospects. If we look at how businesses communicate, email communication is one of the top channels they use. Not only is it convenient, but it doesn’t involve face-to-face interaction between businesses and clients. In turn, people are able to achieve sales objectives better, hence why cold emailing is the preferred way of attaining new prospects. Let’s have a closer look at what cold emailing is and some of the best cold email software you can use to gain and convert your leads.
Table of Contents
What is Cold Emailing?
Are Cold Emails Spam?
Best Cold Emailing Practices
What is a Cold Email Outreach Tool?
How to Choose the Ideal Cold Email Outreach Tools?
Best Cold Email Software
Conclusion
What is Cold Emailing?
Cold emailing is the practice of sending out cold emails to prospects. In essence, it is an email sent to someone whom you haven’t had prior contact with. It has the same end goal as cold calling but is not as intrusive, making this the preferred means of contact for most sales teams.
Are Cold Emails Spam?
Unlike cold emails, spam emails are sent at once to thousands of emails without testing the validity of the email addresses. Cold email outreach is aimed at qualified prospects, which involves research and acquiring valid email addresses of recipients. So to answer the question, no, cold emails are not spam.
Best Cold Emailing Practices
Cold emailing aims at getting emails read by the targeted prospects. Though results may vary, there are certain best practices to follow while sending cold emails. Here is a list of a few of them.
1. Segment your mail list
Narrow your prospect list by breaking them down into smaller groups. In doing so, you will be able to divide your list into manageable chunks so that you can personalise your emails and target them towards the various segments/groups. An easy way to segment your prospect lists is into the industry. For example, when sending cold emails to someone in finance, make sure that the emails are tailored toward this industry. Try and imagine how impersonal it would be if a finance professional received an email about construction software. For this reason, segmentation is required to get good results from your campaigns.
2. Use a catchy subject line
If you want your emails to end up in the recipients inbox folder instead of the trash folder, you may want to think a bit carefully about how you construct your subject lines. If you want to grab the recipients attention, writing catchy subject lines is your secret ingredient. Most people only open emails with catchy subject lines, so think carefully about this as well! The final touch to your email subject lines are personalising them. To achieve this, simply add the name of the prospect or their company and watch how you’ll turn heads! Spending some time doing research on recipients and their companies is a good start in getting your subject line right the first time.
3. Keep the email brief
Time is of the essence, as they would say, right? In today’s day and age, no one really has the luxury of time to read long-winded emails that has no start nor end. Your emails have to be short, sweet, and straight to the point. In order to retain readers attention and keep them engaged, your emails should be compact and impactful. Try this and watch your number of responses increase today.
4. Personalise your email
This is an important component of cold emailing. Personalisation in your emails is essential because no one would bother to read generic and boring emails. The email has to be relevant to the prospect; use their name a few times in the email, highlight a mutual connection if any, compliment the,, draw the attention to their interested, use visuals like videos or images, and mention their pain points.
5. Add a CTA
Every cold email must include a call to action. It could be anything relevant, such as requesting an in-person meeting, scheduling a product demo, accepting an invitation to an event or webinar, or requesting to download resources that add value to the prospect.
The CTA informs prospects of the specific action they must take after reading your email. Create the entire email in such a way that the reader performs the CTA implicitly. Make sure your CTA is clear to the prospect because if it is unclear, the recipient will abandon your email. Also, make sure you don’t have more than one CTA in an email because the reader will become overwhelmed.
6. Comply with different regulations
There are numerous regulations that govern email marketing, and you must follow them. Furthermore, recipients can unsubscribe from your emails if they do not want to hear from you. If you use a third-party service for your email campaigns, you must strictly adhere to the guidelines.
7. Follow up
You must follow up and be persistent until the prospect indicates that you should abandon the pursuit or until you believe they are not worth pursuing. The main issue is that most salespeople give up after one or two follow-ups, but the prospect says ‘Yes’ after a string of ‘No’.
What is a Cold Email Outreach Tool?
Cold email outreach tools make it simple to conduct cold email outreach. It makes cold emailing more efficient by automating the process. It enables the sending of follow-ups and includes features such as personalization, tracking, preloaded templates, and so on. Most cold email outreach tools also automate other aspects of the sales process, such as prospect email identification.
Cold email software companies may also choose to call their product a sales engagement platform or a sales automation tool, implying that cold email is included. Furthermore, when automated cold outreach tools use the term “multi-channel outreach,” email is always one of the outreach channels.
How to Choose the Ideal Cold Email Outreach Tools?
There is so much cold email software available that it is difficult to choose. However, there are some features that you should look for in cold email tools.
1. Personalisation
Personalisation is an essential feature of all cold email software. Unless and until you personalise your email, it is unlikely to be received. All cold email automation tools allow you to personalise emails, but the degree of personalisation varies by tool.
While some tools only provide text personalisation, others allow you to add dynamic variables for the recipient’s name, company name, and so on. Other tools allow you to personalise images and embed personalised videos in emails. In the end, the level of personalisation in your email determines how well the recipient engages with it. As a result, this is one feature your tool should have.
2. Ability to track emails
Email tracking is important for assessing the success of your email campaign. It must monitor email open rates, clicks, bounces, and responses. These metrics allow you to assess how well your campaign performed and what changes you should make in future campaigns to achieve better results. For example, if you notice that your bounce rate is higher than usual, you should investigate whether your contact list contains an excessive number of invalid addresses.
Another feature to look for in your tool is email verification, which is critical for email deliverability and sender reputation.
3. Automation of campaigns
Cold email software should ideally reduce your workload and handle time-consuming tasks such as creating contact lists, personalising emails, automating email sending, and scheduling follow-ups and drip campaigns. If a tool offers all of the desired automation features, you should use it.
4. Integration with CRMs
Keeping the CRM up to date with all of the prospect’s data is a time-consuming task. As a result, it is preferable to use a tool that integrates with the CRM solution you are currently using. It would save you a lot of time.
Best Cold Email Software
- SmartReach.io
- Woodpecker
- Snov
- Reply
- UpLead
- AutoKlose
- Outreach
- GMass
- Lemlist
- Yesware
- SalesBlink
- Folderly
- Mailshake
- Overloop
- Mixmax
- Klenty
- SalesHandy
- AutoKlose
- QuickMail
- SalesHandy
- Hunter.io
- Gmelius
- Streak
- HubSpot
- Right Inbox
- SalesLoft
Conclusion
One of the most important channels for lead generation is email marketing. Combine your experience with the cold email software listed above, and your campaigns will be a success. You can use this software to make your work easier and faster. Evaluate and choose the tool that best meets your requirements and available resources.