How to create an effective cold email that actually works

Did you know that 51% of recipients delete emails within the first few seconds of opening it?

Yes, you have a few seconds to impress your prospects.

Besides, in the case of cold emails, the difficulty level is even higher as they are sent to potential prospects who have no prior relationship with you.

Getting someone to open an ice-cold email is challenging. 

Apart from you, there are many more sales reps from different companies vying to get your prospect’s attention. 

Your cold email needs to be impactful and stand out from the rest to get a click from the prospect.

Well, that’s not the end of the road. Each line of your cold email should be persuasive enough to hold the prospect’s attention and persuade them to respond.

So, how to create an effective cold email?

Cold email isn’t just about drafting an email introducing your product and sending it to a potential prospect.

Cold outreach emails need proper planning and preparation. You need to pay more attention to how you draft a cold email and whom you are sending it.

Everything from your subject line to your email body, as well as CTA, should be perfect.

Cold email is, without a doubt, a challenging task, but if done right, it can acquaint you with many lucrative opportunities. So, give it your best.  

It always seems impossible until it is done. – Nelson Mandela

Here are the questions you need to ask yourself for creating impactful cold emails.

1. Do I have a proper list of prospects and have I done my research?

Don’t just take a list of ID(s) and start sending emails.

As I said, “PREPARE” before you send your cold emails. 

First, create a proper list of prospects with their email ID(s). 

Go research about them on LinkedIn to find out their role in the company. Make sure you target the right person from the company. 

Study their company website to understand what they do.

If you are targeting different industries and businesses, then create a prospecting list with different segments. 

Group people with similar business from a specific industry under one segment. If you want to make your work more comfortable, you can take the help of the best CRM that allows you to segment and add filters to your prospect lists. So, you won’t face much trouble while sending cold emails. Besides, you can even track your emails inside a CRM to see how effective your outreach is. 

Once you complete the list segmentation, study the market of businesses in each segment, and determine what problems they commonly face. This information will be beneficial while drafting your cold emails. 

2. Is my subject line enticing enough to get a click? 

Put yourself in the prospect’s shoes and think, would you open the email after reading the subject line you’ve written. 

If not, then delete it and put in more effort.

Wear the creative hat and write a compelling subject line for your cold email that immediately grabs the prospect’s attention. 

Your subject line should-

• Be relevant and exciting. 
• Make the email recipients curious. 
• Give readers some idea of what they can expect in the email. 
• Have minimum words and yet be catchy. 

3. If I was in the prospect’s place, would the first line motivate me to read further? 

The first line decides the fate of your cold email, whether it will get a response or be deleted. So make sure you start it right. 

Personalize your emails to capture the prospect’s interest. Make sure your cold email focuses on the prospect. 

The opening sentence of your cold email can be about something you read on the prospect’s website, or you can highlight problems that most businesses like them usually face in their market. You can even start by congratulating them on some of the recent accomplishments.

For instance;

Hey Pearl, 

Congratulations on being ranked in New York’s top 50 Female Entrepreneurs list. It was indeed inspiring to read about your journey.

This shows you’ve done your research before sending the cold email. Adding such information helps in building trust and credibility. 

4. Is my email too long, and does it propose the value? 

Nobody is interested in reading lengthy and boring emails. So ensure your cold emails are short, simple, and precise. Avoid extra information and long stories about your company and product. So, once you have a great opening line, get to the point. 

Please give them an apparent reason why you are writing this email. Talk about what you can do to help them and make their life easier. State the benefits of starting a business relationship with you.

For instance, “I did a fair amount of research and went through some of the reviews of your clients that said [the problem area] I can show how by [solution] you can [benefits]”  

You can even speak about how you can help the prospect reach the same level as their competitors (well for this you need to study about their competitors and how are they better)

For instance, 

“X and Y competitors are [point out things they are achieving, and the prospect isn’t] I can show you how you can achieve the same with [your product]“

5. Have you added a CTA and an impressive email signature? 

Make sure you end your cold email with the next step. 

What do you want the prospect to do after reading your email? 

Schedule a meeting or speak to you over the phone or sign up for your free trial?

Whatever you want them to do, make sure it is simple and straightforward.

For instance, 

Would you be available for a quick call tomorrow at your convenient time?

Or

Would you be available for a 10-minutes skype chat tomorrow to discuss your concerns?

Or

What’s the best day/time this week for a quick 15-minute conversation? 

Once you state the next step, ensure you add a professional email signature. With the help of an email signature, you can direct your prospect to more content for knowing about your company and product. How? Well, by adding a link to a Youtube video or your website, blogs, social media channels, and more. If you do not have a proper email signature, you can easily create one using an email signature generator.

Bottom line 

Pay attention to the above questions, and answer them honestly to create the best cold emails. Keep track of your cold emails to see if your cold email strategy is working. If not, then tweak it a bit. 

Advanced cold email tools like Salesmate CRM can help you in tracking. You can even create email templates in the CRM and reuse it to save time. Besides, after sending a few emails, you might need to follow-up with the prospect. 

With the help of Salesmate CRM, you can ease the tedious task of following-up with the prospects. It allows you to create a sequence of emails to follow-up in real-time with your prospect. You don’t need to remember each follow-up. Easily put your follow-up on autopilot with Salesmate CRM and focus on things that are more important for your business.