Cold emails started to become a more and more common practice in B2B markets over the last few years. They have proved to convert very well (if written well) and one of their main advantages is how they usually stand out from other emails. If you are in B2B and want to increase your sales, you should start considering cold email campaign. How? What is it? How to write cold emails? We will be answering all of those burning questions below. Let’s go!
What is a cold email?
A cold email is a personalised email that you send to a group of prospects who are your target audience. The emails you send will be addressed to specific people with a name, surname and a position. It is important to keep all this in mind; cold emails aren’t primarily about selling, they help build relationships that later on could lead to a sale. Think of it as a networking via email but less annoying and more professional then those spammy messages you receive on LinkedIn now and then. Additionally, cold email campaigns are laser targeted meaning that your email list will most likely contain around 200 prospects. Those prospects will be your ideal customers. If your cold email is effective you can easily achieve open rates above 50% and reply rates at around 30%.
How to write a cold email?
There are six elements your cold email has to contain:
- Personalised and interesting (but professional) subject line
- A VERY short introduction – just to let them know who you are
Appreciation for the email recipient – show them that you know who they are, what they do and that you understand their pain points - Reason for your email – not a sales message, don’t present any deals, prices etc.
- Call to action – tell the recipient what they’re supposed to do after reading your email – perhaps you would like them to schedule a phone call with you or start a conversation
- A solid signature at the bottom of your email that contains all the important info about you (company name, website, email, phone number)
And while six elements seems like a lot of typing, the most difficult part of cold emails is making them EXTREMELY short. The best cold email campaign I’ve seen had an initial email with just two lines of text. That’s how short they need to be. It’s difficult to contain all those six elements in two lines but if you manage to do it you have a killer email that could fuel your growth!
Does it work for every industry?
No and you always need to keep this in mind. Cold emails work wonders with organisations where some standard of professionalism is kept. If you’re addressing people who don’t wear suits to work, it is very likely that your campaign will fail. Cold emails, for example, will not work with bars or restaurants but they’re likely to work with international hotel chains, start-ups, construction businesses etc. When thinking of a cold email campaign always have a plan B in mind in case the campaign doesn’t work with the industry you are addressing.
Who do I target?
In case of cold emails, targeting is very specific (laser targeting) but this doesn’t mean it’s difficult. You will need to do some research.
Firstly, if you don’t know that yet, establish the industry you wish to squeeze for money (e.g. hotels). Then make a list of companies that are your ideal customers in terms of size of the company and its needs, values, culture etc. Next you need to determine what kind of job positions will be best to target; is it going to be a manager of the marketing department or the CMO? Once you complete those steps you can start looking for people working at specific companies in specific roles. It’s time to initiate the communication!
Always Follow-Up?
Don’t let people ignore you and don’t be afraid of following-up. An ideal cold email campaign will consists of a total of 2-7 emails.
How can popcorn help you with cold email campaigns?
With popcorn you will be able to design your whole campaign in advance and then schedule single emails to be sent however you plan them. This means that you will have a sufficient number of follow-ups and you won’t have to face any moral dilemmas when following-up on each email.
However, the main features that will be super useful for your cold emails campaign are sales pipelines and lead scoring. Pipelines will help you control what’s going on with the prospects you emailed; you will know how far the conversation went and whether it’s time to present a deal or not. Lead scoring will help you with targeting. It will tell you the quality of each prospect based on their email behaviour. This means that you will be able to easily determine the interest of each prospect after your first two emails which will then help you evaluate your campaign and decide what to do next.
Cold emails are a revolution when it comes to B2B lead generation. Cold calling is annoying and unpleasant. Random messages on LinkedIn are spammy. Cold emails are classy and professional. And they could work wonders.
You can try popcorn’s free trial (30 days and credit card required!) to design your first cold email campaign. popcorn is a smart, easy-to-use and efficient platform that not only helps you compose beautiful emails and newsletters but also helps you manage your sales funnels and leads. If you would like to test popcorn and see if it could help improve your email marketing game, you can sign-up for the free trial here: https://app.popcorncrm.co.uk/free-trials
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