Has your hot cold email cooled off?
Maybe you aren’t getting as many replies as you used to from the same killer sales email template and need some new inspiration.
Remember that cold email templates should be used as a guide, but you still need to build an ultra-refined list of prospects and research each person on that list so that you can write personalized messages.
This takes time though.
We will share some pointers on how to boost your cold email positive reply rates and also share some templates.
(Remember we mentioned that running successful cold email campaigns takes time? If you don’t have the time to scale your outreach, you could always hire a lead generation service like Salesbread to run your cold email campaigns for you. Read this article to see exactly how we generated close to 7000 sales-qualified leads in 24 months for our clients.)
First….Consider the following
Are you solving your prospects bleeding neck issue?
If you want to double your response rate, imagine a prospect who woke up one morning with a huge problem that your company happens to solve.
For example, an MSP. You sell an IT service, manage hosting and offer support to your clients. You have long sales cycles, big contracts and usually people don’t switch their MSP often. But let’s imagine that you know the CEO’s server crashed just last night.
Their team will be working from home with no data, it’s just a disaster.
A waste of an entire workweek.
If you reach out during this time and offer a remedy to their pain point, are you going to have an easier time getting replies?
Well, the answer is pretty obvious.
You most probably will be getting more replies.
The sharper the pain point, the more desperate your prospects will be to find a solution.
Perry Marshall calls this a “bleeding neck problem.
If you know who has a problem and this issue is keeping them awake at night, and your service solves this issue, you’re going to get more replies.
Here’s what to do…
- Firstly, list all the problems your product/service solves.
- Then, order them by most likely to be experienced often to least.
- Next, structure your cold email outreach campaign in such a way that your first email hits the most frequent pain point. Then your second email will mention the second biggest pain point and so on.
Ask your clients what’s keeping them up at night
If you aren’t sure what your target audience‘s biggest pain point is, ask your current clients what’s the biggest problem they are facing in their industry at the moment.
Here’s an example
“On a scale of 1-5, what’s the biggest problem in your industry right now? What would be a 5?”
This can give you some insights on what to write in a cold sales email.
The Takeaway…
When building a cold email campaign always ask of the pain points listed which one is most likely happening right now.
Structure your campaign around that.
Watch this podcast for more detail on this topic:
Build a list of your ideal target audience based on data
Take a look at who has purchased your product/service from you within the last 6 months, and ask yourself what do your current paying customers have in common?
When you use this approach in your cold email strategy, you are going to target people who actually want what you’re selling.
When you start seeing specific patterns, it’s easier to build look-a-like lists.
For example, if you are selling an email tool that helps with deliverability, and you notice that it’s mainly e-commerce stores that are buying from you, you know to go after this segment. Perhaps your buyers have a problem with cart abandonment because their emails aren’t being delivered to their inboxes and ending up in the spam folder.
You can mention how your tool solves this pain point, meaning greater ROI.
This is just a basic example, but analyze the following when searching for patterns:
- Do all your current buyers have the same job title? Like CEO? Marketing manager? CFO?
- Do all your buyers use the same social media platforms for marketing? Like Instagram or LinkedIn?
- How many employees do they have? More than 100? Less than 50?
- Are they located in similar areas? The US? 100 miles from Florida?
- Have they recently been funded?
- Do they use the same CRM tool?
- Or have you noticed that they all make use of influencer marketing?
When looking for patterns, you have to consider events and attributes –
This article: B2B List Building – 8 Tips for Building a List of Hot Leads will help you find ways to build your prospect list.
When it comes to list building, it’s important to think outside the box. Try to use other resources besides your usual tools.
For example, look at:
- Company size: LinkedIn, Angel.co, Crunchbase
- Company revenue: LinkedIn
- Office location: LinkedIn, Google Maps, Yelp, Foursquare
- The same CEO for 5 years in a row: LinkedIn.
- Technology used: BuiltWith, Datanyze, NerdyData, LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- Website is not optimized for mobile (NerdyData)
- More than $30k/month spent on ads: SpyFu.com
- Twitter followers: FollowerWonk
- Monthly visits: Alexa, SEMRush
- Webinar attendees: just join one in the middle and see the number of people showing up
- Podcast downloads: iTunes, iTunescharts.net
- Raised money: Angel.co, Crunchbase
- Acquired: TechCrunch, Angel.co
- Hiring: Indeed.com
- Nominated or won an award: Google Alerts, industry website/directory, company website
- PR disaster: Google alert for keywords (“Company” AND “Disaster”) OR (“Customer” AND “Outraged”)
- Just started a new ad campaign: SpyFu.com
- Just hired a new role: LinkedIn Sales Navigator, company website
- Entered a new market (know they don’t know everything): SpyFu.com, LinkedIn News, TechCrunch, Google Alert (“Enters New Market”)
- Holidays (4th July, Anzac day), Google Calendar
- Seasons – winter/summer: Google Calendar (for cyclical sales events)
- Company anniversary: LinkedIn, Who. is to see when the website domain was 1st acquired
- Featured on product hunt: Product Hunt
- Just got a really bad employee rating: glassdoor.com
Next use personalized emails in your campaigns
When we say personalize your emails, we mean PERSONALIZE your emails.
Don’t just stop at using the prospect’s first name, or company name.
If you want the following results:
%
Average Positive Reply Rate
%
Average Open Rate
%
Average Unsubscribe Rate
(Side note: Anything under 10% is a problem. If your email reply rates are below 10% it might be time for some a/b testing to see what works and what doesn’t. It could be your email copy, or your prospect list that’s the issue. If your not sure chat to us for a free 15 minute consultation.)
You have to use very specific personalization.
We suggest actually researching each prospect on your list and finding something very specific about them to use in your email body.
At Salesbread we use the CCQ method.
Basically, this means that you should find something to either compliment the prospect on, mention a commonality, or ask them a question.
We always add a customized intro with our personalized cold emails. Then the rest of the body of the email can be similar. But it’s important that each prospect gets a personalized intro that’s just for them.
Below will be some cold email examples to adapt and use in your copywriting. Remember personalization captures the prospect’s attention. So, let your sales reps research prospects either through their Linkedin profiles or on Google.
If you’re sending the same generalized copy-paste b2b sales email, you’re going to get ghosted.
A note on deliverability
Using cold email warm-up tools will help get your emails into the prospect’s inbox.
If you send hundreds of emails a day all at once to your email list, you will most probably end up with a bad sender reputation, which means that most of your messages are going to end up in the spam folder.
The article below explains why these tools are important for effective cold email outreach.
What about CTAs and follow-up emails?
When it comes to a call to action, be as clear as possible.
If your CTA doesn’t tell the prospect what you’re expecting from them, they aren’t going to reply to your mail.
At Salesbread we normally asked for a booked phone call.
It could be as simple as saying:
“Would you be free next week for a quick 10-minute call?”
Or
“Send me your calendar link, and I will book a quick call with you.”
Keep it brief and simple. The easier you make it for the prospect to reply, the greater the chances will be of them actually responding.
You could even ask them to reply with a one-word answer, like:
“Just type in the letter that works for you.
A.) Yes, let’s hop on a quick call.
B.) No, this isn’t for me
C.) I would like more information”
And when it comes to follow-up emails, send 1 every 3 days at least 3-6 times. Add more personalization, and mention only 1 value proposition of your product/service in each mail. This article goes into why we wait 3 days between emails.
Best cold email campaign templates to try out in 2023
Example 1: Asking someone to be a guest on your podcast
Example 2: Asking someone for a booked meeting
Example 3: Offering a service
Example 4: Follow up email template
Example 5: Selling software
Example 6: The Break up email
Example 7: Follow up with potential clients
Example 8: Inviting founders to a networking event
Hey (first name)
Hosting a founders dinner for B2B saas founders, would you like for details?”
(Your name and info)
Example 9: Asking prospects a pain point question
Example 10: Guest posts, backlinks and SEO
Need help with your cold email campaigns?
If you aren’t happy with the stats your company is getting from cold email outreach, or if your conversion rate isn’t great, feel free to hop on a free 15-minute consultation call with the founder of Salesbread.
We also offer tons of free resources on our site, an excellent cold email course and a killer podcast that discusses all things cold email.
