Okay. So you sit down, and turn on your computer to send an email, but…….you have no idea where to start. Of course, you know who you want to send the email to and why you want to send the emails. You just don’t know how to structure it. Frustrated, you close the laptop and try to engage in other activities, wishing the email would sort itself out somehow. You are not alone, we’ve all been there. So I can tell you from experience, that the email is never going to sort itself out. 

Sending an email to a known recipient has its own challenges, emailing an unknown recipient is in a class of its own. This type of email is referred to as a cold email especially when it is done with the intention to generate leads. Cold emailing has been around for a long time. If I should guess, I would say it's been around for as long as emails have existed. Despite that, it remains one of the most difficult forms of email.

One thing that makes cold emailing difficult is that sometimes it is a hit and sometimes it is a miss. You almost feel it is a matter of luck. But let me assure you that’s not the case. There are certain things to do if you want to get better results with cold emailing, and I will talk about them in this article. Before I begin, here are some eye-opening stats on cold emailing. 

Cold Email Statistics You Should Know

Depending on where you check, the statistics on cold emails will vary. But there is one common denominator with all the statistics you will see, and that is the success rate for cold emails is shockingly low. For instance, Backlinko carried out a study on 12 million cold emails, and here is what they found; Only 8.5% of cold emails receive a response. That means 91.5% are ignored, deleted, or never responded to.  Another study found that on average, only about 23.9% of cold emails are opened. One conclusion we can draw from the two statistics is that out of 100%, 76.1% are never opened and of the remaining 23.9% that are opened, only about 8.5% are replied. The question now is, how do you make sure your email is opened, read, and gets a response? Well, I will be showing you a few tricks but before then, here is why cold emailing is still relevant despite being so challenging to get right.

1. It is cost-effective - an email is basically a free way to advertise your product or company. You can send it to as many contacts as possible without paying a dime. That’s not to say there are no hiccups along the way.
2. Scalability - emails allow you to reach a large pool of people without having to subscribe to a service or even ask their permission. As long as you have their email address, you can talk to them. 
3. Personalization - one of the advantages of emailing is personalization. The ability to tailor emails to a particular recipient increases the chances of getting a response. More on this later. 
4. Networking - I once received a cold email from the CEO of a fintech company. At the time, I needed one of its services, and after trying it out myself, I recommended it to others in my circle who I felt would need their services as well. This form of networking is possible with cold emailing. 

If you are not still convinced, then let me ask you this, what do you have to lose? I understand the reluctance to use many other marketing strategies (most of which are paid) and if they don’t generate enough leads, that will be money down the drain. But cold emails are different, the only thing it costs you is your time, and with the ability to send out automated emails, even your time is safe. Now, perhaps you haven't been so lucky with cold emails in the past, but don’t worry. That should change after you go through the 4 strategies to improve your cold emailing game in the next section. 

Strategies to improve your cold emailing game 

Strategy #1. Make your email subject as long as possible

It may sound counterintuitive but hold on a second let me explain. Let’s say you sent an email to a known angel investor hoping to get their attention and possibly their support for an innovative idea you came up with. Certainly, folks like that do get a lot of emails and have become good at judging if an email is relevant or not simply by looking at the subject line. 

Now a very generic and short subject like, “Investment opportunity”, does not provide enough information for them to quickly decide if it is worth the time to open the email or not. As a result, they are likely going to skip your email to the next one that provides more information at a glance. 

Now let’s try rewriting the previous subject like this, “With 80% returns in the first year, investors are betting on this new idea.”

First, this subject line provides information an angel investor will be interested in, and curiosity to know what the idea is all about could motivate them to open the email. 

This is backed up by my research. According to Backlinko, emails with longer subject lines outperform those with shorter subjects by  32.7%. From the chart below, the research shows that the ideal subject length should be about 36 to 70 characters. 

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Strategy #2. Follow-up emails are excellent reminders

So you sent out an email but after waiting for 3 days or more, there is no response. Do you just swing your hands and give up? I understand how it feels to be rejected and although a lack of response is not rejection per se, in the world of cold emailing, being ignored feels as bad as being rejected. If you are like me, then you may come to the conclusion that a follow-up email is one email too many. But again, research says otherwise. 

“According to our findings,……. multiple outreach messages work better than a single message” _Backlinko

And you may ask, how many follow-up emails are we talking about here? Well, up to 3. One follow-up can boost the response rate by up to 65.8%

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I believe this happens because the first email could easily be overlooked especially if the recipient received several emails in a day. Your email would likely be pushed to the bottom of the pile and never get to be seen. A second and third email will probably make it to the top of the inbox and gets seen. 

Strategy #3. The more contacts you email, the better your chances

Now, you may already know that sending bulk emails is a really good way of getting across to several prospective targets. But what if you have this one target in mind? Here’s what you can do. Get as many of their email contacts available and if they happen to have just one, then get email contacts of those they work with. 

A good place to get this is on the company’s website. After you have done your research and gathered the emails, you can then send a cold email to all the contacts simultaneously, while also applying strategies 1 and 2. This way, someone in the company might happen to open your email, and if they find the content interesting enough, they could suggest or even forward it to the person in charge. 

For example, you want to get to the CEO of Epirus Ventures after reading one of their blog posts. Then you could email the writer, drop a message in the company’s email, and also email the CEO directly if his contact address is provided on the website. By doing this, you rapidly increase the chances of getting your message across to the CEO.

Strategy #4. Personalize your email

You know how a company will try to stand out from competitors by branding itself? Well, that’s just how personalization works. Let’s say you want to join a reputable company as a guest blogger. It is possible the company receives emails from several guest bloggers all wanting to write for them. So how do you make your email stand out? 

By applying simple and basic personalization tricks. Beginning with the subject of the email, make sure you tell the company what you can do. For example, the subject line “Guest Blogger” would be grossly inefficient, but “I can Increase Epirus Venture’s visibility by 30%”, could do the trick. Again, you see how a longer subject line can be helpful. 

Another way you can personalize your email is by starting with a “Hi or Hello” followed by the name of your contact. For example; “Hi Alex” is much better than just “Hi”.The difference is that the first example tells the recipient that the email was specifically addressed to them. 

It is not just a random bulk email sent out to as many contacts as possible with the hope of getting a response. Also, by approaching cold emails in a personalized way, you are forced to tailor your message to one target, and this will boost your chances of getting a response compared to a generic message that was addressed to several different contacts. 

Remember

There are many other strategies worth considering when trying to improve your cold emailing game. Such as using emojis, sending the email at a particular time of the day, and linking to social media profiles. All of these can be used alongside the four strategies which are provided in this article and don’t forget, these strategies do not mean you will get 100% response. Neither does it eliminate most of the drawbacks of cold emailing like long response times and the dreaded spam filters. But like they say, any strategy is better than no strategy.

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Also Read: The Power of Negotiation - How Steve Jobs Won The Ebooks Tug of War With Amazon