It is not easy to get customers in the early days of a startup. It is often an experiment to find the best way to get customers. Email marketing is one of the successful ways when it comes to business-to-business marketing.
How to write an effective cold email?
I have written 1000s of cold emails. Here are my learnings to make them effective and increase the response rate.
Catchy subject line
Just imagine your email inbox. It is typically filled with thousands of emails, of which most of the emails are not opened. Why do you think you do not open them? This is mostly because you are not interested in the email based on the subject of the email. Either you know what kind of email it is or you may not be able to read the complete subject line.
The subject line is the entry point for the receiver to open the email or no. If not interested, the receiver does not open the email at all. So irrespective of the content inside the email, there is no use of the email.
Hence a good cold email has a very short subject line, typically of two to four words. It should have a clear and interesting message that stands out from the other boring subjects. A personalized subject line is a good way to raise the interest of the receiver. Eg; “Hey Amy!”
Personalization
Always remember you are writing to a human.
Before writing the email do good research about the person you are sending. Based on it, write a personalized email so that it delights the receiver. For them, it signifies that for the offering you are proposing, you have gone a step further to actually study the prospect well.
Try to compliment them at the start of the email with maybe the latest achievements they have made in their field or some important milestone in their personal life. This gives them the motivation to read the mail further even if the reader doesn’t know you.
Short body
While cold emailing, you are communicating with somebody whom the receiver doesn’t know. So they would not invest too much time in reading longer emails. By chance, if the receiver tries to read it and finds it not interesting at first, he or she won’t make an effort to read the further content.
Hence it is very important to keep the main body short. Typically if you can communicate your message in less than 5 sentences, it would be more attractive. While writing the main email body get straight to the point. Directly address what is in it for the receiver. This would help the receiver to know what is the actual message in the email, and if valuable they would make effort to reply.
Clear call to action
A personalized start to the message and a short and on-point body have to be finished off well with a clear call to action. What is the use of an email which does not have an action item at the end? The receiver will not again make an effort to figure out what he or she should do next.
You should sign off your email with an urgent-sounding yet positive action. Ending the email with action items like “Can we have a call this week?” or “Are you available tomorrow for a meeting?” creates this urgency. Avoid generic terms like “Looking forward to hearing from you” in the FIRST cold email.
Detailed signature
Finally, at the end of the email must have all the required contact details.
Add every required detail in the signature, typically contact no, website & social media profiles. By this you are achieving two things – showcasing your credibility and keeping all the possible communication means open for the end prospect to contact you. Interested leads can sometimes need to check your details or make direct phone calls instead of replying to the mail for which the signature is crucial.
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