10 tips to “warm up” your cold emails

3 min read

cold emails

Cold emailing is in a way an analog of cold calling - you have one generic message composed and you want to deliver it to a large audience, and, ideally, get a warm response to it. Cold emailing has some cons making it a type of message no one wants to either send or receive. Nonetheless, it is not something you as a business should stay away from. Cold emailing is one of the oldest marketing tools and if crafter and used correctly cold emails can generate new leads and revenues. Let’s dive deeper and see why cold emailing shouldn’t be avoided and how to make it work.

Source: WordStream

1. Chose the right audience

The first and especially important tip is to select the right audience for your cold emails. You might be tempted to send your emails to all the prospects on your list because you are probably following “the more the better” pattern. However, not all your customers may be interested in that specific product/service/deal you want to offer. Segment your list and send emails accordingly. Choosing the right audience will not only generate a higher open rate but will also protect you from ending up in your customer’s trash bin.

2. Don’t sound like a template

Templates are super convenient, no doubt. However, this is just the simplest of the solutions to ease your marketing routine. Moreover, imagine how many other businesses use templates, and chances of you sounding the same as your competitor are high. You don’t want to be like every other business out there, right? Research templates, pick a phrase or two, tweak it a little to sound more like you and voila - your cold email is genuine and unique!

3. Personalize it

The goal of a cold email is to reach a broad audience with one single message - a complete opposite of a personalized email. But this does not mean that cold emails cannot be personalized. No one is forbidding you to research several templates, pick a phrase from here and there. But make sure you make it personal. Show your customers that you’ve made a research on what they like, that you put some effort into getting to know them. By adding things like your customer’s name or their interest you will make your customer feel like you are sending a one-off email rather than sending them a generic message from a big blast. With personalized emails, you can double your replies. According to Woodpecker, personalized emails garnered a 17% reply rate, more than double the 7% reply rate for impersonal emails. Yes, it’s a little extra work, but the return is absolutely worth it.

lighthouse for email marketing

Source: LeadFuse

4. Don’t push your product down your prospective’s throat

Every healthy and long-lasting relationship starts with building trust first (well, okay, most of the time). This applies to business relationship too. You need to build trust and brand recognition before selling the product or asking for something, and the simplest way to do that is by offering value in advance. When you give something generously and unconditionally, people feel they can trust you, and you are more likely to receive something in return. According to Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, people feel obliged to repay even the simplest of gifts and favors. Simply put, we are wired to reciprocate. So giving something before asking for something is the most rational when trying to establish trustful relations with your customers and further get something in return.

5. If you do want to sell something in your cold email, sell your “give”, not your product

It is no doubt that the main goal of your cold emails and your marketing campaign overall is to sell a product/service. However, making your message explicitly all about the sale will most likely scare off your prospects, especially if no trust is yet built with them. People like to buy, but they don’t like to be sold. So focus your message on giving, not selling.

6. Write a compelling subject line…with your prospective’s name in it

Remember that your clients don’t read long subject lines. They are more likely to read the first 40 characters, and if you failed to manage to entice your customer within that number of characters, your cold email fell through. Seven words or 41 characters are considered the best size for a subject line. The idea of a subject line is to make people want to open your email. And if they further read and even engage with your email - this is a pure success. Your subject line should be specific and to the point. And it should either make a credible promise or build curiosity. And don’t forget about personalization - include your customer’s name into the subject line. According to a report from Adestra, an email marketing software, personalization in an email subject line can boost your cold email open rate by 22.2%, and as previously discussed, will generate an increased reply rate.

7. Chose the right time to send your email

lighthouse for email marketing

Some marketers underestimate this aspect, but you shouldn’t. What’s the point of sending an email to your prospects at the times when they are the least engaged with their phones or laptops? There are multiple pieces of research on when is the best time to send emails or make social media posts, but you can also use your common sense to predict that. According to MailChimp, the best time of day to send an email is 10 am in the recipients’ own time zones. The majority of your prospects are likely to check their emails in the morning while drinking coffee or commuting (what else to do on a bus or when you are in traffic?) so why not use this information and schedule your email campaigns accordingly. Be clear, specific, and be on time.

8. Keep your cold emails short

People don’t like long reads, be it a subject line or an email itself. Deliver your message in a clear and concise manner. Your email needs to address the prospect’s needs and talk more about the benefits your prospect will receive rather than talking about how good your product/service is. Tell your prospect what’s in your product/service that will alleviate their pains.

9. Don’t skip the signature part

Your customers deserve to know who you are and what is your business. And the more they know the better chances are they will trust your brand. Make sure to include your name, title, social media links and the phone number people can reach you at (although not necessary, but good for building credibility). All of these things build social proof and make you look credible. And don’t email your prospects from your personal Gmail or Hotmail account - this is unprofessional and can create a pretty delusive picture about how much you are ready to invest in making your business work. Use a branded email like a.turner@mycompany.com. If you don’t have one, don’t be stingy and invest in one.

10. Run a check of your email database

Since a cold email a priori is a type of email sent to a large number of people (something similar to an email blast), you better make sure that emails you have in your database belong to real people. This is crucial for three reasons: 1) to ensure a better deliverability 2) to ensure a better click-through rate 3) to protect your sender score. If your database comprises of thousands or even millions of emails, there’s no chance you can manually check each of them for validity. We recommend using an email validation and verification service, like, for instance, Mailcheck. Mailcheck is an email validation software that will save you from a headache of filtering your email database for fake emails, so your emails, even the “cold” ones, reach the proper, real people. After years of research and constant development, Mailcheck can now validate one million emails in less than 15 minutes, and the API integration feature will validate your customer’s emails on the go, so no fake email will be able to get into your clean email list.

Cold emailing is one of the oldest email marketing strategies and if crafted and managed properly with the tips we provided above it can be a powerful tool of your email marketing strategy. Establishing credibility with your prospects has to be your first priority. It is a well- known fact that it all starts with trust.

Read more in other useful articles on our blog.

contact us