How to write cold emails that actually convert?

Are your cold emails being met with a cold response? You are not alone! 

While cold emails can potentially bring you many new leads at a low cost, writing them correctly is where the real challenge lies. Why?

The inboxes of your recipients are already flooded with promotional emails, so your email needs to be written exceptionally to stand out from the crowd! In fact, most emails either meet their fate in the spam folder or get ignored by their recipients just because of below par writing. 

So, how should you write a cold email that actually converts your recipients from prospective buyers to your loyal customers? Let's find out!

Identify your target audience and their requirements clearly

As a preparatory step, you must specify who your emails are meant for. This would include market research and competitor analysis to find out who your buyers for your offerings are. 

This step is crucial because it defines the target recipients for your cold emails. This lets you email only the prospective customers and achieve maximum cost efficiency. It also protects your brand's reputation as sending emails to irrelevant people always leaves a bad impression.

At this stage, you must also focus on research to understand the precise requirements and problems of your target audience so you can cater to these while writing the email.

Create a list of high-quality leads and verify them

Once you have a general understanding of your target audience, you must now find this audience and get their email addresses and key information. For this purpose, you may build an expected personality of your target audience called persona and match it with the real audience.

Next, you must determine the online platforms that this audience visits and acquire information about them from there. This could include sign up forms in websites, newsletter opt-ins in blogs, embedded sign up forms in webinars or inputs from social media.

For example, if you are promoting a new car showroom that sells sports cars, your buyers would mostly be rich, middle-aged men. And the platforms to acquire their key details (or leads) could include blogs and social media groups that are themed on luxury vehicles.

Through this step, you can create a list of email addresses that you will mail, along with their important details that you can use to customize those emails.

Make a compelling subject line

Now that the preparatory steps are complete, you can begin with writing the cold emails with the subject line as the starting point. The subject line of your email sets the first impression of your email and often decides whether the recipients will open your email or ignore it. 

So, you must address the needs of your customer with a brief and catchy subject line to grab their attention. Also ensure that the subject line is written naturally (like human speech) and includes the key terms that would interest your target audience. 

At the same time, make sure to avoid clickbaits as misleading subject lines will leave a bad impression about your brand!

Keep it simple and structured!

Before adding the content, you must plan out a basic design and script for the email. This should include placement of text and call to actions, important points to add, attachments required and the overall layout.

As you start adding content, make sure to maintain simple language and stick to a reader-friendly structure that works well on all devices. The last thing you want is a complex email that leaves your readers scratching their heads!

Add concise and convincing text

The quality of text is a critical aspect of cold emails that deserves proper consideration. This is because great text can capture and maintain your reader's attention, hence raising the chances of conversions manifold! 

However, the common problem faced by marketers is that readers often spend very less time on each email and lose focus quickly unless they find it really interesting.

So, your content must be short yet engrossing enough to retain your reader for a sufficient time period. In this regard, your text must deliver your promotional message in a conversational and engrossing manner while covering only the important details. 

Above all, your text must explain how your offerings will solve the reader's problems or meet his/her requirements in a compelling but respectful manner. A relatable message with a human touch can work wonders for your cold emails even if its length is  within a few hundred words.

Add images, videos and other files where appropriate

While the text is an irreplaceable part of any promotional email, media files also hold a great potential for transferring a lot of information in a brief and interesting manner.

Images and videos can make your email more visually appealing and interesting; while other files such as documents, pdfs, spreadsheets, presentations etc. will help you present information in a more organized and complete manner. 

Just make sure you don't overdo it because no one likes cluttered emails or bulky attachments!

Go for higher personalization

Nobody likes to feel like just another customer but most standardized marketing emails do just that! This is where adding a personal touch in the text or images of your email can make all the difference between you and your competitors.

The trick is to use the key details about your recipients and incorporate them into the content of the email you send to them. This will help your emails stand out and grab the attention of your reader, hence raising conversions and leaving a lasting positive impact. 

Add a clear call to action

Your cold emails must be directed towards leading the recipients towards a favourable action such as signing up for a service or going to your landing page/sales page. 

So you must add actionable links and buttons so that the viewer can proceed to these actions, along with short sentences that encourage the reader to take action immediately (call to action)!

Always make sure that your call to action is placed prominently as per a planned structure so your recipients don't have to look for it if they feel interested.

Keep every email unique

When you are set to email a large number of people, it is important to keep every email unique or else email services may detect it as a mass promotional email and send it to the spam folder!

The simplest method to avoid spam filters is to go for customization and content spinning so that the subject line and text content of each email is unique. As you would expect, this is really difficult to do manually on a large scale and email automation tools are often used for this purpose.

Verify your email before sending and do a few follow ups if needed

Mistakes in the content of your email form a bad impression instantly and may cause the reader to doubt your authenticity. Hence, you must make sure to check your email for any grammatical mistakes, wrong details, broken links or errors in the attachments and files.

Lastly, sending follow up emails is suggested if you get no response from the recipient for your cold email. This is because a few gentle reminders can often get your recipients interested. But if you do not get a favourable response after a few attempts, you should not mail the recipient further in that regard to avoid irritating him or her. 

Use automation tools for a large scale

The mentioned guidelines can all be implemented manually but this would involve a lot of time, effort and costs. Hence, it is advisable to go for comprehensive cold email automation tools like PursueApp that will automate or simplify your entire cold email campaign at a low cost.

Not convinced? Here are the main features offered by PursueApp-

• Uses an online SAAS that works on any device and offers complete automation for cold emailing campaigns. 
• Lets you send emails based on schedules and sequences defined by the recipient's actions.
• Provides themes and templates to help you create perfect emails.
• Helps you maintain GDPR and PECR compliance.
• Integrates with any lead source or CRM by using Zapier.
• Sends cold emails using Gmail, G Suite, Outlook, Exchange or SMTP
• Has an Intelligent reporting system that tells you what's working and what's not.
• Includes comprehensive training and free automatic upgrades for one year.
• Has an in-built email verification and cleaning system to maximize inboxing rates.

Conclusion

With their huge user base and versatility of supported content, cold emails can indeed work wonders for your business if you use the right writing techniques and tools. So what's the wait for?

Go ahead and apply the mentioned guidelines to create cold emails that actually convert your leads into lasting customers and advocates for your brand.

Do you have any ideas to contribute? Please comment below and let us know!