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- Is Cold Email Dead? Well, its complicated.
Is Cold Email Dead? Well, its complicated.
Issue #5
Sean Ryan
March 20, 2024
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
Is cold email outreach dead? You may be surprised to hear someone who has built a media company on the foundation of email ask this question.
It has certainly become more complex. Cold prospecting will always remain key to any sales organization but between filtering, increased automation, and an increasingly crowded inbox and more, email outreach needs fixing.
When I started in sales, there was far less competition and no email. You picked up the phone, you set up face to face meetings and got deals done across the desk. Today, calling someone on the phone is akin to knocking on the door unannounced. And setting up a face to face meeting is met with utter confusion.
Email has simply become the primary form of communication for sellers. Hard to blame the media buyers - they are swarmed with so much competition and options that it would be near impossible to take meetings or calls from everyone if they want to get work done.
And while email may be the best way to get in, there are plenty of challenges.
According to Dan@Revenews, 80% of prospects prefer communicating with sales reps via email because this lets them take control of communications. Sellers have little insight into what they are thinking other than seeing that they opened your email
Litmus showed that 28% of respondents believe spam filters are a significant barrier to the effectiveness of cold email marketing
Imagine if you were doing only face to face calls. Would you take the the time to drive to an irrelevant prospect? With so many tools available to send thousands of emails at once, many companies send email to near irrelevant prospects making it harder to get attention
Just look at your own inbox behavior. I get emails that are so COLD - meaning so impersonal and so irrelevant that I can’t hit delete fast enough. I know most of you do as well.
As we receive more emails that are off target, we continue to devalue the medium.
Our business, Rotary Digital is an email business. We built our company around the idea that we could create an email that would be welcomed in your inbox - a visual and inviting daily break from the email monotony of sales pitches and outreach. How ironic.
As a company we need sell more than 65 advertising slots a month. So email outreach is a key part of our efforts. If I could set up 65 sales meetings or calls, our success rates would be stronger but that’s not logical or feasible.
So how do we make cold outreach more effective?
Here are the rules that our company follows and many can use to make the process more effective.
Email the right people.
If you are not sure that a prospect is relevant for your business or service then don’t email them. Also take the time to email the right person in the organization to increase response rates. Stop procuring email lists and blasting out emails to an entire list without removing irrelevant prospects. It should not be a shocker that if you email the right prospects and people, you increase your chances of a response and you piss off less people.
Personalization.
I cannot stress enough the importance of personalizing each email. Personalization is not insert (name) and (company). That’s lazy. There are lots of ways to personalize. You learn about your prospect, their awards, interests, career, and roles. Even a common interest with the product they represent.
It’s an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and the value of your solution. According to HubSpot, using personalized subject lines can increase open rates by 50%!
Create the best subject line you can.
You have 10 seconds. That’s it. Well 9.8 according to Litmus. That’s the average a person spends looking at an email. How do you get their attention right away? The subject line. It’s the most important part of your email. Period. A clear and personalized and creative subject line is your best chance to get someone to open your email.
Make it short and straight to the point.
People are busy, and they do not have to read your email. Show your value as efficiently as possible. The average person receives around 128 emails a day. Respect other people’s time and chances are, they’ll respect what you put in front of them. Your goal should be to peak interest just enough so that your prospect wants to learn more.
Follow up.
Assume they will not respond to your first email and follow up. You should expect to send 2-3 follow-ups to increase response rates. Sendin Blue’s report on “Email Marketing vs. Other Channels” mentions that 64.2% of respondents combine 2-3 different channels when doing cold outreach. The second most used channel after email was LinkedIn, followed by phone calls.
Be ready to follow up but follow the above rules to increase your chances of a response. Subject line, get to the point, respect their time.
A/B Test.
A/B testing is a powerful tool for optimizing campaign performance. If you are going to use automation tools, test different subject lines and determine which ones get better response. This will help you not only in your current outreach but make your future email subject lines even stronger.
Find Successful Cold Emails.
Find examples of successful cold emails. These could be emails that have high open rates, high response rates, or have successfully converted prospects into customers. Many successful salespeople and marketers share their best emails online. Check out reallygoodemails.com.
To summarize.
Prospecting via email will continue to be the most cost efficient and scaleable way to reach your potential clients. Put some care into it and do it right. Don’t spray and pray - take the to time to apply some of the rules above to increase your chances of response and do your part to help the industry remove the stink of cold outreach.
Let me know if you like this post here. Much appreciated.