What is cold emailing? Understand everything!

Also known as the” Cold mail ”, this method of prospecting Aims to Attracting leads' attention and to present the company and its products to them as part of a marketing campaign. To avoid falling into the spam box, it is essential to write with careful attention to content of each message and to use the right tools to address prospects in the most effective and relevant way possible. At Akimbo for example, it is integrated into the heart of our prospecting outsourcing offer.

What is cold emailing?

A cold email is a first contact that allows you to get closer to a prospect and create the beginning of a relationship with him to Try to make it a customer. Since this email is not requested by its recipient, it is necessary to stand out when sending, by its subject, the information it contains or even its CTAs.

Definition of cold emailing

By definition, cold emailing consists of approach leads to talk with them or schedule a sales call. Key element of a prospecting campaign, this technique makes it possible to focus on one to two bread points of a prospect and to present him with a solution to his problems. Although the number of responses is not always very high, it is still a good way to promote the company easily and quickly.

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How do I do cold emailing?

To succeed in cold emailing campaigns, there are a few golden rules that must be respected. In particular, these will allowavoid being automatically detected as spam through the mailbox, but also to better attract the attention of the recipient.

- Choose a short object, dynamic and avoid capital letters. At first glance, the prospect must be able to understand the subject of the email in order to want to open it.

- Focus on personalization of the content of emails, so that each person feels unique when they are opened and read.

- Avoid spelling mistakes, take care of the style and use a email signature. The latter will allow the prospect to identify the company from which the email comes, and also to inquire on LinkedIn or Google if the offer interests them.

Why do cold emailing?

Cold emailing is a good tool for develop your professional network — instead of meeting prospects in person, cold emails allow companies to introduce themselves and make themselves known.

Obviously, this also makes it possible to gather data and generate leads : each target prospect can be contacted again later in order to create a relationship of trust and to talk to them in more detail about the product or service, in order to sign a sale.

Finally, emails are measurable and make it easy to assess the success of a marketing campaign. By observing their open and response rates, they can easily be analyzed usingCRM tools and learn to optimize content, the time of sending or the length of the message to better write the following emails.

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What are the pros and cons of cold emailing

Les Cold emails are a good way to approach a prospect because they are easy to automate and require little time. Of course, and like any commercial technique, cold emailing has its advantages but also its disadvantages:

The benefits of cold emailing

Although cold calling has been used for years, cold emailing is still relatively new but is increasingly being used for its many advantages. It is indeed simple to set up and can be automated and measure your results without too many difficulties, in particular thanks to the emergence ofCRM tools in recent years. By creating templates adapted to each situation, you can create large email campaigns and contact multiple prospects at the same time, while observing the performance of each of them.

We can easily assess the performance of emails and their sending is very easy and can be done at any time of the day. It is also possible to schedule a shipment in advance, which makes this method more flexible than cold calling which can only be done during working hours. Finally, it does not require the presence or time of all salespeople, as telephone prospecting or face-to-face meetings can do.

The disadvantages of cold emailing

However, cold emailing has a few drawbacks, including a Relatively low response percentage. Indeed, since emails are easier to ignore than calls, the recipient is generally used to receiving dozens or even hundreds of emails per day — so he will only open very few. Also, receiving an unsolicited email can be annoying for many individuals. To prevent it from being directly removed, You have to work on your approach method and contact the right prospects.

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What are the different types of emailing?

Depending on the stage at which the prospects are in the sales funnel, the contact by email will be done differently. From a cold lead to a hot prospect when you are about to sign a sale, the objective will not be the same, that's why you have to write a personalized message adapted to each situation.

1. The acquisition email

The acquisition email is above all a prospecting email : it is in fact used to generate leads in order to acquire potential customers. By having collected information and email addresses through digital marketing campaigns such as competitions or the exchange of customer databases between companies, a first acquisition email can be sent to present the company and its product to prospects. At this stage, the approach must already be taken to ensure a good opening rate and allow the email to land in the inbox, and not in the junk mail.

2. The loyalty email

The loyalty email targets prospects already interested and registered on the mailing list or newsletter. Depending on the marketing strategy for businesses, this email can be an opportunity to make a promotional offer To prospects, to give them more details about a product that seemed to interest them, or simply to revive if previous messages have not been answered.

3. Transactional email

Unlike previous emails, this email is simply intended toprovide information on the status of an order or on the confirmation of the creation of a customer account. Factual and concise, it must be sent quickly to reassure the prospect about the seriousness and reliability of the company. If its opening rate is higher, it is because it seems more solicited : a customer who has just purchased will in fact wait to receive this type of email which validates the billing or indicates an estimated delivery date.

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What email structure should be adopted in cold emailing?

Depending on the approach you want to take with a prospect, the email structure will not be the same. So we have listed several examples of structures to be adapted according to your needs:

- As part of a simple prospecting email To present the company or its product, the ideal is to write a Brief introduction then to get straight to the point by mentioning the reason for making contact and offering a second exchange by messages or call.

- If you want create a relationship From the start with the prospect, you can bounce back on an event organized by your company or on a recent promotion. This type of personalizing Email allows you to attract their attention and then talk to them about how you can improve your professional life with a product or a service.

- After a first exchange on LinkedIn, you can also recontact a potential customer using a softer and less commercial approach, for example by sharing a press article or information that might be of interest to him.

The 5 basic principles for writing a good cold email

For write a good cold email, there are a few basic principles that should be respected. These are the rules that will ensure the success of your prospecting campaign, and it is therefore important to know them:

1. Introduce yourself : you can therefore give your name, position and the company for which you work. If you have already communicated with the prospect on LinkedIn or at a commercial event, we can also remind him to help him recognize us.

2. Choose an email subject that arouses interest : the idea is to make the prospect want to open the email, so you have to be explicit enough without revealing everything right away.

3. Remain concise and impactful. It is crucial to know how to attract attention from the first lines to ensure that prospects read the entire email: a Hundreds of words should be enough to generate interest.

4. Add value to messages : personalization and catchy formulas are a good way to arouse the curiosity of the interlocutor without boring him. The goal is not to sell him a product in a single email, that's why you have to avoid running a sales script.

5. Use a call to action : obviously, each email must encourage a next action, whether it is a contact or a visit to a website. The CTA must therefore be clear and brief, but also include a hypertext link or invite a direct response.

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How to measure the performance of a cold email?

La performance of cold email campaigns can be measured using 5 concrete data:

- The opening number 

- The number of clicksc which corresponds to the number of times that prospects have visited your website or opened a specific page from a CTA in the email.

- The conversion rate, which calculates the number of times prospects have taken a particular action as a result of an email, such as a purchase, event registration, or brochure download

- The number of responses Received

- The number of emails listed as spam by messaging prospects.

The best software to send prospecting emails

Shandy is an emailing tool that allows you toimprove your prospecting campaigns : it helps to personalize emails and improve their writing while analyzing the results.

Woodpecker is also a good tool to adopt for increase the quality of your emails and assess their performance.

Finally, Yesware allows you to manage a campaign in real time and to monitor the opening, response and conversion data of emails from Gmail or Outlook.

What are the alternatives to cold emailing?

Cold emailing is obviously not the only way to prospect. Les prospecting campaigns are also generally done using other methods such as cold calling, meetings during commercial events or door-to-door.

There are also more indirect commercial techniques, which should be preferred for long-term results: a good online presence as well as creating relevant content on LinkedIn or via a blog allow the generation of leads interested in the company's activity.

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FAQ: Cold Emailing

What is the purpose of emailing?

The aim is to achieve a first contact with a prospect to present the company and its activity to him. It's a good way to get him interested and excited. Suggest to exchange more by phone or to meet to give him, in a second step, more details and answer his questions in the hope of signing a sale.

What is the subject of an email?

The subject of an email corresponds to his titre : it's what comes first when you receive an email. He should be neat and eye-catching to make the recipient want to open it.

What is the average click rate in e-mailing?

On average, We are around 1.60 to 3.06%. Above 3.06% it is considered that this is a good percentage, and above 6.46% it is an excellent performance.

What is a good newsletter click rate?

The figures are in the vicinity of those mentioned above. It is estimated thatbelow 1.60% the performance is poor or even bad.

What is a good deliverability rate?

In France, it is estimated that 95% of emails reach their destination. For the remaining 5%, the sender is usually alerted by an error message at the time of sending.

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