Cold emails are a powerful sales technique for your business!
When done right, it helps foster powerful relationships. A sales professional can turn these relationships into additional sales and boost growth.
A cold email introduces your brand or business to a recipient without any prior relationship. Cold emailing is not spamming, though it may seem like that. It is just a way of sparking a conversation.
But, understandably, writing a cold email that doesn’t turn into a spam or sales email is hard. Fortunately, by eliminating the most common cold email mistakes, salespeople can ensure their message resonates with potential prospects.
So, in this ultimate guide, we’ll shed light on those cold email mistakes and learn how you can fix those
Table of Contents
1. Sending Cold Emails to the Wrong Person
Sending emails to the wrong person or company will nullify email marketing efforts even before they get a chance. Company executives receive numerous emails daily. If the email is not explicitly addressed or relevant to them, they will either ignore it or delete it. Very few executives will pass it on to the right person.
What to do instead?
Take time out to research potential prospects, segment them, and email the right prospect. Double-check to ensure the recipient is the right person to email per the context behind your mail.
Sales professionals can access email finder tools like Hunter.io or breadcrumbs.io to discover prospect emails.
2. Lengthy Subject Line
The subject line can make or break a cold email. According to statistics, 64% of email recipients only open an email because of the subject line. So, it doesn’t matter how in-depth and effective the email campaigns might be if the subject line falls short – no one opens the mail or clicks through the CTA.
66% of emails are viewed on tablets or smartphones. So, too many words in the subject line won’t fit the mobile screen. (Gmail displays 70 characters in the subject line, while an iPhone accommodates only 41% of characters.) If people can’t read the subject line, they are unlikely to open the mail.
What to do instead?
Here are a few tips that will help to create a strong subject line:
- Keep it Short: Ensure that the subject line is below 60 characters.
- Personalize: Putting the recipient’s name in the subject line increases the probability of the email being opened.
3. Making the First Line About You
One of the most common cold email mistakes is to start the copy with your name, company info, and what you offer. While you are supposed to inform your prospects about those details, they will primarily read the email when they see something valuable for them.
Furthermore, avoid using generic opening lines such as “How you are doing today” or “Hope you are well.” These will only add dead weight to the email copy and risk sounding superficial.
What to do instead?
The email’s first line should be powerful enough to catch the receiver’s attention. To achieve this, salespeople must do sufficient searches about the company to make the email super-relevant. Try to bridge the distance by showing that you have tried to learn more about them.
4. Drafting a Long and Boring Email
As with email subject lines, keep the body of the cold mail short and to the point. Avoid turning the message into manuscripts about the business or product. B2B sales professionals will get to talk to the prospects and explain their brand once the person responds.
What to do instead?
Remember, if you’re unable to grab the attention of the recipient in the first line, they won’t go beyond that. Ideally, the email length should not exceed 100 to 150 words.
5. Writing Emails Heavy on Sales Content
A cold email aims to start a conversation with a business and explore opportunities for collaboration or sales. However, the initial message should not be loaded with sales tactics – like listing the product’s features without informing potential prospects how your product or service benefits them.
What to do instead?
Always try to place the recipients first. Think about how your product or service can add value to their lives. The best way to write the most effective cold email is to discover prospects’ pain points and concerns. Then, highlight their problem in the message and show how your business can help them.
6. Forgetting to Add a CTA
Most businesses focus on coming up with their email body and subject and forget to add a CTA. While a well-crafted subject line with an engaging body is bound to pique recipient’s interest, a clear Call-to-Action will help to increase response rates.
That said, marketers or salespeople should avoid adding various CTAs into the content to compel prospects to at least choose one. Multiple CTAs usually make the content spammy and upset the client more.
What to do instead?
Develop a single CTA that tells the clients about the next step. An email with a single CTA increased clicks by 371% and sales by 1617%.
7. Not Including an Email Signature
One of the most common cold email mistakes is not including an email signature that supports the sender’s credibility. Think of them like electronic business cards. A lack of one can reduce the potential prospect’s trust in your organization and make the email seem an amateurish attempt.
What to do instead?
Every basic email signature must include the name, title, phone number, and company website link. Also, include a photo of yourself or the company’s logo to make the B2B email look more recognizable and personal.
8. Lack of Proper Formatting
Most salespeople believe that adding colorful images, non-standard fonts, bolded sentences or HTML text will improve the appeal of the cold email and push the recipient to read it. However, these gimmicks typically draw the attention of spam filters instead of prospects.
Receivers may find such promotional and may end up blocking the email address.
What to do instead?
A cold email must read similarly to a normal email written by a person, certainly not by a business. Avoid decorating the mail or using common styles and fonts for newsletters or other sale material.
9. Not Personalizing your Email Template
Do not share the same cold message with everybody. It is simple: personalized emails have higher acceptance rates than generic ones.
The basic principle of a prospecting email is to personalize it to let the recipient know that you’re interested in them and understand their business problems. When a sales professional genuinely attempts to learn about a company before contacting them through cold calling, they show potential prospects that they are worth their time.
What to do instead?
Creating a cold email for different prospects may take time, but the results are worth the effort. To personalize the email, include the person’s name, throw in their business name or work title, and mention anything specific you know about them.
10. Not Following Up
Most salespeople make the mistake of not following up with their clients. Prospects tend to forget them easily or may disregard them as junk. It is also possible that the prospect might have gone through the cold email but forgot.
Therefore, sales professionals must always share follow-up emails to remind the recipients of the previous mail.
What to do instead?
The cold email campaign should consist of at least five email sequences. And with automation, this has become incredibly convenient. Marketers or sales professionals can easily schedule a time and day to share emails with potential prospects with email automation software solutions such as Mail Chimp, Sales Blink, or Outreach.
Studies further show that the best time to send cold emails is between 8 to 11 am in the receiver’s time zone.
11. Sending Too Many Emails at Once
Sending across many emails at once is one of the most common cold email mistakes that spoil the deliverability rates. Moreover, email providers will notice the high volume of messages and think the sender is spamming people. As a result, some of your cold emails will not reach the right inboxes, reducing your conversion rates.
What to do instead?
The marketer or salespeople should limit themselves to 200 cold emails daily. If they send more, they will risk getting their account turned off by email providers.
Remember that you have to engage in follow-ups as well. So, if you have created a four-email sequence and use automation to share messages – it is best to email not more than 50 prospects daily.
12. Not Optimizing Your Strategy
A common mistake marketers and sales professionals make is developing a cold email strategy without studying its key metrics. Notably, businesses won’t succeed with every cold email tactic available because each of them serve a unique audience. Some tricks, practices or tips they have read online will fall short. When that happens, they need to eliminate those from the sales book.
What to do instead?
Analyze the approach to cold email regularly. Find answers to questions such as – Are your messages getting opened? Are you reaching out to the right leads? Are your CTA’s getting clicked? Whatever is not working, eliminate that and implement new tactics. Experiment with different cold mailing tricks to find out what works.
Summing Up
So, looking for qualified leads and sales?
Make certain that you’re not falling into these listed cold email mistakes. Never email the wrong person; do not start the mail by making it about yourself.
Personalize the cold email by adding the recipient’s name and business and focusing the content on addressing their problems. Ensure you include one CTA and email signature and follow up on time with recipients. Study and analyze the cold email strategy metrics to understand what is working and what needs to go.
Once you remove or fix these mistakes, the cold email strategy will dramatically improve the open and conversion rate!
