Top 10 Cold Email Marketing Tips to Boost Conversions

Cold email marketing is a strategy businesses often use to talk to potential customers who haven’t interacted with their brand.

Unlike traditional email marketing, cold email marketing targets people who are not yet part of an established customer base. 

So, cold emailing is about sending unsolicited messages to this group.

The purpose of a cold email is to introduce a product or service to people who haven’t tried it yet. The email will highlight the benefits of such a product or service. The ultimate goal is to convince the reader to act: purchase the product or service or, possibly, schedule a meeting.

Pros of Cold Email Marketing

Cold email marketing is a powerful tool. But just like any powerful tool,  it comes with the good and the bad. To build an effective email marketing campaign, you will need to have a good idea of when cold emails work and when they don’t.

• Cost-effective: Cold email marketing is relatively inexpensive – especially when compared to other marketing channels. You won’t be spending money on ads or physical materials. And this minimal initial investment makes cold email marketing accessible for businesses of all sizes.
• Scalability: Cold email campaigns are easy to scale. With the right tools, you can reach a large number of potential customers quickly. Moreover, cold email marketing campaigns are flexible: they make it easy to adjust your approach based on the results you see.
• Targeted outreach: Cold emails can be highly targeted – especially when you commit to extensive market research and segmentation. And personalized communication can be very effective in keeping an audience engaged. 

• Measurable: Cold email campaigns are easily measurable. These are the metrics to look into: open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. Collect the data and then use it to optimize your campaigns.
• Direct contact: Cold emailing is your direct line to people you want to reach. Moreover, it makes the whole process  easy and straightforward, with no intermediaries involved. 

Cons of Cold Email Marketing

• Low response rates: One of the biggest problems with cold emailing is the person who goes on to receive your emails hasn’t really asked for them. As a result, cold emails tend to have lower open rates compared to other forms of marketing.
• Spam filters: Cold emails also run a high risk of being marked as spam. This can happen automatically if your email is marked as spam by the email service provider. The recipient of the email can also mark your email  as spam manually. Both of these actions will greatly reduce the effectiveness of your campaign.
• Legal and regulatory risks: Various countries have strict regulations governing unsolicited emails, such as GDPR in Europe and the CAN-SPAM Act in the United States. Non-compliance can lead to significant fines and reputational damage.
• Potential damage to brand reputation: If you don’t take the time to build a cold email campaign that brings value, your emails will most likely simply annoy recipients and damage your reputation as a sender. Keeping your emails personalized and relevant is essential. And this brings us to our next point.
• Resource intensive: Although sending emails is inexpensive, developing a successful cold email campaign will require an investment of time and resources. You will need to do proper research, create personalized messages, and manage follow-ups.

Cold Email Marketing Strategy

Cold email marketing has a lot of potential. It can generate leads, build new relationships, and more. But it needs to be done right. To leverage cold emails effectively, you will need to analyze all the pros and cons and continuously optimize your strategy based on the feedback you receive. 

Here are ten essential best practices to follow:

1. Choose the reliable email service provider (ESP)

The first step in building a successful cold email marketing campaign is to choose the appropriate email service provider. The ESP you go with should offer strong deliverability so that your emails consistently reach the people you send them to.

Look for an ESP that provides detailed analytics, A/B testing capabilities, and automation features. You will need these tools to keep an eye on the performance of your campaigns and optimize them based on feedback. Additionally, you should take the ESP’s reputation into account. Providers with a strong standing are less likely to be blacklisted by major email platforms.

2. Create an authentic email profile

To establish an authentic email profile, you need to use a professional email address. Ideally, this address should match your domain (e.g., yourname@yourcompany.com).

Make sure your email profile includes a real name and, if possible, a photo. 

3. Add an email signature

An email signature acts as a digital business card. It will appear at the bottom of all your emails by default. This signature should include your name, position, company, and contact information (phone number, website URL, etc.). It’s also a good idea to add social media links so that recipients can connect with you on various platforms. 

4. Set up email authentication

Email authentication protocols, such as SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance), are essential in verifying sender identity. 

These protocols help make sure that your emails aren’t flagged as spam or phishing attempts. Set up email authentication to significantly improve your email deliverability.

5. Set up a custom tracking domain

A custom tracking domain is a branded URL that is used to track the behavior of your email recipients. This includes opens, clicks, and forwards. When you use a custom tracking domain (instead of a generic one provided by your ESP), you can substantially improve your deliverability rates and build trust with your recipients. Custom tracking domains will make your links appear more trustworthy and less like spam. 

6. Warm up your email account

Warming up an email account basically means that you slowly increase the volume of emails sent from a new email account to build its reputation. Start with a low volume and slowly ramp up the numbers over several weeks. This will signal to email service providers (ESPs) that your email activity is legitimate and not spam. 

This step is particularly important for new email accounts. 

7. Verify emails before sending

Before you launch your email campaign, take some time to go through the email addresses on your list.  As you do so, get rid of invalid or non-existent emails – this is very important for reducing bounce rates and protecting your reputation as a sender.

High bounce rates can trigger ESPs to mark your emails as spam. And this will impact deliverability and the overall success of your campaign. If you don’t feel like cleaning your list manually, there are lots of email verification tools available online that can help you do this quickly.

8. Collect a high-quality email list

The quality of the email list is one of the key ingredients in the success of your email marketing efforts. Rather than purchasing lists, it’s best to focus on building them organically via your website, social media channels, and other customer touchpoints. 

Offer value in exchange for email sign-ups, such as free resources, webinars, or discounts. An organically grown list always comes with a higher level of engagement.

9. Pay attention to crafting your email content

The content of your email is what engages your audience and drives conversions. 

Spend a generous amount of time working out a compelling message. What you say should resonate with the people you want to interact with. Do your best to personalize the content of the email to what your recipients may be interested in.

Here are the essentials your email should include: 

• a clear and concise message,
• a compelling subject line, 
• and a strong call to action (CTA). 

High-quality content addresses the pain points of your recipients and gives them the much awaited solution. 

Stuck on where to begin? Check out the best cold email subject lines we’ve collected for you.

10. Use an email marketing service to send emails in bulk

If you plan to send a lot of emails, you will need to use an email marketing service.

These services offer tools for automation, segmentation, A/B testing, and analytics. They also come with features designed to improve deliverability: they can help you manage unsubscribe requests and keep to email sending best practices.

To Sum Up

To send quality cold emails, you will need a strategy. This strategy will need to include personalization and ongoing optimization. If you follow the ten essential best practices above, you run a very good chance of improving email deliverability. engagement, and building trust with those who receive your emails.