People often ask me how to improve their response rates to their email outreach. In this month’s guest post from Jonathan Allen, Jonathan shares 4 tips to ratchet up those prospect engagement scores. Jonathan is SaaS strategist and SalesLoft content specialist. Enjoy his post and please pass it on to everyone you know who sells something!
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How do you improve the response rate of your cold emails?
Considering that fewer than 24% of sales emails are opened, and only a small portion of these receive a response, it can be easy to assume that email simply doesn’t work for contacting prospects. But this isn’t the case. There are a plethora of businesses landing clients on a regular basis – purely through email.
The problem is not with the medium, but with the message.
So how do you set yourself apart? How do you develop a cold email strategy that delivers results, time and time again?
Although cold emails are still more of an art form than a science, there are specific steps you can take to improve the outcome of your outreach emails. Try using these 4 tips to get a better response to your cold emails.
1. Focus on the buyer’s needs
This may seem obvious, but you will be amazed at how many cold emails revolve around the sales rep’s need for a sale rather than the prospect’s need to solve a problem.
Cold emails are not advertisements featuring your latest products or deals, they’re an opportunity to connect with the buyer and present yourself as a viable partner capable of assisting them with one of the many challenges they currently face.
So take a moment to ask yourself what type of problems your buyer is facing, and then develop your email from this perspective. Share industry advice and tips, mention challenges that the industry is currently facing, and offer to provide free insights or advice if needed.
By making a simple effort to focus your email around the buyer’s needs, not only will you increase response rates, but those who respond will be sincerely interested in interacting with you and your organization.
2. Personalize each email
It doesn’t take much effort to make an email feel personal – even if it’s not 100% unique.
Instead of sending out the same generic email to every individual, from every organization, across every industry, find ways to personalize your emails so that each recipient feels recognized as an individual.
An easy way to do this is to integrate a tool like SalesLoft’s email tracking – which allows you to segmentize your audience and monitor responses. Rather than send the same email to everyone, set unique content for each industry, company, or other criteria that you establish.
By spending a few minutes to ensure that the individual’s name, company, job title, and other elements are in place, your cold emails will maintain an individualistic feel without consuming a substantial amount of time.
3. Include multiple types of media in your emails
An email doesn’t need to consist solely of a few lines of text. Instead, add additional value to the recipient by including other elements that make it personal, beneficial, and impactful.
What type of content can you include in your cold emails?
Any type!
Because people buy from people and not computers, consider making your cold emails warmer with a personalized video. Introduce yourself, your organization, and how you hope to benefit buyers. Not only will a video capture people’s attention, but it also gives you a face – immediately making the relationship more personal.
Meanwhile, consider including white papers, infographics, or reports that may offer additional value to your prospects. I’m not talking about promotional content that discusses your product – I mean practical and applicable content that will benefit the reader even if they don’t buy from you. You should certainly use this content to raise additional awareness of your company – but make it 100% focused on adding value to the buyer. This will substantially increase the response rate of your cold emails.
4. Track open rates and clicks – and A/B test everything
With the analytics available today, you should be constantly tracking and monitoring your open rates, clicks, and everything inbetween.
Experiment with titles, text, media, and other elements of your cold emails to discover the perfect concoction that maximizes your response rates. It’s amazing how just a slight adjustment to an email title can impact open rates! Meanwhile, tweaking the call-to-action can increase click-thru’s substantially.
Once you discover the best strategies for your cold email campaigns, take the best practices and A/B test to build upon them even further. When you discover a new best practice, integrate that into your future campaigns while continuing to A/B test additional elements.
Over time, you’ll develop the optimal cold email campaign for your organization and industry.
Conclusion
By integrating the tips above into your cold email outreach, not only will you discover a higher engagement rate with prospects, but you’ll develop a sales strategy that truly provides value to your buyers and the industries you support.
This will help establish your organization as a market thought leader – increasing your sales and developing a higher level of respect within the industries you operate.
About the Author
Jonathan Allen is a SaaS strategist and SalesLoft content specialist.
He has extensive experience in sales development, account management, and B2B strategy.
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