My friend is in a business development role at a marketing agency across town; she hates her life with a passion. She spends her entire day on the phone cold calling people. These people want no part of talking to my friend on the phone. I hate talking on the phone, so this is something I understand completely.
Wanting to help, I asked her if she ever considered a cold emailing system instead? Her answer was “no, that can’t work I need to talk to these people to sell them our services.” This idea that cold calling is the only way is something I hear quite often. To change that, I decided to write this blog to show how you can write the perfect Cold B2B Email that will get responses and results for your business.
Consider that only 1% of cold calls result in meetings. Did you know that a staggering 90% of B2B decision makers don’t respond to cold calling outreach at all?
Think about how over five people are now involved in the average B2B buying decision for a company. To make sales you are going to need to do more than just cold call.
Why Email?
- Email has a 3800% ROI on average
- You can control branding and message through email
- Email allows you to segment and personalize
- Email allows you to build relationships
- Email allows you to retain customers instead of always acquiring new ones
- There are 4.3 billion email addresses and growing in the world…
- With new Facebook algorithm, only 3% of your audience see’s your content; you can no longer rely on social to promote content
With your emails, you have control to be persuasive and get people to take action.
It’s easier to connect and build trust with emails. The sky can be the limit if you are writing great emails to a cold prospect. To write that great email, you need to follow five steps to your future success.
Who is this?
This starts with your subject line. The subject line you write is the key that will open doors or in this case emails. You need to spend a considerable percentage of your time crafting a subject line that is exciting, but credible. Your subject line should intrigue recipients. Think about these points when crafting your subject line:
- Tell don’t sell
- Be Descriptive
- Make it local, or personal
- Aim for 50 characters or less ( so it fits on all device screen sizes )
- Avoid all caps and exclamations
- Always A/B test your headlines
After you write that compelling subject line that gets them to open up, next you expand on that same line. The “lead” in your email is a point of elaboration. All of this explains who you are, how you will be their point of contact from this point on.
Why should I keep reading?
This is where you present the opportunity. What is the value proposition for their company? In this, you should be hitting their pain points, or solving their fears, frustrations, and desires. In our case this usually looks something like:
“Hi, my name is Brandon Evans, I help companies solve, (blank), (blank), and (blank)”
Can you be trusted?
One of the biggest barriers with cold emailing is trust. One way to alleviate that problem is to provide social proof. If you don’t have credibility or experience why would they work with you? Mentioning similar companies to the company you are sending to can help solve some of this stress, and give them an idea of the level of work you are producing. For us this looks like:
“Some of my clients include (blank), (blank), and (blank).”
Clear next steps
The final step is clearly showing, or telling what you want them to do. In other words a clear call-to-action, where you keep it simple and only ask them to do one thing. In reality, this is the most important part of the body. You should be making it very easy for them to take action. So make your call to action a link that they can click, and make sure it visibly stands out from the rest of your body.
Above all else remember to keep your emails simple, and conversational. You are building a relationship with a human being, so concentrate on that, not just the potential sale. This is a template for you to communicate better with a new customer, not a template to fire off thousands of emails a day.
If you are interested in digging deeper into cold emailing contact Boldthink, and we can show you the way.
Guest post by Brandon Evans, Digital Strategist For Boldthink Creative. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Brandon has recently purchased an Apple Watch, so he’s totally that guy now. He grew up going to punk and hardcore shows and playing in bands. Some think he has taken lots of hits to his head while moshing. But it has turned him into the winner he is today. He’s also the best office Spotify DJ that money can buy.
During the day, you can catch him diving into analytic reports and writing. Brandon is often yelling,“The road to hell is paved with adverbs!” in the office hallway. He stole it from Stephen King, but his workmates let him have it. He often comes in to work limping from playing soccer, and hurting himself celebrating goals at Indy Eleven games.
