20 Best Cold Email Outreach Practices To Improve Sales

Top 20 Cold Email Outreach Strategies to Boost Sales

Being in sales requires you to connect with people and 8 in 10 prospects prefer talking to reps over email. That’s why you have to put in efforts to grab the prospects’ attention to draw them towards your product or service through email. Only then it is possible to make maximum conversions. However, to do so, you have to follow some email outreach practices.

Do the strategies you follow currently give you the desired outcome? If not, it is time to adopt a few new ones and relearn how to do email outreach if you want to see an increase in your sales figures. 

What Is Email Outreach?  

Email outreach is all about reaching out to people through email, especially in sales, to turn potential leads into customers. It’s an essential skill if you want to stand out from the competition. When done right, email outreach can be incredibly effective with just a solid strategy behind it.

Benefits
Great ROI: For every dollar spent, you can see an average return of $38—talk about a fantastic return on investment.

Cost-Effective: It’s a low-cost method that helps generate quality leads without breaking the bank.

Build Relationships: Even if you’re contacting someone you don’t know yet, there’s a strong chance you can form a meaningful connection and make a sale.

Boost Sales: Using the right outreach strategies and tools can enhance your sales efforts and lead to more conversions.

Effective Campaigns: With the best practices and email outreach software, you can run campaigns that really hit the mark.

By focusing on the best email outreach strategies and tools, you can make your emails stand out and achieve impressive results.

Is Cold Emailing Illegal?

Is Cold Emailing Illegal

There is a misconception that outreach emails are spam, primarily because some marketers send a high volume of generic emails without personalizing them or ensuring relevance. This often happens in email marketing outreach where the focus is on quantity over quality.

Email outreach is completely legal and effective when done correctly, as long as you meet these key requirements:

Personalization and Relevance: Ensure the email is personalized and includes a suitable subject line. Tailoring your message increases its relevance and impact.

Transparency: Include the sender’s name and complete contact details, making the email feel genuine and trustworthy.

Value Addition: Your email should offer something of value to the recipient and focus on building trust rather than just pushing for a purchase.

Compliance: Follow the email outreach best practices and legal guidelines such as GDPR and the CAN-SPAM Act to maintain legitimacy.

For effective email outreach, leveraging the best email outreach tools, software, and strategies will help you craft well-targeted outreach sales emails that stand out and adhere to outreach best practices. By focusing on personalized and relevant content, you can run successful email outreach campaigns and avoid the pitfalls of cold outreach methods.

Importance Of Email Outreach

Wondering why outreach for sales is important? You have to focus on it because cold outreach campaigns has several benefits to offer.

Improve Coordination In the Team

An email outreach tool is essential for keeping your team organized and working seamlessly together. By centralizing communication and providing a shared platform for managing outreach efforts, it ensures that everyone is aligned with the same goals and strategies. This not only reduces confusion but also enhances collaboration, making it easier for team members to coordinate their efforts and share valuable insights.

Easy Reporting System

One of the major advantages of using an email outreach tool is its reporting capabilities. These tools often come with user-friendly dashboards and reporting features that allow you to easily track and analyze the performance of your email campaigns. You can generate detailed reports on key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and response rates, making it simpler to evaluate the effectiveness of your outreach and make data-driven decisions.

Tracking Of Emails

Tracking is a crucial feature of email outreach tools. They enable you to monitor how your emails are performing in real-time. You can see who is opening your emails, which links they are clicking, and how they are engaging with your content. This information helps you understand recipient behavior, optimize your email content, and tailor your follow-ups to improve engagement and conversion rates.

Helps In Strategy Building

An email outreach tool helps you build and refine your outreach strategy by providing valuable insights into campaign performance. By analyzing data such as response rates and engagement trends, you can identify what’s working and what needs adjustment. This strategic perspective allows you to make informed decisions about your outreach tactics, enhance your approach, and better target your audience.

Enable Scope For Improvement

Continuous improvement is key to successful outreach, and an email outreach tool provides the feedback you need to achieve it. By highlighting areas of success and pinpointing aspects that may need improvement, these tools offer actionable insights that enable you to fine-tune your strategies. This iterative process helps you adapt to changing trends, optimize your outreach efforts, and achieve better results over time.

20 Best Email Outreach Practices

Here are the email outreach best practices that you can use to get more sales and brand awareness.

1. Pursue the right prospects

Pursue the right prospects

As a salesperson, it is crucial to put your time and efforts in the right direction. It would be best if you went behind the right leads, and for that, you have to analyze which of the prospects are worth pursuing. It is one of the basic email outreach practices.

While most often, the policy is to rope in the maximum number of prospects possible, it doesn’t work the way you would expect it to. If you go behind any lead without a solid strategy at hand, there will be a disappointment. The number of deals without a future will be more, and you won’t feel motivated enough.

First, you have to find out what an ideal prospect looks like. And then follow the prospects that fit into that definition. This way, you will get your hands on prospects that will help you in achieving your goal.

2. Be buyer-centric

You have to be more buyer-centric in your approach. Nobody will have interest in your sales pitch unless and until there is something in it for them too. Draft the email in such a way that it focuses on what’s in store for the buyer. It has to be more about building solutions.

When you talk about the features, you are seller-centric, and when you choose to speak about the benefits, you are buyer-centric.

It would be great to highlight the buyer-centric message in a different color to make the distinction evident.

Example –

If you are emailing a company wishing to help them with your product, begin with the following lines:

I learned that your company is expanding its sales team and you would need <product/services>

3. Say no to templates

When you use templates for a cold email the recipient would immediately understand that and lose interest in you. 

While follow-up email templates are convenient when you have to email 1000s of people, they turn the recipient off. It may be challenging to craft emails exclusively for every prospect, but you can do at least something to personalize the emails

You must make the other person feel that you are talking to them, and you can do that by using their first name, name of their company, job title and industry. It may seem like extra work, but it will all be worth it as people will want to respond to your email. It is one of the best email outreach practices to get more sales.

4. Keep the subject line short

One of the most critical email outreach tips is having a short and compact subject line. If you write very lengthy ones, the email service provider will shorten them, and that would leave you with only half of what you want to convey. To avoid your subject lines from getting truncated, you should keep them short. You can also use SalesBlink’s Free Subject line generator

Here’s how you write them whilst conveying the message you want to:

5 steps to <goal> with <product or service>

Hire easy with a 5-point checklist

5. Use a person’s name as the sender name

The first thing that the recipient will notice in your cold email is the name of the sender. If it is from an email address like noreply@xyzcompany.com or sales@xyzcompany.com, the recipient will ignore your email. 

After all, why should somebody have an interest in generic company addresses? It is evident that it is a marketing email asking you to buy a product or service.

If you don’t want your email to end up in the trash folder, you have to use a person’s name as the sender’s name. The chances of people opening an email from ‘Ashy Garry’ are higher than the ones from sales@xyzcompany.com. 

6. Give importance to the opening sentence

Your cold email’s first sentence is as important as the sender’s name and subject line. There are emails service providers that provide a preview of the email in the inbox. Some ESPs also let you create your message for the preview. If this is so with your ESP, don’t miss out on this opportunity. You can use the urgency tactic here so that recipients open your email.

Here are is an example for you:

example of an email opening line sentence
Source

7. Create a sense of urgency

The emails with subject lines that create a sense of urgency will have higher open rates. The main reason people don’t actively respond to cold emails is that they feel that they can do that later on. You can counter this tendency to procrastinate by crafting your subject line in such a way that it creates a sense of urgency. 

Here are a few examples of how you can put this email outreach tip to use:

Last chance to avail 50% discount on our premium plan!

Special offer (40% off) ends tomorrow.

You can use words like ‘Hurry’, ‘expiring’, ‘limited time’ to create urgency.

8. Stay to the point

Nobody has an interest in reading long essays about your product or services. You must understand that you are reaching out to busy people who don’t have all day to read your email. It is vital to keep your message short and simple while being to the point.

In other words, don’t beat around the bush in your emails, or else they will be in the trash folder. Start your email with a catchy subject line, talk about the recipients’ pain points, show how your product or service can help and create a good impression about yourself clearly and concisely.

9. Use active voice

When you draft the message, make sure that what you want to say is in active voice and direct. It is like speaking straight to the prospect by using their name. The email should be easy to read and make you sound confident. Also, an active voice is better because the message is more concise and easy to understand.

Example: Instead of beginning with a line like – ‘You have been contacted in connection with setting a meeting ….”, use the following – “I am reaching out to you for …”. 

You can easily see the difference in both tones.

10. Keep a tab on your email frequency

The most important thing to keep in mind in cold email outreach is the frequency of your emails. You shouldn’t email the prospect daily or once in 2 days. Doing so will send your mails to the spam folder and even annoy the prospect.

The thumb rule is to keep a gap of at least 2 days between emails but not exceed 7. The ideal pace would be 3-4 days between every email.

11. Bring in some personalization

Bring in some personalization

There are certain things that you need to bear in mind while drafting your emails. You have to make changes to your message based on which segment of the audience you are targeting. Your email has to sound relevant to the prospects you are getting in touch with. Creating templates for different audiences will be a good outreach email strategy.

With SalesBlink, adding personalization elements to outreach email at scale is possible. Now, you won’t have to work on each email manually and personalize it. This is possible with the help of macros or placeholders that you can add to your template. And that’s not all; you can even personalize images with SalesBlink.

Take a look at it below. Every email you send will have the first name of the prospect inside the image, making them feel special.

SalesBlink image personalization

You have to show that you are on top of trends related to the prospect’s industry. This is one of the email outreach practices that make you look genuine.

You can do so by highlighting your recent work in the prospect’s industry or mentioning a piece of breaking news in their industry related to your product or service. This tactic works in making you seem trustworthy. The prospect will think that you know what you are talking about and understand their needs.

13. Add a CTA

In your email, you have to mention a strong CTA (Call to action). While this may seem obvious, email marketers send cold emails without telling the prospect what to do next.

After talking about your strengths and addressing the prospect’s pain points, you have to include a strong CTA. It can be a simple reply, scheduling a call, a meeting or a demo. If you mention the call to action clearly, you can expect the prospect to respond to you.

14. Add a video

Leverage the immense popularity of videos in your outreach. Though there is nothing a one-on-one meeting with your prospect in person is the best, a video is a good idea too. You can get in touch with people living in different geographical locations and time zones with videos.

But does creating videos require you to have a huge budget? Not really. There are free tools to help you out in creating videos without you having to make any investments.

You can come up with convincing video prospecting that connect with the audience without spending money. Just keep the content good enough, and you can close more deals.

15. Use another medium to get in touch

Use another medium to get in touch

Emails are an affordable and easy way to reach out to prospects, but if you go one step ahead, contact the prospect through another channel and see how you get better results.

For instance, you can call the prospect if you have their phone number. Just ask them whether they got your emails and how you can be of help to them. You can also send them a physical brochure or pamphlet if you have their mailing address. It will help in making you look genuinely interested in the prospect.

16. Avoid Starting With Conversation

How would it feel when an absolute stranger comes to you and asks you how you are? It would seem odd, right? That is precisely what happens with cold emails.

Asking someone ‘How are you?’ out of the blue looks rather bizarre. As you don’t know the person already, you mustn’t begin your conversation in such a way. If you do so, the prospect would understand that you are just trying to sell them something.

What looks better is to start with a relevant question and a quick introduction of yourself. Look for exciting ways to get the ball rolling and stay away from pleasantry in the first email.

17. Mention about competition

It is one of the most advanced email outreach practices.

Knowing well about your competitors can go a long way in helping you plan a better marketing strategy. It will help you understand what you need to do to stand out in the crowd.

That doesn’t mean that you should show the competitor in poor light. Bashing rival companies only means that you are not strong enough, and prospects are more likely to move away from you.

You can instead mention how different your product or service is from that of your competitors. State the unique features of your product or service without putting others down. The prospect would want to know how good your product or service is and not how useless someone else’s is. Give them a solid reason to choose you over others.

18. Add value instead of pitching

Most email marketers pitch prospects regularly, and it gets difficult to set yourself apart from them. Adding value will work. Prospects always look for what is in store for them, and if you offer something of value, they will likely choose you. Get into the shoes of the prospects and see how your offer will benefit them.

It can be anything like a free ebook, a tutorial to resolve their issue or any other freebie that would be useful to them.

19. Test your emails before sending them to prospects

There is nothing more annoying than poorly formatted emails. First things first, test your emails by sending them to your colleagues and see how they look. This is one of the most important email outreach practices to help you succeed. You should send emails to prospects only after you are completely satisfied by their look.

20. Leverage sales outreach tools

Automation is the key when you speak of cold email marketing. Your job would become easy with a sales outreach tool. You can automate initial conversations and follow-ups with prospects using this tool. As a salesperson, you will see a lot of spark in your working style with increased productivity. Also, the mundane nature of your job will get a fresh lease of life with amazing results.

After knowing about the best sales outreach emails, let’s move to the mistakes to avoid. But before that read sales motivational quotes if you lack the drive.

If you’re diving into cold email outreach, you need a tool that not only manages your campaigns but also makes your life easier. SalesBlink stands out as one of the best cold email outreach tools available, offering a suite of features designed to streamline your efforts and boost your results. Here’s a look at what makes SalesBlink a top choice and how it can benefit your outreach strategy:

1. Personalization

SalesBlink shines when it comes to personalization. The tool allows you to tailor each email to individual prospects, enhancing engagement and response rates. With features like dynamic placeholders and customizable templates, you can ensure that every email feels personal and relevant, addressing each recipient’s unique needs and interests.

2. Automation

One of SalesBlink’s standout features is its automation capabilities. From initial outreach to follow-ups, the tool automates repetitive tasks, freeing up your time for more strategic activities. This automation ensures that no prospect is left behind, helping you maintain consistent communication without the manual effort.

3. Easy Tracking

Tracking the performance of your cold email campaigns is crucial for refining your strategy. SalesBlink offers intuitive tracking features that let you monitor open rates, click-through rates, and other key metrics. This easy tracking helps you understand what’s working and where adjustments are needed, allowing for continuous improvement in your outreach efforts.

4. Reporting

In-depth reporting is another key benefit of SalesBlink. The tool provides detailed reports on your email campaigns, offering insights into performance trends and effectiveness. These reports help you analyze your outreach efforts, measure success, and make data-driven decisions to enhance future campaigns.

5. Cost-Effective

SalesBlink is designed to be cost-effective, offering various pricing plans to fit different budgets. Its robust features come at a price that won’t break the bank, making it an excellent choice for businesses of all sizes looking to maximize their outreach without overspending.

6. Scheduling Email

Timing is everything in email outreach, and SalesBlink makes scheduling a breeze. You can set up emails to be sent at optimal times, ensuring they reach your prospects when they’re most likely to engage. This scheduling feature helps you maintain a steady flow of communication while avoiding the pitfalls of timing missteps.

7. Unified Inbox

Managing replies from multiple outreach campaigns can be challenging, but SalesBlink’s unified inbox simplifies this process. It consolidates responses from all your email campaigns into a single, organized interface, making it easier to manage and respond to prospect interactions promptly.

8. Pricing

SalesBlink offers a starting price of $25 per month, making it a cost-effective solution for your email outreach needs. With various pricing plans, you can find an option that fits your budget and requirements.

Steps To Perform Successful Email Outreach With SalesBlink.

1. Sign Up on SalesBlink

To get started with SalesBlink, you’ll need to create an account. Go to the SalesBlink website and click on the “Sign Up” button. Fill in your details and follow the prompts to set up your account. Once you’re signed up, you’ll have access to all the tools and features needed for effective email outreach.

2. Set Up Your Outreach Campaign

After signing up, it’s time to set up your outreach campaign. Start by defining your target audience. SalesBlink allows you to create detailed buyer personas, so you can tailor your message to the right people. Import or manually add your list of prospects, ensuring you have accurate and up-to-date information.

3. Craft Your Email Sequence

Now comes the creative part—writing your emails. Think about the journey you want your prospects to take. Begin with a compelling subject line that grabs attention. Your opening line should be engaging and relevant to your audience. Follow up with a clear, concise message that highlights the value you offer. End with a strong call to action.

4. Personalize Your Outreach

SalesBlink offers personalization features that allow you to customize your emails based on the recipient’s profile. Use these features to include personal details or references that make your email feel less generic and more tailored to the individual recipient.

5. Automate Your Follow-Ups

Set up automated follow-up emails to increase your chances of getting a response. SalesBlink allows you to create a series of follow-ups that will be sent automatically if you don’t get a reply to your initial email. This keeps your outreach consistent without requiring constant manual effort.

6. Track Your Campaign’s Performance

Once your campaign is live, monitor its performance using SalesBlink’s analytics tools. Track metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and response rates. This data helps you understand what’s working and what needs improvement.

7. Optimize and Refine

Based on the performance data, make adjustments to your email content and strategy. Test different subject lines, email formats, and calls to action to see what resonates best with your audience. Continuously refining your approach will help you achieve better results over time.

8. Engage and Build Relationships

Email outreach isn’t just about making a sale; it’s about building relationships. Respond to replies promptly and engage with your prospects in a meaningful way. Personal interactions and follow-ups can turn a cold lead into a warm prospect.

By following these steps, you’ll be well on your way to executing successful email outreach campaigns with SalesBlink.

Cold Email Outreach Mistakes to Avoid

Cold Email Outreach Mistakes to Avoid

Now that you know about the email outreach practices that work well in acquiring leads, it is time to look at the mistakes that most salespeople commit, and you must steer clear of them if you really want your email outreach campaign to be successful.

1. Giving lengthy introductions

It is now well known that the recipient is not interested in who you are and which company you work for. That means there is no need to give long introductions; you can just get to the point straight away. What prospects care about is what you have in store for them. It usually works when you show prospects how your solution saves time and money. 

2. Keeping the tone too formal

You may be an expert in your industry, but you needn’t show that to the prospect. Try to keep the jargon aside and focus on using a conversational tone throughout the email. Write as though you are meeting the prospect in person and are explaining what your solution can do for them. If you are unsure how it sounds, get the email read by your team member before you hit the send button.

3. Adding more than one CTA

It is quite natural to add multiple CTAs in the cold email, thinking that the prospect may take at least one action. But that is not usually the case. It would help if you only tried to add one CTA per email, or the prospect would not do anything. 

4. Not proofreading your email

Spelling and grammar mistakes will make you look unprofessional and drive the prospect away from you. It is therefore important to check the email once before you send it. It would be even better to get it to proofread by another team member

5. Not following up

You’re mistaken if you think the prospect is not interested in you after getting no response to the first email. It usually takes several follow-ups to get the prospect’s nod. So, you have to follow up persistently if you want to see results. However, don’t end up stalking the prospect in your enthusiasm to follow up. 

Start Following The Email Outreach Practices

Email outreach is essential as it gives your product or service a wider exposure without a lot of investment. Craft cold emails the right way can give you the desired results. By taking a little extra time out for your cold email outreach strategy, you reap a lot of benefits. 

The email outreach practices mentioned above are the ones that would help you in making your email outreach stand out in the crowd. Leveraging the power of automated tools such as SalesBlink will make the whole process quite convenient.

Start implementing our suggestions and see the outcome.

You can thank us later.

FAQs

1. What is email outreach?

Email outreach is a simple process of connecting with people via email. In the world of sales, email outreach involves reaching out to the target audience to turn them into customers.

2. Is cold emailing illegal?

Email outreach is completely legal. For effective email outreach, you should send carefully crafted emails to prospects while keeping the guidelines of GDPR and the CAN-SPAM Act in mind.

3. Why is email outreach important?

Email outreach is essential as it gives your product or service wider exposure without a lot of investment. Crafting cold emails the right way can give you the desired results.

4. What is an outreach method?

An outreach method is a way to connect with people or organizations to build relationships or share information. It can include approaches like email, phone calls, or social media interactions, aimed at fostering meaningful connections.

5. Is outreach email spam?

No, outreach email isn’t spam when it’s relevant and personalized. Unlike spam, outreach emails are targeted and crafted to engage with specific individuals or groups in a meaningful way.

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