When you're sending out cold emails, you have to ensure that your emails are as warm as possible. This means using words that are relevant to the recipients, avoiding mistakes, and ensuring that your emails look professional.
To help you make your emails look the part, we've put together a list of 15 tips that will improve your odds of getting a response, or at least an acknowledgement. By following these tips, you can significantly boost the chance of your emails being answered, and even get some great feedback.
Find the tip that will help you to stand out and use it today!
1. Personalise the subject line
When someone scans through their email inboxes to find relevant emails, they are looking for something specific. With this in mind, you can bet that your subject line will make a massive difference to your email's readability. Although email marketing campaigns get a bad rap for being boring and lacking creativity, you have complete control over the message within your email.
With an endless number of possible subject lines to choose from, you can experiment to find the one that performs best. Once you've found it, you'll be able to apply it to all of your future emails.
2. Write a compelling opening line
Your opening line plays a crucial role in getting your email read and processed by your audience. To create a compelling opening line, first consider what will make your reader interested in your email's content. Having a hook or intriguing headline will grab the attention of your reader and compel them to want to know more.
Then you can develop the story further in the body of the email. You can use a hook to attract the reader back to your content, or you can use the story itself to drive the point home. Whatever you use, make sure that it draws the reader into the content and compels them to want more.
3. Choose your words carefully
When you're writing your email, you have to ensure that the meaning is not lost in translation. This is why you need to be very careful with your choice of words; you don't want to use words that might confuse your readers. Even a slight change in the word order or the use of a different word can create a completely different meaning. You can't expect your readers to know the meaning of every word, so it's your responsibility to give them sufficient context.
4. Keep your email concise
Short and sweet doesn't mean weak or inferior, it just means that you've kept your email concise. According to HubSpot Blogs research, 80% of people read an e-mail and then delete it without reading it completely. If you want to keep your email's readability and engagement levels high, keep things short and sweet. Forcing yourself to write a longer email could potentially confuse the reader and cause them to lose interest.
5. Use action verbs
Action verbs are used to describe actions that you take, so if you want to gain readers' attention and keep them engaged, use words that they are more likely to understand. For example, instead of using the word "think," you can say, "Based on what you told us, we think that..." Or, instead of “significantly”, you can use “highly” or “mainly”. These are just a few examples of how you can use action verbs to make your email more engaging. If you want to use the verb “to want”, you could say “I'd like you to consider…”
6. Make the first sentence in your email clear and concise
The first sentence of your email is arguably the most important. It's the first line that a reader sees, so it needs to leave an impression. To ensure that this first sentence is effective, use active, declarative language and avoid “bare” assertion. Your first sentence should give the reader the impression that your email is going to be interesting, relevant, and worth reading.
7. Use specific details
People are more interested in specific details than they are in sweeping generalisations. For example, if you want to sell cars, you can write, “We want to sell your car”, or “We're selling cars”. These are both correct, but the first one is much more specific and will therefore be more effective. Specific details will engage your reader more effectively than broad generalisations will.
8. Personalise the signature
Your signature is a brief statement or remark that you include at the end of your email. Since your signature is going to be the last thing your reader sees before discarding your email, it needs to leave an impression. You can bet that your signature will be more effective if it is tailored to the email's content. For example, if you are writing an email to introduce yourself to a potential employee, you can include keywords from your email's content in your signature. This is a great way to gain authenticity and match your signature with the email content.
9. Make hyperlinks relevant
Since your email's content is mainly words on a screen, it's very easy for a reader to get distracted by a link that isn't relevant to what they are reading. If you want to engage your readers, make sure that all of the links within your email are relevant to its content and don't just include generic links to your website.
10. Use visual aids
If you've got something to show your readers, why not include it in your email? Pictures in an email not only engage your readers more effectively, but they also allow you to include more details than you could ever fit in text.
11. Create an interest level
Your email's opening line, the article's headline, and the first few sentences are there to create an interest level. The rest of the email is then used to either continue the interest level created, or to lower it. Create a hook that will keep your readers interested in what follows.
12. Use compelling words
If you want to keep your email open and compelling, use words that your readers are more likely to understand. Avoid using big words that you think that your audience will understand, but they might not. Instead, use words that capture your audience's attention.
13. Tailor your email for different audiences
Your email's tone and language will change according to whom you are sending it to. To ensure that your email looks like it was custom-made for the person or company you're addressing, tailor your language and approach to suit their interests. You can do this by using keywords from their industry and company, and by ensuring that your email follows a logical flow and contains relevant content.
14. Don't be afraid to add a bit of humor
Humor is very effective when used in the right place and in the right way. If you want to add a bit of humor to your email, make sure that it is relevant to your message and to the recipient. Look for opportunities to jokily plug your products and services in a funny way, and use humor to make your emails more engaging.
15. Keep your email's layout simple
Simplicity is a virtue. Designing an email to be as minimalist as possible will make it easier for your readers to understand and retain information. While minimalism can be effective when used effectively, a lot can go wrong if you aren't careful. You don't want to end up with a cluttered email that is difficult to follow and difficult to understand. Keep your emails simple and make them easy to read. Ensure that there aren't any unexpected elements that might cause the reader to have to pause or go back and re-read parts of the email.
For those who use their email account for cold emails, warming up your account is essential. Email warmup is a process that takes time and requires effort to be done correctly. To start, you should create a “cold email” folder in your mailbox and move all of your emails related to cold emails into that folder. This will ensure that your contact list is organized and that you don’t get any unwanted emails. You should also verify your email address with the contact list you are going to use. Once you have done that, you can start sending out small batches of emails to your contacts. Make sure that the emails you send are personalized and written to the individual they are addressed to. Additionally, keep the email size small so that your contacts have an easier time opening the email. When you have sent out a few emails and successfully connected with your contacts, you can start increasing the number of emails you send. Warming up your email account is essential for cold emails, and it should be done slowly to build trust between you and your contacts.
