Marketing leads are often referred to as either “cold,” “warm,” or “hot.” Hot leads are most preferred, as they’re individuals who are interested in your brand and are close to making a purchasing decision. Warm leads are only a few steps behind. These individuals usually align with one of your buyer personas and have at least some level of interest in your brand.
Which brings us to cold leads. These people haven’t expressed interest in your brand. In fact, there’s a good chance they don’t even know you exist. Just as a cold shoulder feels different than a warm handshake, a cold lead is not yet a warm lead.
But that doesn’t mean you should give up hope. Every hot lead in your pipeline was once a cold lead. They just need to be warmed up.
This guide examines the problems associated with cold email marketing and then provides strategies for sparking a meaningful relationship with potential customers. Because offering value to someone so that they sign up to receive your emails will always be better than dropping a random message into their inbox unannounced.
So what is a cold email? The worst and best cold emails all share one thing in common: they’re received by someone who doesn’t have a connection to the person sending it. For this reason, cold email subject lines are usually introductory in nature. And the body text carries the burden of trying to convince a stranger that the sender is worthy of their business.
Here’s a cold email example to consider:
Hi Hannah,
I hope this email finds you well. My name is Jack Bingsley and I found your profile on LinkedIn and thought you’d be interested in my REVOLUTIONARY sales funnel strategy that is generating billions of dollars in business for my many clients.
Are you looking for MASSIVE growth? Millions of dollars in revenue, perhaps?
I am currently looking to take on just a few select clients, and after reviewing your LinkedIn profile, I’m confident that you are the perfect person to hear this message.
By the way, if there’s someone else in your organization who would be better for me to talk to, please forward this message to them.
Sincerely,
Jack
As you can see, cold email templates have more in common with door-to-door sales than they do with sales meetings. You probably get messages like this on a daily basis… and chances are good that you delete them immediately.
The problems with cold email marketing
Cold emails definitely have their supporters. After all, it’s enticing to use marketing strategies that aren't limited to your database of qualified leads. These cold emails are cheap to send and can act as a sort of trawling net, randomly moving through the ocean to occasionally catch a fish.
But cost-effectiveness and ease aren’t advantageous enough to make cold email worthwhile for your business. Let’s look at some of the drawbacks of this marketing strategy:
Impersonal: Even though it’s possible to add personalized details to a cold email, the results usually feel generic. Turns out that it’s hard to disguise the fact that the email you’ve just sent to a stranger was also sent to 5,000 other strangers.
Irrelevant: When you’re sending non-targeted messages to people you don’t know, it’s unlikely that you’re going to connect with their pain points.
Blocked by filters: Cold email deliverability is often low because the messages are detected by spam filters. If your deliverability rates take a hit, your ability to send targeted campaigns in the future could be impacted.
Possibly illegal: The CAN-SPAM Act isn’t something to be trifled with. Due to regulations and compliance issues, cold emails should be avoided because they can get you into trouble with the law.
Hurt your brand: Even if your cold emails aren’t snagged by spam filters or found to violate regulations, they often do damage to your brand. The recipients who delete your unwanted messages are forming opinions about who you are and how you do business. And negative opinions can last a long time.
While cold emailing isn’t a good idea, there definitely needs to be something in place that helps gather people to your brand. And once you’ve made initial contact, emails are an excellent way to educate them about your offerings and build trust.
These emails won’t be truly cold, as they’ll come after recipients have agreed to your terms and clicked the consent button. They will be tasked with helping people progress toward the warm and hot phases, where purchases are more likely.
It all starts with a good lead magnet. A lead magnet is a free item or service that is offered in exchange for the recipient’s contact information. You have likely signed up for multiple lead magnets in the past year, such as free software trials, loyalty programs, or white papers.
Make sure that your lead magnet provides legitimate value, as this is your crucial opportunity to build trust with people and leave them wanting more. Each time someone submits a form, your business gains:
A lead who knows about your brand
An understanding of what type of content the lead is interested in
An opportunity for the lead to opt in to your future emails
As your email list grows, segmentation becomes more important. Remember, your goal is to build trust and provide value to your leads. And segmentation is the secret ingredient that makes those goals attainable.
Start by identifying the common characteristics within your master list that will allow you to send relevant messages to a segment of people. For example, one segment might be based on geographic location. Others include:
Age
Marital status
Interests
Occupation
Purchase history
Targeting your messaging based on these categories improves the relevancy and helps establish a relationship with recipients. They’ll be less likely to opt out and more likely to progress toward your desired conversions.
Regular maintenance is required to keep your lists in prime condition. The fact is that your lists begin degrading the moment they are assembled, as people enter incorrect information or end up changing their email addresses. Sending messages to invalid addresses will cause you to run into some of the same problems that arise from cold email marketing, such as higher bounce rates, lower engagement, and more sender reputation damage.
To avoid this fate, set up a recurring task to remove hard bounces, duplicate entries, and inactive subscribers.
Now that you have a segmented list of recipients, you’re all set to send out a message that’s as timely as it is relevant. So what is it that you want to accomplish with the email? Will it follow up on your lead magnet? Provide a tantalizing introduction to a new product? Invite them to join your loyalty program?
Before you start writing or designing anything, always ensure there’s a clear plan in place.
Here are some additional strategies to help your emails welcome new arrivals and foster better connections:
Make it mobile friendly
Highlight your unique brand voice
Write a subject line that provides a strong benefit
Use the preheader text to provide more context
Make the text scannable
Use engaging visual elements
Include an unsubscribe link to ensure anti-spam compliance
By treating every new lead as an asset and not just one more stranger amidst thousands of other strangers, you’ll establish connections that last. You’ll increase your conversions and lay the groundwork for sustainable success.
Our email tools streamline your efforts from design all the way to deliverability. Get started with our expansive library of responsive templates. Or, if you prefer, you can build your own. The design process is simple with our drag and drop features, though you can use pure HTML or a hybrid approach if that’s more your style.
Once your email has been created, Marketing Campaigns makes it easy to set up email automations with simple triggers. Create time-based drip series or automate other recurring emails. You’ll get a centralized view of all these messages and the timing of your series.
Your deliverability is in excellent hands with Marketing Campaigns, as we have the industry’s highest average inboxing rate. And our tracking tools help you continually measure results and optimize your emails.
Ready to get started? Create your free Sendgrid account today and give your email campaigns an instant boost.
