Cold emailing is a technique to reach out to potential customers, build a relationship with them, generate interest, and ultimately convert them into paying customers.
If you target the right audience with a well-crafted message, it can help you build trust & credibility, increase sales, and boost business revenue.
But, despite its widespread use, there are still many misconceptions about cold emails that lead to missed growth opportunities…
If your email is just a copy-paste of a generic template, your prospects will ignore your message. This makes people think that cold emails are spamming other people, as this kind of approach never gets results.
But, if you target prospects who can resonate with your cold emails, they will perceive them as helpful rather than spamming.
By researching and understanding your target audience, you can spot their challenges, offer value, and get replies.
Here's a 3-step checklist to defining a qualified audience that will engage with your cold emails:
A buyer persona is a detailed description of someone who represents your target audience.
You can use buyer personas to personalize your cold emails to fit their needs and preferences, which helps you build relationships and book more meetings.
👉 It takes a few seconds to access this 3-step target audience guide and get your free buyer persona template for more replies!
Identify which buyer personas will be the most profitable, so you know where to put the most personalization efforts to stay efficient.
For example, you can identify them into three tiers based on the value amount you're bringing to them, which will later translate to the revenue amount they're bringing to you:
A buyer signal is a behavior or action that indicates a prospect's interest in buying your product or service.
They'll help you identify "hot" leads currently facing the pain you can solve, making them more likely to reply.
👉 To determine the best moment to reach out to your prospects and get replies, get 15 sales targeting tactics and boost your outreach results!
Cold emails can help you start a conversation with anyone and establish new relationships to grow your business.
Therefore, it's not limited to salespeople, as it can be helpful for anyone looking to network, collaborate, or open new business opportunities.
For example, you can use cold emailing in different departments and industries to boost business growth, such as:
✅ Announcing a product launch
e.g., highlight the benefits and offer an exclusive discount or early access to create a sense of urgency and generate interest
e.g., give information about the event and highlight the key benefits that will encourage people to register and attend
✅ Asking for customer feedback
e.g., offer an incentive, such as a discount on a future purchase, to encourage valuable insights that can help improve your offering
e.g., send a relevant message that targets prospects' pain points and offers value to capture their interest and start a conversation
✅ Building partnerships
e.g., identify complementary businesses or influencers in your industry and reach out to them to propose a partnership or collaboration
✅ Cross-selling & upselling
e.g., analyze prospects' purchase history and promote complementary or upgraded products to increase their lifetime value
✅ Building a talent pipeline
e.g., you can save time and money on recruiting in the long run, as you'll already build a relationship with highly qualified potential candidates
✅ Networking with industry professionals
e.g., reach out to people who work for companies you admire, attend industry events, or gain expertise in a particular area that could be valuable to your organization
✅ Promoting your employer's brand
e.g., reach out to potential candidates and highlight your organization's culture, mission, and values to build a positive reputation and attract top talent
… and many more!
👉 To grow your business across multiple departments, get 20+ successful cold email templates and achieve your best outreach results yet!
Cold emails are not illegal, and in fact, they are a common and legitimate way to grow a business.
However, there are some regulations and best practices that you need to follow to ensure you aren't breaking any laws or damaging your reputation.
Here are the top 5 tips that will help you stay compliant with anti-spam laws and ethical practices:
✅ Provide accurate and clear sender information
✅ Get consent before sending marketing emails
✅ Don't send emails with deceptive or false information
✅ Personalize your emails and always add value
✅ Include an opt-out option in your emails
👉 To build a strong sender reputation by following best legal practices, check out 5 ways to boost your email sender reputation and avoid the spam folder!
Cold email personalization helps you catch prospects' attention, build trust, and get more replies.
And, if you use the right tools and strategies, you can personalize your cold emails at scale without spending extra time or money.
Here's how lemlist users automatically personalize their cold emails thanks to custom variables:
→ No matter how many emails you send, you can automatically personalize any part of your message to grab leads' attention and build trust (e.g., intro line, pitch, CTA).
→ Stand out with personalized images by automatically adding your leads' names, logos, website screenshots, etc.
→ Give value to your prospects on a more personal level and grab prospects' attention with custom video thumbnails.
→ Build personalized landing pages just for your leads where you can embed your calendar and include assets or calls to action.
👉 If you want to generate more replies with personalization on auto-pilot too, try lemlist for free and book meetings with 17% of your prospects!
→Automatically personalize your campaigns based on your leads’ info.
lemlist’s AI Variables allow you to quickly personalize your emails in ways that are bound to blow your mind.
You can generate custom icebreakers based on your leads’ information. Or generate a P.S. tailored to every lead:
AI Variables uses GPT through a single prompt that works on all or selected leads.
You can then add this personalization to your campaigns, saving you hours of manual work.
Email deliverability is the email's ability to the prospect's inbox without being flagged as spam.
That means that if you increase and maintain your email deliverability, there's no reason for your cold emails to land in the spam folder.
Here are the top 3 tips that will help you achieve high email deliverability and ensure your messages always reach your prospects:
Implement these 5 settings to ensure your campaigns land in the target audience's inbox:
You can use your warm-up and deliverability booster like lemwarm to check your technical setup:
Your email list is all the people you're reaching out to via your emails.
Sending emails to invalid addresses increases your bounce rate, which ruins your email reputation, lowers your deliverability score, and sends your emails to spam.
Verifying your email list prevents this by telling you which email addresses on your list are undeliverable or invalid.
You can find and verify your emails with lemlist!
Email warm-up gradually increases the emails sent from your account to boost your email engagement and deliverability.
Think about the warm-up process as a protection for your emails that prevents them from landing in spam.
However, warming up your email manually can be a time-consuming process.
Plus, you must ensure you do this every time you send campaigns.
The best way to warm up your email is to use a warm-up and deliverability booster like lemwarm.
It creates a personalized deliverability strategy based on your goals and email characteristics to build a strong email reputation and improve deliverability.
Check out the improvement in this user's deliverability score within 3 weeks of using lemwarm:
👉 To get even more tips on keeping high email deliverability and avoiding spam folders, get free access to Email deliverability eBook and always reach your prospects!
Yes! With the right approach, cold emailing is still a highly effective, cheap, and scalable way to increase your business's revenue.
You can test it out in any department and get amazing results by applying the above tips.
P.S. If you're interested in growing your business with outreach, you can join 14k+ salespeople, marketers, and founders in the biggest outreach community and get free advice, templates, and much more 🚀
G2 Rating | Price | Best for | Standout feature | Con | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
4.9 star star star star star | $30/mo $75/mo $2,999/mo | Large, distributed sales teams | AI evaluation precision, gamified KPIs | Lack of tracking system | |
4.6 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Sales operations and finance teams | Powerful configurability | Limited training resources and complex to navigate | |
4.4 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Mid-market and enterprise businesses | Comprehensive incentive management | Potentially high cost and steep learning curve | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | $15/user/mo $40/user/mo Enterprise: custom price | Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes | Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes | Steep learning curve | |
4.6 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Collaborative teams | Connected planning | Complexity and steep learning curve | |
4.6 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Companies with complex sales structures | Complex incentive compensation management (ICM) with high efficiency and accuracy | Complexity for smaller teams and potentially high costs | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Companies who want to automate commission calculations and payouts | Simplicity and ease of use | Lack of features like redirection | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | $30/user/mo $35/user/mo Custom: upon request | Businesses that need a comprehensive and user-friendly sales compensation management software | Ease of use and adoption | Lack of ability to configure the product based on user needs | |
4.8 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Companies with modern sales culture and businesses who want real-time insights | A built-in dispute management and real-time visibility | Users say it works slowly, customer support is slow | |
4.9 star star star star star | $30/user/mo $50/user/mo | Smaller sales teams | Powerful automation | Lesser user base and average user interface | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Companies with scalable needs | Automated Commission Calculations | Lack of filtering by date, no mobile app |
PRM Tool | Rating | Feature | Pro | Con | Mobile App | Integrations | Free Plan | Pricing |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4.65 star star star star star-half | Org-wide alignment | User-friendly layout and database | Suboptimal as a personal CRM | square-check | Lack of tracking system | square-check | Team: $20/month Business: $45/month | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | Social Media Integration | Easy contact data collection | No marketing/sales features | square-check | Lack of tracking system | square-xmark 7-day trial | $12/month | |
4.75 star star star star star-half | Block Functions | High customization capability | Not a dedicated CRM | square-check | Limited | square-check | Plus: €7.50/month Business: €14/month | |
N/A | Open-source | Open-source flexibility | Requires extensive manual input | square-xmark | Limited | square-check Self-hosted | $9/month or $90/year | |
3.1 star star star | Simple iOS app | Ideal for non-tech-savvy users | iPhone only | square-check iOS only | Limited | square-xmark 1-month trial | $1.49/month or $14.99/month | |
3.6 star star star star-half | Smart Contact Management | Feature-rich and flexible | Reported bugs | square-check | Rich | square-xmark 7-day trial | Premium: $13.99/month Teams: $17.99/month | |
4.4 star star star star star-half | Customizable Interface | Customizable for teamwork | Pricey for personal use | square-check | Rich | square-xmark | Standard: $24/member Premium: $39/member | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | Integrated Calling | Integrated Calling | Too sales-oriented & pricey | square-check | Rich | square-xmark 14-day trial | Startup: $59/user/month Professional: $329/user/month | |
4.8 star star star star star | Business Card Scanning | Business Card Scanning | Mobile only | square-check | Limited | square-check | $9.99/month | |
4.45 star star star star star-half | 160+ app integrations | Comprehensive integrations | No free app version | square-check | Rich | square-xmark 14-day trial | $29.90/month or $24.90/month (billed annually) |
Capterra Rating | Free Trial | Free Plan | Starting Price (excluding the free plan) | Maximum Price (for the most expensive plan) | Best for | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4.5 star star star star star-half | square-check 14-day | square-check | €15/month/seat billed annually | €792/month/3 seats billed annually + €45/month for each extra seat | Versatility and free plan | |
4.2 star star star star | square-check 30-day | square-xmark But it offers reduced price to authorised nonprofit organisations | €25/user/month | €500/user/month billed annually (includes Einstein AI) | Best overall operational CRM | |
4.3 star star star star star-half | square-xmark | square-check Limited to 3 users | Comprehensive incentive management | €52/user/month billed annually | Small-medium businesses and automation | |
4.5 star star star star star-half | square-check 14-day | square-xmark | €14/seat/month billed annually | €99/seat/month billed annually | Sales teams and ease of use | |
4.1 star star star star | square-xmark | square-check Limited 10 users | $9.99/user/month billed annually | $64.99/user/month billed annually | Free plan for very small teams up to 10 |
CRM goal | Increase the sales conversion rate for qualified leads from marketing automation campaigns by 10% in the next 6 months. | ||||
SMART Breakdown | 1. Specific: It targets a specific area (conversion rate) for a defined segment (qualified leads from marketing automation). | 2. Measurable: The desired increase (10%) is a clear metric, and the timeframe (6 months) allows for progress tracking. | 3. Achievable: A 10% increase is possible based on historical data and potential improvements. | 4. Relevant: Boosting sales from marketing efforts aligns with overall business objectives. | 5. Time-bound: The 6-month timeframe creates urgency and a clear target date. |
Actions | Step 1: Refine lead qualification criteria to ensure high-quality leads are nurtured through marketing automation. | Step 2: Personalize marketing automation campaigns based on lead demographics, interests, and behavior. | Step 3: Develop targeted landing pages with clear calls to action for qualified leads. | Step 4: Implement lead scoring to prioritize high-potential leads for sales follow-up. | Step 5: Track and analyze campaign performance to identify areas for optimization. |
Outcomes | Increased sales and revenue | Improved marketing automation ROI | Marketing and sales alignment | Data-driven marketing optimization |