19 Cold Emailing Myths That You Should Never Follow

1. 19 Cold Emailing Myths That You Should Never Follow https://marketjoy.com hello@marketjoy.com

2. Introduction Cold emailing works – it’s one of the most powerful tools to bring in new customers for businesses among marketing channels. But there’s often a disconnect between what the stats say and what you get from this marketing channel. Well, when you do a deep dive into why cold emailing is not driving the returns you expected, you often discover small mistakes are the cause. These simple errors are easy to fix but can have a significant impact on your open and response rates. Here are 19 common cold emailing missteps to avoid. Myth #1. Using Templates Increase The  Response Rate It can but not always. Why? Most marketers think that using tried and tested templates is a great way to boost their response rates. So, they copy successful cold email templates. But they forget that everyone else is also using them. There’s no appeal to a template if your whole industry is using it. There is no harm in using a successful template, but you should customize it at least a bit.

3. Myth # 2. Copy Doesn’t Matter A common mistake most email marketers make when creating cold emails is they pay less attention to the copy of the email. They forget that as writing excellent subject line is essential to capture the recipient’s attention similarly, writing great copy is essential to hold their attention. The copy of your email is as important as your offer. Use it to provide valuable information and engage your readers. When writing your email copy remember word choice is important. The tone is important. Even the way you’re signing off the email is also very important. Myth #3. Your Email Should Include Everything No, it should not. Stay away from sending long email messages. Nobody likes reading ten installments of American horror story in an email. Also, the majority of emails are opened on mobile devices these days. 75% of Gmail’s 900 Mn users access their accounts via mobile devices. –TechCrunch. So being brief is essential; when writing your email copy, the emphasis should not just be on being concise but being precise and action-oriented too. The copy is the most crucial element of a cold email, but it’s often the most ignored one — once written, you should edit it and try to cut your text as much as possible.

4. Myth #4. You Don’t Need To Segment Your Email List No, no, no! To get good results from this channel, your message needs to be relevant. And segmenting your list is the key to send relevant messages. Segmenting your mailing list Pay Off If you’re not clear how to segment your database here’re few ways to do that: Industry The Geographic area or Zip code Ticket size Myth #5. Timing Your Email Is Not Important This one is far from the truth. In general, there’s no magic time for sending emails to your list. However, if you want to find the right timing for your recipients you need to answer these questions: Does a particular time of the day make sense to reach out to my list? What time zone are the people on my list in? Armed with this knowledge, you can customize your delivery time for better response.

5. Myth #6. Cold Emailing = Spamming Cold emailing can be intrusive and disruptive when you don’t segment your list or when you blast the same message to everyone or when your messages are not valuable.  So, make sure every message you send to your recipients offers value. Instead of sending the same messages to all your list, I highly recommend that you focus on creating highly targeted messages that will interest your recipients. Emails are equal to spam when they are poorly targeted and poorly written no matter whether they’re cold or opt-in marketing messages. Myth #7. Using Advanced Personalization Is Not Necessary Well, this one isn’t a myth! It’s not mandatory to send super personalized emails. But as per one research conducted by Woodpecker, it can double your reply rate. Source

6. Myth #8. You Don’t Need To Give Unsubscribe Option This myth is very dangerous. No matter the channel every marketing message should provide recipients an option to stop receiving the messages from their business. Make sure you give your recipients an option to opt-out from your email list so that they won’t mark you as spam. Also, it’s mandatory from a legal point of view to complying with the CAN-SPAM ACT.  According to which each B2B cold email including a commercial offer should provide a way for the addressee to sign out of further correspondence. Myth #9. Personalizing Email Messages  Is Costly It can be in the short term, but it will improve your ROI in the long run. Put yourself in your prospects shoes. Would you like receiving irrelevant and non-personalized messages? No sane person would. It would annoy you, and you’ll start ignoring these messages, or probably you’ll mark them as spam. I know personalizing emails requires a lot of effort, but the payoff will be great – plus you don’t need to personalize your every message. But for the most part, if you want better response rates, it’s better to segment recipients and target them with relevant messages as much as possible.

7. Myth #10. Researching About Recipients Is Not Essential I don’t know why so many businesses don’t invest time in learning about the recipient’s, but you certainly should. Why? Because when you want to sell something, you need to understand your buyer’s. When you dive into your buyers’ souls, you’ll get to learn how to sell to them. Remember, the more time you invest in knowing about your recipient’s, the better your cold emails will perform. Myth #11. You Should Not Follow Up No, it’s the exact opposite – you should always follow up. According to a study from Iko System, the follow-up emails have a better chance of receiving a response than your first email. Source

8. On average, people get 147 new emails every single day. You can’t expect them to check and respond to all these messages. They’re bound to miss a few so, trying to reach them once doesn’t cut it anymore. You need to put in more work to reach them and deliver your message. When cold emailing remember, following up is the easiest way to boost your response rate. Myth #12. Using Clickbait Subject Lines Are Okay No, it’s not. When writing your subject line makes sure your copy delivers what you’ve promised in your subject line. Ideally, you should write the subject line once you are through with the copy to avoid a mismatch between the two. Fooling people can increase your open rate for once, but it’ll decrease your response rate. Also, it’ll decrease the chances of them opening your future emails as it’ll break the trust. As a rule of thumb, your subject line should always align with your email copy. Myth #13. People Hate Cold Emails No, they don’t as long as you follow these simple rules Offer them something valuable Be concise; get to the point quickly Make it warm by personalizing it Time it right Don’t be pushy Close it graciously

9. Myth #14. You Don’t Need To Analyze Your Cold Emails Well, you do need to analyze them; otherwise, you won’t be able to improvise your future emails. You need to track how many people are opening your emails, how many people are responding to your emails, at what time they’re opening the messages, and you can use this data to tweak your future messages. So, the next time you send cold emails, take a closer look at your data. A lot of things you need to know about your recipients is contained within that data. If your cold email campaigns are not performing well, tomorrow is another day. There’s always a chance to shape up your email reputation. Myth #15. Cold Email Doesn’t Work Anymore We have not yet reached the point at which cold emailing has lost its effectiveness. Using cold emails strategically, and expertly will take your marketing where you want it to go. Myth #16. You Don’t Need To Be Direct With The Ask Some marketers think that being too direct with the ask (CTA) can hurt their cold email campaigns, but by not asking can hurt you even more. How? If you don’t tell them what you want them to do, they’ll not do it. Call to action is the reason you’re 

10. sending an email so, be clear in the ask. Here’s an example to show you what being clear means: CTA: Are you available to hop on a quick call (20 minutes) on Aug 28 at 4 PM WST? Instead of: Are you available to hop on a call? To create a good call to action (CTA), use these tips:  Use clear and action-oriented language.   Keep it concise   Ask but don’t ask for too much No matter how good your email copy is if your CTA is not clear, you’ll put your recipient into paralysis. They have no idea what to do. Myth #17. Quality Of List Doesn’t Play A Key Role In Your Email Success Absolutely wrong! For your cold email campaigns to be truly effective the quality of your contact base plays a vital role. In fact, according to 40/40/20 rule, 40% of your mailing success will depend on the list.

11. Myth #18. You Should Introduce Yourself And Your Company First No, you shouldn’t not! Believe me, I know it’s a standard practice, but that doesn’t mean you should follow it. Why? Cold emailing is an incredible tool to make new customers but, as we all know, it does have a bad rapport. People are very quick in deleting them, so you’ve to be smart. The first few lines of the email (Intro) is a very precious asset, and you should use it to talk about themselves or how is it going to benefit them not telling them who you’re and what you do. Capturing attention is tough but holding it’s even tougher. As per stats, an average person takes 2.7 seconds to decide if they will read or delete the message. So, pay a lot of attention to the intro to avoid the delete key. Myth #19. A/B Testing Your Subject Line Is Not Necessary This myth is just as dangerous as the second one. When it comes to email marketing, you can’t afford to ignore the subject lines. According to stats, A/B testing your subject line can increase open rates by 49%. Now the question is what should you A/B test? Here’re a few suggestions:

12. First name personalization Location of the recipient The industry of the recipient You should test how adding these things in your subject lines is affecting your open rates. Remember, the less optimized your subject lines, the less the chances that recipients will open the email. Now that you know the reasons that are stopping your emails from converting address these problems completely, to get a better response from your cold emailing campaigns. This article was originally published at: Cold Emailing Myths