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Grow Your Business with Cold Email Marketing Campaigns

Beefree team
Beefree team
Apr 29, 2020
Grow Your Business with Cold Email Marketing Campaigns
Grow Your Business with Cold Email Marketing Campaigns

Cold email marketing campaigns can have a lot of benefits for your business: These unsolicited emails are scalable and effective. But if you don’t handle them correctly, your cold emails might be marked as spam.Ready to launch your own campaign? Keep reading for more information on how to write a cold email that lands in the recipient’s inbox.

Cold email marketing campaigns can have a lot of benefits for your business: These unsolicited emails are scalable and effective.

What Is a Cold Email Marketing Campaign?

Cold emails are a type of email marketing that delivers a personalized message to a recipient with the goal of starting a conversation. These messages are different from a bulk email sent to hundreds or even thousands of customers; cold emails target a smaller subset of people. Generally, you’ll only send a cold email to a lead that you’ve researched and defined as a quality prospect.Cold email campaigns are effective: Companies have seen up to 60% response rates and 80% engagement rates from cold emails. Small businesses in particular can see huge benefits from sending well-written messages. Bottom line — cold email marketing campaigns can pay off big-time.However, if you’re going to launch a cold email marketing strategy, it’s important to do a little research first on best practices. These campaigns are sometimes mistaken for spam. Today, we’re highlighting a few of the best tips on how to write a cold email so your messages land safely in the recipient’s inbox and do their job.

#1. Follow the rules

Play by the book and follow the Federal Trade Commission’s rules for sending emails to people you don’t know:

  • Don’t include false information. Your “From” information should accurately describe who you are.
  • Don’t use misleading subject lines. Cold email subject lines need to be clear about what’s in the message.
  • Identify the message as an ad. Be upfront about the fact that your email is an advertisement.
  • Include your physical address. If you don’t have a street address, use a P.O. box.
  • Explain how to unsubscribe. Allow recipients to opt-out of future emails. (We recommend including this option in the footer or email signature.)
  • Promptly honor any unsubscribe requests. If someone asks to be unsubscribed, take them off your list within 10 business days.
  • Pay attention to what others are doing on your behalf. If another company is taking care of your email marketing, remember that you’re still legally responsible.

Not following these guidelines can result in costly fines and legal troubles. But if your cold email marketing campaign abides by these rules, you’re good to go.

#2. Decide on your email address and “From” line

Many businesses choose to create a new email address to send cold emails. When you’re first getting started, cold email marketing will probably take some trial and error, and you might put the reputation of your current domain at risk. That’s why creating a new domain can often be a smart choice.Once your email address is ready, decide on what your “From” line will say. You can try your company’s name, publication name, a person’s name or a mixture of the above (see a few examples from our inbox below). Test a few different “From” lines to figure out which ones work best.

cold email marketing campaign

#3. Personalize your emails

Personalization is an effective strategy to use with any type of email campaign. But with cold emails, it’s especially essential. Personalizing cold emails can help differentiate them from spam. Use the recipient’s first name and find other ways to make a personal connection, too.For instance, you might open the message by saying, “I noticed you’re located in Chicago — we work with hundreds of customers there” or “I see on LinkedIn that you work with [name.] He/she’s a good friend of mine!” Personalized emails get higher open rates and click rates.

#4. Use plain text

Cold emails are typically plain text emails, not HTML. HTML messages are designed and formatted with images, links and more. Plain text emails are just text on a page and are far less likely than HTML emails to be identified as spam. What’s more, plain text emails perform well on mobile devices and load more quickly. Most importantly, plain text emails feel more personal because they look like emails you’d get from a friend.Subject line: Low-cost writers

cold email example

#5. Cold email subject lines

Your cold email subject lines should be personalized and clearly explain what’s in the email. Keep the subject line short and conversational. Using the word “your” or asking a question can also make people curious.Here are a few cold email subject lines sourced from our inbox:

  • What you’re missing in the Den this week
  • , you’re invited
  • Are you making these mistakes?
  • My biggest mistake
  • , just a heads-up

These subject lines all invite curiosity, encouraging the reader to open the email and find out more.

#6. How to write a cold email

When you sit down to write your cold email, there are a few things to keep in mind as you structure it. The basics: Make a personal connection, explain what the email is about and end with a call to action inviting the recipient to chat further.As you explain your proposition, make sure to be clear about what’s in it for the reader. How would they benefit from saying yes to your ask? When you close, ask for a simple response (such as an email back) and make sure your email signature includes all of your relevant information.

#7. Remember to follow up

Don’t forget to follow up on your cold emails. One study showed that campaigns with 4-7 emails per sequence received three times more responses than campaigns with only 1-3 emails in a sequence. Send your follow-up emails several days apart so they don’t seem spammy. And if your follow-up process is automated, remember to cut it off once you get a response.

Wrap-up: Cold email marketing

After you successfully connect with a plain text cold email, you'll probably want to create future emails for your audience with more HTML design elements! Choose from one of the hundreds of HTML email templates in the BEE catalog or create your own from scratch with our drag-and-drop email editor. Cold emails have huge potential when they’re done the right way. With these tips, you’re ready to help your business grow!

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Grow your business with cold email

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Frequently asked questions on using Beefree with Marketo Engage

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Start your 15-day free Business trial today!

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Just as phishing and spam emails have become more sophisticated, so have the tools designed to protect against them. All providers, including big names like Gmail, use SEGs to secure communications and other features, such as Gmail’s unsubscribe feature

What do SEGs flag as spam? 

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  • Strange or suspicious subject lines
  • Highly urgent capitalization or excessive exclamation points
  • Strange URLs
  • Poor grammar and/or spelling
  • Generic greetings that don’t address the recipient 
  • Suspicious email addresses
  • The volume of emails sent at once
  • Attachment types 
  • Image-heavy content 

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Start by first improving your security methods

In general, you should always look at ramping up the security measures in your business. You can use one of the top types of risk assessment matrix to understand your business's threats and how to resolve them. Then, since you already have that information, you can use it to create better newsletters and emails. 

Make sure the personalization feature works

One of the biggest red flags for an SEG is a generic greeting. Adding Dear Sir/Madam at the start isn’t going to fly in today’s world. Even if your email gets through, it’s unlikely the recipient will open it. 

That’s why you need personalization. Linking your email marketing tools to your customer relationship management system means you can offer easy personalization, like addressing your customers by name, or even offering personalized recommendations based on their order history. 

Avoid image-only emails 

Image-only emails are tempting for an email marketer. They’re striking, they look good, and you can fine-tune what they look like in Photoshop or another image editor. 

They can also be a red flag for SEGs.

Thankfully, the solution is simple: enrich your emails. The best part about this approach is that it also improves the accessibility. Improving email accessibility will help ensure that all your customers can engage with your emails on their terms. Those emails will also load faster, look great on all devices, and be more engaging. 

Align your emails with the landing pages 

SEGs look out for suspicious links. A link might be suspicious if there’s a misspelling or if the link doesn’t sound like the content in the email. So, how do you ensure that SEGs don’t see any of your links as suspicious? 

You make them predictable. 

An easy way to do this is to create a landing page from an email. On top of aligning the landing page with the content of the newsletter, you’ll want to: 

  • Make a custom URL for every link that matches the content of the page 
  • Ensure there’s no misspelling
  • Don’t use urgent language around your link

Use 2FA to boost security

Do you need 2FA to get past SEGs? No, but it’s a great way to help protect you and your customers. 

You can protect sensitive data by adding user identity verification. For example, a customer may get an order confirmation email but wants to cancel or change the delivery details. Including a two-factor authentication step ensures only the customer can request changes. 

Building in extra security features puts your customers at ease. It also protects your endpoints and, in turn, your business. So, no, you don’t need 2FA to get past SEGs, but it’s worth looking into for you and your customers’ protection. 

Avoid urgency 

Urgency can be a flag for SEGs. So: 

  • DON’T WRITE IN ALL CAPS
  • Minimize the use of exclamation points

Think of the copy in your newsletter as a chance to win over your audience, not scare them into clicking the link. Doing this will improve your relationship with your customers since they’ve come to you on their terms. It’s also essential to get emails past the SEG.

Key takeaways 

Secure email gateways are a primary defense against spam and phishing attacks, but they can pose a problem for email marketers. By working to understand the security risks associated with email scams, you can then understand what your email needs to make it into inboxes. 

From there, you’ll want to make your emails more personable, accessible, and secure. Once you’ve found that sweet spot, your newsletters will be more likely to get past the secure email gateway and into your audience’s inboxes. 

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