What is a Cold Email? and Cold Emailing Etiquette
You’ve just come across the term “cold email” and are interested in learning more about it. Or maybe you’ve heard of it previously and are curious about how it operates. In either case, you’ve arrived at the ideal location.
Assuming you try to contact a prospective lead or possible collaborator without first communicating with them – that’s cold emailing. It’s similar to a digital handshake — an introduction in which you hope to stand out.
What is a Cold Email?
Sending out cold emails is a good method to establish and preserve business contacts and other forms of relationships. It enables you to establish connections with people who might not know you well or who know very little about you. Sending emails to a professor, company, or organization without any prior relationship or interaction is known as cold emailing. It is your first time getting in touch with them. Cold emails use tailored subject lines, attention-grabbing content, and targeted messaging to pique the recipient’s interest and persuade them to take action or provide feedback, as appropriate.
In the academia, contacting a university faculty member you have never met or built a relationship with via cold email to request supervision is considered a cold email. In graduate school, it is customary for students to reach out to possible supervisors who are engaged in topics that interest them.
The purpose of a cold email in the business sector is to catch the recipient’s attention in order to establish a rapport. Sending cold emails is a good method to establish and preserve business contacts. The relationship is what will get you where you want to go, regardless of whether your goals are to increase backlinks, market websites in various niches, or provide prospective customers with the best deal of the century.
Benefits of Sending Cold Emails
If you use a well-thought-out strategy and individualized approach, cold emails are an excellent tool for establishing partnerships and growing a business. Here are a few of its benefits.
- Opportunities for networking. Cold emails are a great strategy for forming alliances following conferences, summits, events, etc. After the event, you can get in touch with the companies and potential partners whose email addresses pique your interest.
- The generation of leads. One of the most well-liked and successful strategies for generating new leads is cold mailing. When a prospect visits your physical or virtual store, they can leave their email address; alternatively, you can get interested consumers’ addresses while they’re at your event.
- Recruiting opportunities. While looking through profiles on LinkedIn or communicating with specialists during the events, you may find potential candidates that will perfectly suit your company. Cold emailing allows you to headhunt to find top talents.
- Recognition of Business. You can easily make your brand gain recognition through cold emails. Users are unlikely to recall or recognize your company’s logo when they are reading through the feed if they have shared their email address with it. Thus, you are able to send them customized and targeted email messages. Later on, when they have to select a good or service, they will identify your brand as a possible remedy for a particular issue, which will work to your advantage.
- Boosting traffic. Cold emails can be a great business booster. If you have just hosted an event, webinar, or workshop, you can send customize emails to users or attendees. Some of them can later become clients.
- Generating revenues. Sending emails has been shown to boost sales. Using an email campaign, you may notify your subscribers about updates, new product releases, and exclusive offers. You’ll boost conversions and enhance engagement in this method.
How Long Should a Cold Email be?
A cold email should be as brief as possible—two to five sentences, consisting of no more than 200 words overall. According to reports, you just need to use 50–125 words to grab someone’s attention and initiate a discussion. It is rare for someone to send long emails outlining their interests and self-description to a complete stranger. Keep it brief!
Cold Email vs SPAM
People occasionally are reluctant to send cold emails because they think they are spam. However, there is no connection between spam and a carefully constructed cold email. Let’s clarify the differences now.
Contacting someone who you haven’t spoken to before via email is known as cold emailing. They may have given you their email address when they visited your page or store, or you may have gotten it at a conference or on another platform. In other words, when you write a cold email, you explain how you got their email address and what you hope to gain from a possible partnership.
SPAM is an unsolicited email. It indicates that a person has not given someone else access to their email account. It may have passed an online list of email addresses. More significantly, the purpose of a spam email is to deceive the recipient. As a result, the email is typically not sent from a business email address and the sender’s name is fake. Additionally, there isn’t an opt-out button in such an email.
Unlike spam, each cold email is sent with purpose and must have been meticulously prepared. As you can see, the purpose of a SPAM email is to trick the recipient by sending false information. A cold email, on the other hand, aims to create business-related partnerships.
Cold Emailing Etiquette
You want to write an ideal cold email that will make an impression and not disappear into the recipient’s spam folder? Even though writing cold emails can be time-consuming, there are several rules to cold emailing that you should keep in mind before you start. Knowing the rules for cold emailing is very important if you want your message to reach prospective customers or partners and be relevant. Here are a few etiquette you should know to make your email stand out and improve the likelihood that the recipient will accept it.
Craft a great subject line: Since the recipient will see your subject line first, make sure it grabs their attention. If you write a bad subject line, the recipient might delete your email or, worse, manually flag it as spam, which could prevent you from getting in touch with them again. In order to create the ideal subject line for a cold email, you should ensure that you:
· Keep the subject line as brief as possible and relevant (preferably not more than 60 characters).
- Make your subject line unique
- Employ language that is action-oriented
- Be clear, and ensure that it appropriately conveys the importance of your email.
- Avoid the use of junk words
Be concise and professional: Don’t overload the email; your busy recipients will appreciate that you get to the point. Keep it succinct and to the point. Keep in mind not share unrelated information. Specify what you need. Long confusing emails are terrible. Here’s how to make it concise yet effective:
- Provide a short overview before introducing the value proposition.
- When outlining important advantages or particular activities, use bullet points.
- Ensure that the length of the mail is visible on the screen without scrolling
Highlight mutual interests: Try to find any areas of common interest between you, and discuss them in your mail. If you’re writing to an academic faculty member, read up on the professor’s work before composing your cold email. Include any research interests you may have in the email and provide a brief explanation of how they relate to your personal objectives.
Demonstrate your diligence in your research and personal your message: Do some research about the recipient before sending out your cold mail. The secret to making your letter stand out in a congested inbox is to address the recipient specifically. Using their name is only one aspect of personalization; another is explaining your special reason for contacting them. If you’re writing to a professor, spend some time researching on the professor’s previous works and publications. You can highlight particular publications or projects that caught your interest in the email.
Show gratitude: In fact, I would even add that you ought to be a little polite. You are requesting a favor from someone doesn’t know you. Thank them for their time and appreciate them that they have taken your request into consideration. You can make them feel nice if you show them gratitude, which encourages them to choose to help.
Conclude with an action request
Provide a clear call to action at the end of your email: what you want the recipient to do next? Should they visit your website, give you a call, or respond to your email? Make sure your goals are clear. Make sure your call to action is clear and concise by limiting it to just one.
Use a formal conclusion: It’s critical that your email has a professional closing. This will demonstrate your seriousness about all aspects of the endeavor. Use “Sincerely” or “Best regards” with your name and contact details after the closing remark.
Verify that there are no errors: Proofread it and look for any spelling or grammar errors before hitting the send button.
Follow up
Since most cold emails will likely be ignored, it’s best to follow up with clients or prospective employers a week after sending them a message. Send them a statistic you found instead of merely asking whether they have gotten a chance to read your most recent email. Wherever possible, add value.
Closing
If you adhere to these steps and the do’s and don’ts of cold emailing, you’ll be establishing a framework for emails that get opened and responded to by recipients. You’ll see increased engagement as you continue to hone your strategy, and eventually, you might even master the art of cold emailing.
