If you’re in the B2B business sector, you surely know the pain of constant need to invent and enhance all the possible and even impossible ways to convert prospects into new clients. Yeah, it’s often difficult and even seems scary. But as the proverb says, you never know what you can do till you try. Since you started, you’d be pleasantly surprised by new ideas that come suddenly in the process.
Nevertheless, it’s better to begin when you’re already armed with a set of ideas and know the baselines. As we’re going to talk about an email channel here, we would like to help you with some practical recommendations. We’ve consulted with experienced B2B experts and provided some research, so we have 5 helpful recommendations to share.
Of course, these tips will unlikely boost your business when implemented alone. But tips are just tips – while the real key to success is your imagination, unique ideas, and skills. Apply everything creatively, and you will reach your goals and overcome competitors.
Let’s start! And first of all, let’s quickly refresh in the memory the definition of cold email. A cold email is a message sent without the recipient’s request, i.e. the email initiated on your side without prior contact. Cold emails are not spam. However, the line is thin – not everyone likes to receive sudden emails from strangers… So how not only to avoid spam complaints but to complete the primary mission engage business prospects?
Choose the email template editor which provides you with ready-to-customize cold email templates… and let’s go!
Tip 1: Take care about the email address and sender name
It’s difficult to overrate the importance of business email address and sender name. First of all, it’s an answer to the question right above – how to avoid the shame of spammer image. When you start communicating with other businessmen or businesswomen (or their company managers) you have to show at the very first stage that you are a trustworthy and reliable prospect, not a sender of digital trash. It should be obvious right in the inbox, otherwise, you may be at best ignored. Or even reported as a spammer.
Regarding the sender name, we should mention that it must contain your real name, not a nick – and the name of your company. “Matthew” or “Catherine” looks much more trustworthy and business-like than Darth_Vader_76 or BoltScrewerMachineLady, yeah… XD The company name is an element that makes email’s chances to be noticed and opened much higher.
As for a business email address, it adds a trustworthy solid image to you and your campaigns. It’s also a kind of advertisement that sets the basis of your brand awareness. It makes prospects remember and recognize you – a good beginning to grow awareness.
Where to get the custom business email address? G-suite by Google offers them, for example. Many hosting providers often include this option in their paid tariff plans as well. Even if you’re your own boss – freelancer, independent contractor, one-person business or so on – a business email address will anyway add +100 and more to your professional image.
Tip 2: Write unique subject lines
The subject line is a crucial element of the email campaign. Please, avoid spammy or generic subject lines. Otherwise, they may kill your rates!
Really, this is your opportunity to make the best first impression. So make everything to reach the recipient’s attention goal – personalize and even hyper-personalized the subject line. Not only address by names, but you can also mention why you’re reaching out to this certain company. This way you’ll show that you’re at least familiar with the recipient’s business and not sending tons of messages everywhere. Ask a question if you want, it may arise curiosity.
One of the critical things is subject line length. Limit it to 30 characters to be not cut by email clients. It isn’t enough, you still will have a second chance to write the second part in the preheader.
Avoid words like “last chance”, “hurry up” etc, they’re not appropriate here – as well as jargons (if only not professional jargon). And of course no ALL CAPS! It’s bad manners everywhere, not only in B2B… kinda like shouting into a bullhorn right in one’s ear.
Stick to the simple language style – and get to the point.
Tip 3: Be those to the rescue
Let’s proceed with the email content. A crucial condition is to figure out the problems of the prospects businesses. This is the milestone point to build the whole strategy of engagement. If you know the prospects’ needs, you’ll find ways to appear as a problem solver.
Make sure that you focused more on the recipients and their pains, not on yourself. But don’t be too moderate, add all the possible information and examples on how your company can be helpful to them. Highlighting your successes, experience, and awards, make an accent on your unique features. Everything should be conceptually explained under the required angle. Explain how all that may be helpful for potential partners and what profits they will gain from a partnership with you.
In other words, ensure prospects that your cooperation is a match made in heaven.
Tip 4: Design matters
Email content should be accompanied by proper design. That’s why you should pay attention to cold email design. Speaking about this we mean brand style at first. At the very start of your communications, craft messages which are designed in your brand book style. Corporate color scheme, logo, fonts. header and footer… all these elements should be the same as in your other campaigns. When prospects reply to your cold email and you continue further interaction, they have to see the same style. That builds up the awareness of your brand and reflects high standards of business approach.
Of course, email design should not be too bright. If you choose plain text way, be sure to add the professional signature at the bottom.
Header, logo, footer and contact information remain unchanged, so edit only the modules with text, visuals and value offer.
Tip 5: Make your CTA crystal clear
The last but not least is a tip from Captain Obvious 🙂 But in fact, we looked at our inbox emails and suddenly noticed that most sales emails don’t have a clear CTA button… Moreover, some of them have no CTA at all.
Make sure that you added a clear, well-noticeable call to action button with an appealing copy if only your goal is not just to say “hello guys”. One of 2019 trends is CSS animation aka hover effect, it will help your button not to be lost 🙂
Or you can either make everything simple yet noticeable. Just like this:
Summing up
This is how our top 5 of cold B2B email ideas looks like. In addition, we’d like to enhance them with some more tips that may bring you more inspiration:
- if you’ve met with the person you are reaching out — mention that fact. Remind the event where you’ve met. How does it work? People prefer to deal with those they know… even barely but know;
- send follow-ups when the first email is not answered. The next emails should be less filled with information, they’re kinda reminders. Just remember that performance decreases with each next email. Don’t overuse and pay closer attention to the number of emails and their frequency;
- once again, personalize and hyper-personalize. It means at least the relevance – figuratively speaking, don’t send emails about car engines solutions to pizza cafe or flowers shop 🙂
- never forget the accessibility. It’s important not only for people with eyes or hearing impairment. It’s especially relevant for businessmen and managers, so they listen to emails using screen reader software. Make sure that they’ll hear the human language, not a growling of Mordor orcs 🙂
That’s all for today. Use our tips wisely and build new business partnerships.
We sincerely wish you the best of luck and millions $ of income!
