Can you explain your core message in less than 2 sentences?
Many cold emails drag on and on with pointless information that gives little insight into what the product has to do with the prospect’s business.
You’re not impressing your prospects by cramming as many points as you can into your cold email campaigns. Too many ideas overshadow your core message and confuse your prospects, decreasing the odds that they will act on your call to action.
When it comes to crafting effective email messages, remember, less is more.
My latest cold email critique focuses on how to avoid bloated messages that overwhelm and turn off prospects, tanking your cold email campaigns. So if you aren’t achieving the response rates you’ve been hoping for, take notes, because you might be making one of these mistakes.
Email Campaign Mistake #1: Targeting the wrong prospects with the wrong information
“Hello. Based on your LinkedIn profile, we believe you are a technical leader in your organization with an interest in building large-scale, reliable, and innovative applications and services.”
You can’t expect people to respond when they’re not even part of your target audience. This person obviously didn’t read my Linkedin profile closely enough. If they had, they would have seen that I am not a technical specialist at my company, nor am I looking to build large-scale applications or services.
The first step in executing an effective email campaign is building a solid list or prospects to reach out to. This doesn’t mean just buying a list of with thousands of names on it and calling it good. These lists are often highly untargeted and contained outdated contact information.
Cold Email Pro Tip #1: Don’t start throwing out random emails to every CEO, Director of Sales, or Marketing Manager out there. Before starting a campaign, think about which features of your product/service would be most beneficial to a specific persona. Take time to research each title you plan on emailing so that you can optimize your message for each persona you’re reaching out to.
Email Campaign Mistake #2: Focusing on features instead of adding value
“If you aren’t aware, Apache Cassandra is a highly scalable, highly available, and very flexible NoSQL database used by 25%+ of the Fortune 100 and thousands of other companies to build mission critical apps.”
Messages that are too self-focus bore prospects and turn them off completely to your business. Self-promotion doesn’t excite your prospects. If you want people to respond your cold emails, you have to offer them some value.
Listing all the features of your product/service doesn’t do anything to help your customers. Your prospects want to feel special and know you understand them, so tailor a message that focuses entirely on their needs.
Cold Email Pro Tip #2: My number one rule for cold email content is for every message to add a value the recipient. Great messages address prospects’ biggest problems and offer a potential solution, and ones that don’t will take your email campaigns.
Emil Campaign Mistake #3: Losing your core message in long winded paragraphs
“More info on why you might want to attend and/or send your team for free training below. “
Whenever I open a cold email and see phrases like “see more information below,” I immediately disengage. Needing multiple paragraphs to get your message across is a dead giveaway that you haven’t spent the time or brain power to focus your message.
Keep your cold emails to 2-5 sentences. Prospects respond best to sharp, to the point messaging that tell them exactly how your business can improve their lives.
The problem with the emails is that it doesn’t have a clear goal, or know the difference between a cold email and a drip nurture email. The purpose of a cold email campaign is to introduce your product or service to prospects and get them talking to you, ideally on the phone. Drip campaigns are all about educating your prospects about your space, and usually aren’t trying to set appointments (at least not right away). If you’re a video marketing analytics platform, you might send drip campaigns that have helpful tips about new video marketing tools or KPIs you should be using to measure your campaign.
Cold Email Pro Tip #3: Think about what you want to accomplish with your emails. Are you trying to schedule demos or do you want prospects to sign up for conference? Different goals require different tones and calls to action.If you have multiple goals or agendas, restrain yourself and choose one point per email to highlight. That way your message doesn’t get lost in the all the clutter.
Email Campaign Mistake #4: Overwhelming your prospects
“If you aren’t familiar with Cassandra, we recommend you check out the keynote from the 2014 Cassandra Summit: [link]
Trying to do much in a cold email will get your into trouble.
If you’ve developed a clear message, then you don’t need youtube videos and links to colorful graphs in order to intrigue your prospects. Relying on external links are a red flag that you don’t have a solid grasp on your messaging, and you haven’t conveyed a strong enough value proposition for the prospect.
Anytime you redirect your prospects away from your email, you risk losing them altogether. Very few people have the time or desire to keep clicking to hunt for information in a cold email..
Cold Email Pro Tip#4: Don’t tell your prospects about how successful your product is; show them. Fancy pictures and videos give little details don’t necessarily build credibility or urge your prospects to act. Instead, use a one sentence case study and other real world examples to convey the benefit and ROI you have with customers.
Example: “We helped Box and Linkedin cut their development time by 29% through implementing XYZ…”
