{"id":210,"date":"2014-06-11T18:00:58","date_gmt":"2014-06-12T01:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salesfolk.com\/?p=210"},"modified":"2017-01-26T16:44:43","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T00:44:43","slug":"7-sins-b2b-cold-emails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salesfolk.com\/blog\/7-sins-b2b-cold-emails\/","title":{"rendered":"The 7 Sins of B2B Cold Emails"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"angry<\/a><\/p>\n

How confident are you with your cold email skills?<\/p>\n

Are you getting 32 responses for every 100 B2B cold email you send?<\/p>\n

Or do you only get 1 or 2 people responding?<\/p>\n

Why didn’t all the other people you emailed\u00a0respond?<\/p>\n

You\u00a0and your company are amazing, so what’s happening? Why aren’t the other 98% of people you’re emailing interested in hearing what you have to say?<\/p>\n

If you’re\u00a0hearing back from less than 10% of the people you’re cold emailing, you’re probably committing one of the 7 Sins of B2B Cold Emails.<\/p>\n

\"7<\/p>\n

#1. You’re sending B2B cold emails with crappy subject lines<\/h3>\n

Do you know your open rates? If less than 20% of people are reading\u00a0your emails, your subject line sucks.<\/p>\n

How are you ever going to get a higher response rate if 80% of your audience never even reads your email beyond the subject line? You can spend all day improving your email’s body text, but it won’t matter if you have a low open rate.<\/p>\n

If you\u00a0aren’t sure what your open rates are, but you wish you had some kind of crystal ball that would show you, get a tool that lets you track them.<\/p>\n

#2. Your B2B cold emails feel impersonal like a robot<\/h3>\n

Do you have a docking station that you charge at, or are you solar powered?<\/p>\n

If you’re human, then write like a human, not a robot.<\/p>\n

People want to communicate with people, not machines.<\/p>\n

Your readers are much more likely to respond to you if your emails are personalized to them. Including more\u00a0specific details about the person, company, or industry will increase your success. Use custom inserts in your email with “[ ]” or “<< >>” depending on which script or tool you are using for the mail merge to include personalized details beyond just “<<First Name>>” and “<<Company>>.”<\/p>\n

Going as far as to include a “<<Custom Sentence>>” by using a column in your spreadsheet for 1 custom sentence about that company takes time, but is highly effective. Using multiple custom inserts in one sentence like “We recently helped <<Competitor Name>> improve their sales by 23% on the <<Campaign Name>>” also works well.<\/p>\n

#3. Your B2B cold emails\u00a0are longer than the Great Wall of China<\/h3>\n

Your \u00a0emails shouldn’t be longer than an episode of Game of Thrones.<\/p>\n

Keep things short. Aim for about 3 or 4 sentences. No more than 5 sentences!<\/p>\n

Remove any jargon, redundancies or other non-necessary details. Synthesize all your points\u00a0to the bare minimum, leaving only the gold nuggets.<\/p>\n

D O N ‘ T \u00a0 \u00a0F O R G E T \u00a0 \u00a0T \u00a0O \u00a0 S \u00a0P A C E \u00a0 \u00a0O U T \u00a0 \u00a0Y O U R \u00a0 W R I T I N G \u00a0!<\/p>\n

No one wants to read an email that looks like a book, so don’t\u00a0jam it all into one paragraph. You want it to be easily read, even from a smartphone.<\/p>\n

#4. Your value is missing or muddled in a sea of\u00a0junk<\/h3>\n

Why should your reader open, read or respond to your email? Where’s the value for them?<\/p>\n

Don’t mistake your features as\u00a0benefits.<\/p>\n

“Matching new leads against pipeline and customers” is Feature. Benefits are things like “saving 7 hours a week with Salesforce” or “Getting 5 more customers for every 10 emails you send.”<\/p>\n

Your readers don’t care about your features, even if they’re really cool, unless they are beneficial to them.<\/p>\n

#5.\u00a0Selling too hard: Don’t take your pants off on the first date!<\/h3>\n

Never try to sell someone in a cold email.<\/p>\n

All you’re trying to do is get someone’s permission to start talking. If you try too hard to sell them it will backfire and they will either (A) recoil and mark you as spam or (B) laugh and share your terrible spammy cold email around with their friends and coworkers.<\/p>\n

You wouldn’t take your pants off at dinner on the first date, so don’t talk about “sales, discounts, or a big opportunity.”<\/p>\n

Resist the temptation to\u00a0write like\u00a0a\u00a0marketing\/sales email, even if that is your end goal!<\/p>\n

#6. Dropping the ball with the Call-To-Action<\/h3>\n

Your call to action is the second most important thing for your B2B cold email after the subject line for getting your desired response.<\/p>\n

What exactly do you want the recipient to do?<\/p>\n

If all you want is a 15 minute call with them, be clear about it. Just saying, “I’d love your feedback” isn’t enough. You should say something like, “When’s a good time this week for a 15 minute phone call to discuss…?”<\/p>\n

#7.\u00a0Thinking you’re done after you sent 1 B2B cold email<\/h3>\n

Just sending someone a cold email once is not enough for B2B, or anything else.<\/p>\n

It’s great to have people respond on your first email, but you can’t stop trying there or you’ll be missing out on many more qualified leads.<\/p>\n

EXAMPLE<\/strong>:<\/p>\n