What is a cold email? Definition and importance

    by Irina Podorvan
    25.01.2023

    cold_mail

    Cold emailing is another way to spread the word about your services and products. This type of outreach campaign has some challenges that you might not use for the first time. But if you do it right, cold emailing will be a great tool for you. In this article, we'll give you the answers to the questions: «What is a cold email?» and «How do I use it effectively in my outreach?»

    What Is A Cold Email?

    A cold email is an unsolicited email you send to your potential prospects. It is not the same as spamming and does not contain offers or promotions. A cold email is tailored toward a specific prospect and sent one-to-one. It conveys value and calls the recipient to action multiple times. They are personalized emails and made relevant to the prospect’s needs. They're also sometimes called prospecting emails or outreach emails. 

    What does cold email mean to a marketer? It's not just about expanding your audience, but also about finding new ideas for presenting your product, company, and services. You don't have to send out emails manually. Use mass mailing software like Atompark Mail Sender that allows you to reach as many people as possible in a short period. 

    What Is The Difference Between Spamming And Cold Emails?

    Based on cold emails meaning, you might think it is synonymous with spam. However, that is not the case at all. The main difference between spamming and cold emailing is the fact that cold emails are sent by real people, making them more relevant and targeted. Cold emails can also be two-way conversations, so they often lead to responses rather than simply being thrown into a trash or spam folder or deleted because they're unwanted.

    • Spam is an unsolicited email sent in bulk to random emails. A spammer can buy a list of emails from a third party to reach out to millions at once. These emails usually contain offers or promotions, and most include one call-to-action. 
    • A cold email is tailored toward a specific prospect and sent one-to-one. It conveys value and calls the recipient to action multiple times. You can assemble a list of emails to send out in a variety of ways and use the email list manager for easy management. This ensures that your emails won't be sent to random addresses, but to specific users that you define as your target audience. 

    Why Is Cold Emailing Important?

    What are cold emails could do for your company or product? Lots of useful things. You've probably heard that cold emailing is a great way to connect with potential customers and build your sales funnel. Here is how you can get benefits with cold email. 

    Networking

    Cold emailing is a great way to build your brand and network. It’s also one of the most effective ways to get in front of people without them knowing who you are or what you do. When done right, cold emails can be the perfect way for someone who doesn’t know your company well yet to take notice. You start networking by identifying your target audience. Once you have that list ready, you start sending out cold emails to build relationships with prospective clients or partners.

    Lead Generation

    Cold email definition shows that it can be an effective way to lead generation and build relationships with potential customers. If you're looking for a professional way to get your business out there, cold emailing can help you reach prospective clients and build relationships with them.

    Because these emails are directed only at your target audience, you end up generating high-quality leads for businesses at the very beginning of their sales cycle.

    It can also be used to build trust with email subscribers to sell more products or services.

    Brand Awareness 

    Cold email brand awareness can help you to generate awareness of your business and its product offerings through cold outreach campaign targeting potential customers. By using your business name and brand in your cold emails (and other forms of marketing), you're able to reach out to more people, which can lead to more customers.

    Scalability

    Cold email is the most scalable type of digital marketing. It has a high return on investment, makes your life easier, and has a significant positive impact on your business's bottom line. Scalability cold emailing is a great way for small businesses to reach out to potential customers and clients. It allows you to scale your business by reaching out to more people in less time, while still maintaining personal connections.

    Is Cold Emailing Still Effective In 2023?

    In short, yes!

    Cold emailing is a tried-and-true marketing tactic that’s still as effective today as it was 10 years ago. It requires more resources and time than other marketing tactics, but the payoff can be huge.

    Cold Emailing And The GDPR

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    The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union (EU) regulation that governs the processing of personal data. The GDPR applies to all companies that control or process the personal information of EU citizens, regardless of their location. In other words, if you have an email list with 100+ prospects in Europe, then you must comply with the GDPR or face severe penalties. 

    Because GDPR applies to all companies that collect and store the personal data of EU citizens, it affects businesses worldwide.

    What does the GDPR mean for your cold email campaigns? You may have heard that the GDPR affects everything, including your cold email strategy. This isn't true. The GDPR doesn't affect cold emails because of legitimate interests. Legitimate interests are a legal basis for processing personal data in the EU, which means that you can send cold emails without consent from the recipient.

    Tips To Write A Cold Email That Converts

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    The meaning of cold email already reveals its advantages, but we decided to talk about its benefits even more. If you're not using cold emails to generate sales, you're missing out on a powerful marketing tool. But writing effective cold emails isn't easy — you need to make sure your potential clients are ready to buy, and that means knowing how they like to be pitched. 

    Here are some helpful tips on how to compose an email. By using them, you can increase the open rate and response rates of your cold emails. 

    Capture attention with a great headline

    The headline is one of the most important parts of your cold email. It should be short and clear, yet engaging enough to capture attention. As with any marketing message, you want to make sure that it's relevant to your reader. Don't use a misleading headline — just because your subject line sounds like something they'd be interested in doesn't necessarily mean that it's true.

    The best way to write a great headline is by asking yourself: «Why would this person care about what I'm saying?» If you can't answer that question confidently, then go back to the drawing board and try again until you do have an answer!

    Make the purpose of the email clear

    The purpose of the email should be clear, as it is one of the most important parts of your message. The purpose can be anything from asking a question about their business to pitching an idea for a project. Make sure that you make it easy for them to understand what you want by delivering this message clearly and concisely. You don’t want your reader to have to work hard to figure out why they are receiving the email in the first place!

    Have an irresistible offer

    • The offer must be something that is of value to the prospect.
    • It should be tailored to the prospect's needs.
    • It should be something that can be delivered quickly.
    • It should be something that is easy to measure and doesn't require a long-term commitment from either party (e.g., an email course).
    • Most importantly, it needs to be something that the prospect can't get anywhere else (or at least not easily).

    Demonstrate your company's credibility

    Use a professional email address. When you use your company's main email address, it doesn't display your credibility. Instead, use a personal email address that is connected to the name of the person who's sending the email and that matches up with their first name in the signature block of their emails. 

    Provide all necessary information about your company's credibility. In addition to providing a professional-sounding contact point for interested customers, be sure that you provide some other details about who you are and what services or products you offer to help interested customers feel more comfortable working with you.

    Be personal. Be specific. Be to the point.

    The first thing you should do is personalize the email. Make sure to include the name of the person who will be reading your email as well as their company's name. If you have had a previous conversation with this person, then mention it and reference it in your text.

    If what you are offering is relevant to them and their business, then make sure to specify that in your text. You don't have much time to prove why they should respond to your offer, so make sure it's clear how this could benefit them and their company. In addition, make sure that whoever is going out on these cold emails has read over them before sending them out because there are plenty of examples where people don't answer back because they can tell from reading the email that it doesn't apply or interest them at all (even if there was some interest).

    In short, writing a cold email that converts is all about following these four steps:


    1. Find your target market (i.e. what type of person or company would be interested in your product or service?)
    2. Write irresistible subject lines.
    3. Outline the purpose of the email and what you want to achieve with it, whether that’s getting someone to reply or buy something from you
    4. Close with another call-to-action

    The Structure Of A Proper Cold Email

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    Writing an effective cold email is a valuable skill to have. It’s a great way to introduce yourself or your company to potential clients, partners and investors. But if you want your message to stand out from the crowd, you need to follow some rules. Here how the structure of a proper cold email should look like.

    Sender Name

    The sender’s name should be your full name, and it is not a brand or company. The best way to ensure this is by using a Gmail account that you set up for cold emails and only use for sending them. Then, you can put whatever you want as the name of the account.

    Subject Line

    The subject line is the first thing that recipients see when they open your email. When sending cold emails, your subject line is the most important part of your message. It should be clear and concise — no more than 10 words in length. The subject line should also be something that will pique the recipient’s interest. 

    cold_mail

    Preheader

    A preheader is a cold email subject line that appears in the email preview pane before the subject line. This can be useful because it gives you an additional opportunity to grab your reader's attention.

    Be concise and to the point with your preheader, as it won't show up on every device or platform.

    Make sure to include relevant information about why someone would want to open this email, such as a free trial offer or exclusive content.

    Greeting

    It's important to craft a great cold email greeting. The first thing a recipient sees is what you say in your email subject line, so it should be clear and persuasive.

    You should always personalize your greeting. The most common mistake is to use first_name as a greeting, and this can make your email seem too formal or even impersonal if you don't have something more specific to say.

    Body

    Next, write the body of the email. This is where you get to sell yourself and your services, and explain why your reader should care about what you're offering them.

    How long should this be? It's not as straightforward as it might seem: if an email has too little content, it risks being perceived as spammy; however if an email has too much content, it runs the risk of being overwhelming or intimidating to your recipient(s). Of course, there are no hard-and-fast rules here — it's all about striking a balance between brevity and clarity.

    One good rule of thumb is to keep each paragraph (or section within a larger paragraph) at around 4 sentences long; anything less than 4 sentences feels like an incomplete thought while any more than that can become overwhelming for readers who aren't interested in what you're saying anyway!

    What should go into this part? Besides explaining what services are offered by your company/organization and why those services will benefit recipients (if applicable), consider including any relevant details about pricing along with some clarifying questions like: «Why can our service be useful to you?» When you're making them sure not just to ask directly but rather do so indirectly by posing them within context so as not to come off sounding overly salesy.

    Call-to-action

    A call-to-action is a statement that asks the reader to take some kind of action. It should be clear and direct, and it should ask for something specific.

    Here are some good examples of calls to action:

    • «Download our free guide today!»
    • «Book your free demo today!»
    • «Download our ebook instantly.» 

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    Sign-off

    The sign-off is an important part of your cold email. It should be natural, concise, and friendly. It should also be engaging to ensure that you get a reply. 

    Signature

    • Include your name and title.
    • Include a link to your website.
    • Include a link to your social media accounts.
    • Include an email address.

    Unsubscribe Link

    When you send out an email, it should include an easy-to-find unsubscribe link at the bottom of your message. This is important because it lets people remove themselves from your list — and we know why that's so important!

    There are two ways to do this: either you can put a simple text link in the footer (the bottom) of your message or you can make it slightly more hidden by clicking on the footer and selecting «unsubscribe». The second option is less accessible, but if done correctly will still ensure that users can find what they're looking for quickly and easily.

    Attachments

    Attachments can be used to add weight to your email. If you have a document or image that supports what you're saying, attach it! By adding an interesting tidbit from another source, you can make your email more compelling.

    Attachments can help add value and/or personalization with company branding elements or estimates and proposals or contract agreements etc. You may also want to consider including attachments for prospects who don't have time yet but would like to review them later instead of having them click over somewhere else online where they could lose interest along the way (especially if their attention span isn't any longer than 5 minutes).

    Conclusion 

    What is cold email meaning and what does it consist of? What are the benefits? Now you know more about this way of attracting customers and can incorporate it into your marketing strategy. Don't forget to use automation tools — this will make your daily routine easier and allow you to scale your emails without compromising their quality. Mass mailing software is designed with the needs of business owners and marketers in mind, so it can simplify your work while being as flexible and functional as possible.

    Written by:
    Irina Podorvan
    Back to blog
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