Why Your Cold Emails Are Ignored (and What to Do About It)

Crafting and sending cold emails are a hard sell. It’s difficult enough getting your emails seen and opened, let alone convincing the prospect to take action on your call to action.

And look, the stats don’t lie: According to MailChimp the average open rate can be as low as 15.22%. That makes for pretty grim reading. So why do we even bother with cold emails?

Two reasons:

1) Cold email is an excellent way to acquire many more clients - and even find potential partners. Cold email is an excellent way to acquire many more clients - and even find potential partners. Share on X

2) Cold email actually does work - as long as you do the right thing. For example, check out what Fast Company did. They launched a cold email campaign in which they sent out 1,000 emails. 293 bounced but the rest enjoyed an open rate of 45.5% - which is superb.

At the moment - I’m sorry to say - you’re doing cold email wrong. But it’s okay because this article is here to help you perform a cold email audit of sorts. Let’s take a look at why your cold emails are being ignored - and what you can do about it.

1. You’re Sending Your Emails out at the Wrong Time

Let’s imagine you send a cold email to a prospect at 10 a.m. You figure it’s a good time because it’s not too early to make you look desperate, and it’s not so late that it will get buried beneath a pile of other emails.

Okay, forget looking desperate and needy. If you send your cold emails out at 10 a.m., you will get ignored because your emails will be snowed under by an avalanche of other emails.

There are two sweet spots when it comes to sending out cold emails - 5 a.m. - 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. - 9 p.m. There are two sweet spots when it comes to sending out cold emails - 5 a.m. - 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. - 9 p.m. Share on X

Why do these windows of time work? The early bird works because it means your email will be at the top of the pile when a prospect arrives at work, while the 8 p.m. - 9 p.m. time frame works because it’s very likely that your competitors have already given up for the day and gone home.

2. Your Emails Aren’t Personalized

Anyone you cold email has a lot on their plate. They probably receive a million emails and hundreds of pitches each day.

This is why it’s important that you find a way of grabbing their attention as soon as possible. And you can do this with a personalized subject line.

According to research, just adding a prospect's name to the subject line can boost your open rate by 22.2%. According to research, just adding a prospect's name to the subject line can boost your email open rate by 22.2%. Share on X That’s pretty good, and the best thing? It’s super easy to do. Moreover, personalization works.

However you personalize your subject lines, and however you word them, always remember to A/B test them.

3. Your Emails Are Looong

The thing with cold emails is that the prospect doesn’t know you. As such, unless you’re amazing with copy and know how to keep a stranger reading for ages, you need to keep your emails brief.

When your emails are brief and to-the-point, you’re showing the prospect that you respect their time.

Moreover, you’re making your emails look a whole lot more appealing.

Imagine it: you’re sat in your office at 2 p.m., the phone hasn’t stopped ringing all day, you’re stressed, and you’ve just opened an email that’s basically a novel. Are you seriously going to take the time to read it all?

A good cold email should be 3-4 lines max.

4. Your Emails Are about You

“Yeah, so I’ve got this great company that’s increasing its revenue year on year, but now we’re looking to expand even further because we think it’s time to scale…”

Sounds familiar?

When a business makes the email about themselves, they’re committing the biggest cold email sin possible.

First, it looks like a sales pitch - and this is a major turn off.

Second, by making it about you, you’re not making it about the prospect. This is a huge case of you dropping the ball.

For a cold email to work, you have to tap into a prospect's pain points. In fact, don’t even tap - chisel and claw away at them until they realize they need help. Then, show them the benefits of doing business with you.

Don’t make your cold emails about you - make it about them.

5. Your Ask Is Way Too Big

“The smaller the ask, the easier to answer.”

Keep that quote in mind at all times.

If your ask is too big, too complex and too expensive, it’s going to reduce your conversion rate.

6. You Never Follow up

Too many newbies in sales think following up is a cardinal sin. Maybe they’re scared of being that annoying business, or maybe they don’t think it will work.

However, not following up is the real sin here.

The stats show that following up is effective. It improves your response rate.

Moreover, just because someone didn’t open your email the first time, that doesn’t mean they’ll be annoyed if you send them the same email again. Maybe they just didn’t notice it the first time around, or maybe your subject line wasn’t compelling enough.

From now on, always follow up - but make adjustments as you go along.

Conclusion

All in all, cold emails can work for you, but you need to make sure that you keep measuring and tracking so that you can fine-tune your campaigns. It might be the case that your cold email campaign doesn’t work straight off the bat. If not, check your analytics, make changes and go again. You will get there. And, of course, don’t forget to choose a suitable email marketing software to make the whole process smoother!

Aljaz Fajmut

Aljaz Fajmut is a digital marketer, internet entrepreneur, and the founder of Nightwatch— a search visibility tool of the next generation. Check out Nightwatch blog and follow him on Twitter: @aljazfajmut

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