The usefulness of email marketing is now being questioned by many experts. This is because most emails sent directly go into spam and are never read. However, we say that email marketing is indeed useful. Personalized promotions, completely direct addressing, and communication. All of these contribute to the success of this method even today. Many people use cold and hot email campaigns in combination to maximize their conversion rates. Now we’ll talk about cold email marketing.

In our article, you can learn about the mistakes you need to avoid during your campaign in order to increase your conversion rate.

What Is Cold Email Marketing?

A way of communicating with a collection of leads using email as the major medium is known as cold email marketing. A successful cold email campaign is one in which the recipient not only reads but also replies to your message.

In summary, cold emailing is when you send an email to someone you don’t know for no apparent reason. The goal of these emails is to develop a connection with the potential customers and advance them along the conversion funnel, in addition to boosting your conversion rate.

As you’ve seen, there are numerous options available. Be it an online business or, for example, a physical store, cold emails will definitely contribute to the success of your business. But how?

– Increase the number of new visitors or potential customers

– It helps guide people to the lower stages of your conversion funnel

– It helps increase your conversion rate

– Increases awareness

These factors don’t sound bad, do they? But then why do people say this method may not be as effective?

It is simply annoying and many do not use cold emails properly. Let’s see what mistakes you need to consider in order for you not to belong to the group that can’t increase their conversion rate with the help of cold emails.

Cold Email Marketing

7 Common Mistakes To Avoid During Cold Email Marketing

Before cutting in, it’s important to mention what’s floating in front of your eyes. The goal of email marketing is to increase your click-through rate.

This figure shows how many people visited your website after clicking on the email’s link.

This is closely related to the conversion rate, which shows how many useful interactions have taken place on your website. The objective is to enhance these two figures.

Let’s look at what to do,

1. Do not use long messages

2. Don’t use spammy titles

3. Always keep an eye on the structure

4. Always use CTA

5. Pay attention to the visual elements

6. Always use up-to-date content

7. Template is key

Now that you’ve read these points, you can see that it’s not going to be 2 minutes, so we suggest you bring a cup of coffee. Believe us in the end you will say it was worth reading the cold email marketing tips.

1. Writing Long Messages

Long texts should be avoided in email marketing, just as they should be avoided in social media. Who pays attention to a litany? No one, most likely.

According to studies, the average person spends no more than 10 seconds viewing a post or advertisement. You only have so much time to persuade or provide information.

Strive for short texts if you want to boost the conversion rate with your email marketing campaign. In 1-2 sentences, summarize the message, and then use only words.

We know that this is not enough to tell you what you want. But don’t worry, there’s a solution.

Once you have summarized the point at the beginning of the email, use the buttons and pictograms with extremely short text. These are equally suitable for conveying information and the potential customers will not feel that they need to read a novel.

Cold Email Marketing

2. Using Spammy Subject Lines

Surely you have already received emails that you immediately see as promotional. You have to avoid them.

Never use subjects like “Check out our new product,” “Try our brand new service,” or “Visit our website.” These are often misused as they would have a place in the message, these will be the CTAs.

Never use call-to-action in your email title. While this may be a logical step, because it can help you boost conversions, it’s not true for titles today.

As we mentioned, constant emails are already annoying, so if people see promotional content they will put it in the trash immediately. What’s even worse, your email address might even be banned.

You should definitely avoid this.

Another reason not to use spammy subject lines is that some email systems are monitoring them. There are texts that are automatically considered spam and are immediately placed in the spam folder.

If this happens, your message will not reach a potential buyer and your CTR and conversion rate will not increase. That doesn’t sound good, right?

But then what does a good title look like? Let’s see some examples.

– Shocking type: ”Your conversion rate is very low”

– Personalized:  “Especially for Liam Smith”

– Questions:  “Do you want to increase your conversion rate?”

With these few techniques, you can send really attention-grabbing cold emails that are sure to open. Of course, personal addressing is hard to solve in this case, but if you’re smart enough, you can do it too. You can also test your email subject line to have an idea about how efficient it will be for your recipient’s response.

3. Not Adding A CTA

Many people fall into a trap of not concentrating on the point at hand. They want to include a lot of detail in the email, which takes away from the main purpose.

The plain form is the heart and soul of cold email marketing campaigns. What exactly does it mean?

You don’t have to speak a lot, just say what you need to say. Indicate at the beginning if you’re sending a discount offer. Just say it in the first few lines of your message.

If you don’t tell your consumer why you’re sending them an email right away, the message is likely to be deleted. And you certainly won’t want that to happen, do you?

You can also continue to use the same CTAs as on your webpage. It’s crucial to double-check these first, as not all CTAs will work in an email and on a website.

Running a heatmap analysis on your website is a great approach to achieve this. This will assist you in determining which CTAs are effective. This will help make a final selection on the button’s color and call-to-action text. 

Another important factor when choosing a call-to-action is to choose only one CTA.

Include a compelling call-to-action in your email, indicating the action you want your potential client to do. Multiple CTAs will appear spammy, and the prospect will be confused as to what to do.

Proper call-to-action text is key for all marketing strategies, as this will increase your CTR and help increase your conversion rate. Without it, there is no point in starting the campaign, as neither the conversion rate nor the CTR will increase.

4. Not Creating A Proper Email Structure

The structure is one of the most important factors during any email marketing campaign, whether it’s cold or warm. 

By structure, we mean how you place the introductory text, pictograms, and CTAs. This is very important for the following reasons:

– Reflects quality

– Indicates that this is not an automatic message

– It helps increase your conversion rate

Always start with an introductory text. That should be about 1-2 sentences. The point of this is to get the reader’s attention so they can move on to the essential part of the email where the offer is located.

Only place the pictograms and CTAs once you have explained the essence of the offer. Many people make the mistake of getting to the point right away, however, how could you sell anything without your potential customer knowing what it is about?

If you arrange the elements of your cold email in a clear, logical order, your potential catchers will be more likely to reach your CTA and your conversion rate will increase. Also, the good structure reflects that this is not an automatic message.

Automatic messages are often slipped apart or not at all about what one is wondering about. That’s why they end up in the trash very often.

However, if you follow these few steps you will surely be able to avoid this and you will be able to create a successful cold email marketing campaign.

5. Not Focusing On Visual Elements

Not only on your website but also in your email marketing effort, the user and visual experience are critical. Many emails are disregarded or misconstrued as a hoax, and as a result, they do not persuade individuals to buy.

Make sure your customers are aware that you sent them this communication material and that they are receiving a genuine offer. You can do this in several ways:

– Firstly, display your company’s logo and unique motifs. Your customers will be able to recognize you based on this.

– Secondly, the message should not be cluttered. Instead, it should focus on the main topic.

– Thirdly, don’t be scared to employ a variety of colors. In the message, you should use the colors from your website. However, make sure that these only be displayed in the background because colored lettering can be confusing to the reader.

Focus on improving the visual and user experience of your email. This is a crucial step because it might affect whether or not they visit your website and it plays a prominent role when you want to increase your conversion rate too.

6. Not Being Up-To-Date

Relevance is a determining factor in cold email marketing automation. Because you’re going to reach people who don’t know you yet, you need to share current content with them.

This will be the first impression. Just imagine how they will feel about you if you say you are giving each new registrant a 10% discount and this feature does not work on your website.

This will shatter the customer’s trust, and the potential customer may never buy from you again. You’ve lost a potential customer, which is the worst failure a company can make because this is the sector that contributes the most to improving and optimizing conversion rates.

Only send out updates about current deals if the promotion is already available in your webshop or physical store. Never send an email in advance since many individuals would rather buy right away if they could, and if they can’t, they may become suspicious of you and their impression of you may shift.

7. Sending The Same Template

Don’t send everybody the same cold message. You should always focus on prioritizing quality over quantity. 

Though creating custom emails for each of your prospects takes some time, believe us, it is well worth it in the end.

Establish some common ground by using the person’s name, work title, or mentioning anything you know about them. Demonstrate that you are concerned about their requirements and that you are here to assist them specifically.

If you skip this step, your campaign will almost certainly fail, as your potential customers will not feel that this message is really for them. In addition, you will be sent visits that are not relevant to that person at all.

It will be a waste of time and money, by the way, your conversion rate will not increase and they will have a worse opinion of you.

If you follow these few methods mentioned above, it will make your cold email campaign a little more personalized, which will increase your conversion rate and CTR.

Cold Email Marketing Tips Worth Following

While you can learn a lot from the mistakes most people do in cold emailing from the previous section, here’s a look at the sure-fire tips to help strengthen your cold email marketing strategy.

1. Personalize your emails

One of the most important things you can do to improve your cold emails’ effectiveness is personalizing them. We saw this above too, but it is worth reiterating it! Make sure that you address the recipient by their name, and include some information showing you’ve researched their company or industry. For example, you can mention a recent news article or a project they’ve worked on that’s relevant to your product or service.

2. Proofread

Make sure you use proper grammar and spelling, and watch your tone. There’s nothing more turning-off than spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Remember that the first impression is the last impression. At the same time, do try to keep your email professional.

3. Follow up

Follow up if you don’t get a response. If you’ve sent multiple emails and still haven’t heard back, it’s okay to send a friendly reminder. When it comes to following up on cold emails, timing is key. You want to be persistent without being annoying. Be sure to keep your follow-up emails short and to the point. Ensure you include the original email you sent, so the recipient doesn’t have to search through their inbox to find it. You can also use the follow-up email as an opportunity to provide more information or make a stronger case for why they should respond.

It is possible to automate the process by creating a follow up sequence using SalesBlink. Create a personalized template for follow up and schedule it. This way you don’t have to remember following up with prospects manually and can save time.

SalesBlink's sequence builder

Start With Effective Cold Email Marketing

As you can see, email marketing isn’t as ineffective as many people claim. You have a lot of alternatives when it comes to making efficient use of this instrument.

Remember that everything is built on a database, so you must first deal with it. Once you’ve got that, you can start thinking about optimization. Textual content, CTAs, design, and structure are all important factors in increasing conversion rates.

You may construct a successful direct marketing campaign if you follow the procedures above.

We hope we’ve helped you understand the email mistakes to avoid.

FAQs

1. What is cold email marketing?

A way of communicating with leads using email as the main medium is known as cold email marketing. A successful cold email campaign is one in which the recipient not only reads but also replies to your message.

2. What is an email structure?

The structure is one of the most important factors during any email marketing campaign, whether it’s cold or warm. By structure, we mean how you place the introductory text, pictograms, and CTAs.

3. What are spammy subject lines?

Surely you have already received emails that you immediately see as promotional. You have to avoid them. Never use subject lines like “Check out our new product,” “Try our brand new service,” or “Visit our website.”