Email is by and large the most trusted and effective channel for reaching out to prospects. Most business communications are carried out by email as it is convenient and doesn’t involve face-to-face interaction. It helps people to overcome sales objection better, which is why cold emailing is one of the best ways of acquiring prospects. Let’s look at what cold emailing is and the top 10 cold email software,
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Cold emailing refers to the practice of sending cold emails. A cold email is an email you send to a recipient with whom you don’t have any prior contact. The recipient doesn’t even anticipate receiving an email from you. It is similar to cold calling but is not very intrusive and a preferred mode of contact for most salespeople.
Don’t confuse cold emails with spam emails. Spam emails are sent at once to thousands of emails without research and bothering about the email address validity. On the other hand, you do cold email outreach to qualified prospects, which means you research and make the email relevant to the recipient. Moreover, before sending cold emails, the addresses are verified.
The clear-cut fact is that it is entirely legal to send cold emails as long as you meet the requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act. It is a regulation for sending B2B and B2C messages, including cold emails.
Cold emailing aims at getting emails read by the targeted prospects. Though results may vary, there are certain best practices to follow while sending cold emails. Here is a list of a few of them,
Instead of blasting emails to thousands of prospects, you should consider segmenting them into smaller groups. Use a few criteria and divide your list into manageable chunks so that you can personalize emails and make them sound relevant to a particular group. For example, you can segment lists based on industry and send emails relevant to the prospects belonging to each industry. It would not be pleasant for someone in the finance industry to get emails about construction software. Therefore, segmentation is a must if you want to get good results from your campaign.
If you don’t want your email to end up in the trash folder, you have to write catchy email subject lines because most people open emails based on the subject line. Personalize the subject line with the name of the prospect or their company. Take a few minutes to research the person you are reaching out to. You can use that information in the subject line so that your email seems relevant to the recipient.
As no one has the luxury of the time these days, your emails have to be short and to the point. They have to be compact to retain the interest of the reader. This way, you will be able to get a higher number of responses.
Image Personalization in your email is essential because no one would bother to read emails that sound too generic and boring. You have to make the email relevant to the prospect, use their name a couple of times, highlight a mutual connection if you have any, compliment them, focus on their interests, use visuals like images and videos and mention their pain points.
Every cold email must have a CTA. It can be anything relevant, such as requesting an in-person meeting, picking a time for a product demo, asking to accept an invite to an event or a webinar, or asking to download resources that add value to the prospect.
The CTA tells prospects what specific action they have to take after they finish reading your email. Craft the whole email in such a way that the reader implicitly performs the CTA. Ensure that your CTA is clear to the prospect because if you make it too confusing, the recipient will abandon your email. Also, make sure that you don’t have more than one CTA in an email by any chance because the reader will get overwhelmed with multiple CTAs and not act on even one of them.
Many regulations govern email marketing, and you need to comply with them. For the US prospects, you have to comply with the guidelines of the CAN-SPAM act, and for Canadian prospects, there is the CASL that you have to pay attention to. As per both laws, you have to reveal your complete contact information, including your address. Additionally, recipients can opt-out of your emails if they don’t wish to hear from you. If you use a 3rd party service for your email campaigns, you have to follow the guidelines correctly.
You have to follow up and be persistent till the prospect hints you to leave the track or if you feel that they are not worth pursuing. The biggest problem is that most salespeople withdraw after making 1 or 2 follow-ups, but the truth is that the prospect says a ‘Yes’ after a series of ‘No’.
Cold email outreach tools enable you to carry out cold email outreach with ease. It helps you send cold emails more effectively by automating the process for you. It facilitates sending follow-ups and provides features like personalization, tracking, preloaded templates, etc. Most cold email outreach tools also automate other parts of the sales process, such as finding emails of prospects.
Cold email software companies also choose to name their software as a sales engagement platform or sales automation tool, indicating that cold email is also a part of it. Also, when automated cold outreach tools use the term multi-channel outreach, it always has email as one of the outreach channels
There are so many cold email software that it is difficult to make a choice. However, there are certain features that you have to look for in your cold email tools.
Personalization is one feature that all cold email software must have. Unless and until you personalize your email, it is not likely to resonate with the recipient. All the cold email automation tools let you personalize emails, but the extent of personalization varies from one tool to another.
While some tools offer only text personalization wherein you can add dynamic variables for the recipient’s name and their company’s name, and so on. Other tools offer image personalization and let you embed personalized videos into emails. The bottom line is that the level of personalization of your email decides how well the recipient will engage with it. So, this is one feature that your tool should have.
Email tracking is essential to measure the performance of your email campaign. It has to track the email open rates, clicks, bounces, and replies. These metrics make it possible to gauge how your campaign fared and what changes you need to make in your future campaigns to get better results. For instance, if you notice that the bounce rate is higher than usual, you must check whether your contact list has too many invalid addresses.
Note: Email verification is another feature that you should look for in your tool as it is essential for your email deliverability and sender reputation.
Ideally, cold email software must reduce your workload and take care of the time-consuming tasks like creating contact lists, personalizing emails, automating sending emails, and scheduling follow-ups and drip campaigns. If a tool provides you with all the desirable automation features, you should go for it.
It is a tedious task to keep the CRM updated with all the prospect’s data. Hence, it is best to have a tool that integrates with the CRM solution you are currently using. It would help you save a lot of time.
SalesBlink is a sales outreach automation suite that can take you from prospecting to outreach to closing at lightning-fast speed. It automates the sales process and makes the most tedious tasks super easy to reduce your workload to a great extent. SalesBlink not only automates cold emailing but takes care of most of the other aspects of the sales cycle. It will hand-hold you throughout, right from finding prospects to reaching out to them through campaigns to closing deals with them. Therefore, it is one of the best cold email outreach tools.
SalesBlink lets you find the business email addresses of prospects from the vast database it has. The features of domain search and email search help you get the contact details of businesses and their employees.
You can use the campaign builder or the pre-built campaign templates to create personalized outreach campaigns. You can even carry out multi-channel outreach with SalesBlink, including email, phone, and LinkedIn.
There is an in-built meeting scheduler, sales pipeline, and an in-built CRM for the closing stage.
Apart from all of the above, you have two free tools:
Pros –
Cons –
Nothing specific
Pricing – SalesBlink has 3 different plans to offer based on the different needs of users.
Here’s a closer look at SalesBlink’s plans,
Email Warm-up Plan – $15 per month per user
Email Outreach Plan – $39 per month per user
Sales Outreach Plan – $99 per month per user
You get a discount of 15% if you choose yearly billing.
Customer rating –
Capterra – 4.7/5
G2 – 4.6/5
Woodpecker aims at helping B2B salespeople reach out to prospects in such a way that the messages seem to be coming from a human. It is possible to automate follow-ups and schedule them.
With Woodpecker, you can detect replies, track campaigns with email open, replies, clicks, and bounces. It lets you perform A/B testing email templates to assess what resonates with the recipients better. The tool prevents collision by preventing one prospect from being contacted with different email addresses.
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – There is a free trial of 14 days that lets you send up to 150 emails. The subscription plan starts at $32 per month per user for this cold email software.
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.5/5
G2: 4.6
Reply.io is a multichannel platform for automated outreach that aims at fetching the best conversion rates. It facilitates drip campaigns with automated follow-ups and enables tracking the campaigns’ open, click, reply, and bounce rates. There are readily available email templates for you to use. There is a feature to validate the email list to send emails only to valid addresses and keep your sender reputation intact. You can integrate this tool with other platforms such as Slack, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and much more. Hence, it is one of the best cold email outreach tools
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – You can sign up for a free trial of 14-days with all the features of the tool. The plan starts at $70 per month for three email addresses for this cold emailing tool.
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.6/5
G2: 4.5/5
Mailshake is a sales engagement platform that lets salespeople run personalized campaigns and reach out to prospects via email, phone, and social media. You can personalize emails for your campaign in bulk with dynamic variables. It is possible to schedule follow-ups automatically based on opens, clicks, and replies to emails, which will help reduce manual work considerably. Using the platform, you can perform A/B testing to get better results. You can reach out to prospects through other channels as well such as phone and social media. However, you can manage everything from one dashboard. The advantage is that you can integrate Mailshake with other tools like Salesforce and Pipedrive. So, it is one of the best cold email outreach tools
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – Though Mailshake doesn’t have a free trial, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. Their subscription plan starts at $39 per user per month for this cold emailing software.
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.7/5
G2: 4.7/5
Lemlist is yet another email outreach tool that helps automate and personalize cold emails in bulk with custom variables. You can personalize images and videos easily. The tool lets you insert screenshots and logos as images in your email and add dynamic landing pages. The tool also provides an email warm-up feature so that your new domain has high email deliverability.
You can schedule automated follow-ups and perform A/B testing for email templates efficiently with this tool. Additionally, it is possible to measure campaign performance by tracking opens, clicks, replies, and bounces. What’s more, is that you can monitor recipients and validate email addresses before running the campaign.
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – There is a free trial of 14-days inclusive of all the features. The subscription plan starts at $29 per month per user for this cold emailing tool.
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.6/5
G2: 4.3/5
Overloop aims at making cold outreach easier. It helps you in all aspects of prospecting, which includes finding emails, building segmented lists of prospects after research, reaching out to them using personalization, and managing them in a CRM solution of your choice.
The tool has an email finder and an extension to verify those email addresses. It lets you build multi-step campaigns easily and set automated reminders for multi-channel outreach. You can use custom variables for personalization. Additionally, you can track email opens, clicks, bounces, and replies. Additionally, the tool lets you monitor the performance of your sales team and that of each individual.
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – Their subscription plan starts at $39 per month per user
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.8/5
G2: 4.8 /5
Mixmax is your go-to cold email software if you are looking for an-inclusive email outreach tool. There is no need for any technical knowledge to use this tool as it is quite easy to set up. Scheduling emails and follow-ups are easier with Mixmax, as you can use this tool from your Gmail account, there will be no unnecessary back and forth. There is smart personalization to make your outreach more effective. Also, prospects can book meetings with you using your calendar link based on your availability. In addition to that, you have email tracking and real-time alerts for measuring the performance of your campaign.
Pros-
Cons-
Pricing – The paid plan starts at $9 per user per month
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.5/5
G2: 4.6/5
You can get emails delivered straight into the recipient’s inbox with SmartReach.io. It is a tool that meets all the email outreach requirements that you can have. The main highlights of this tool are the deliverability features. You have email verification and SPAM check to ensure that the sender’s reputation and email deliverability remain intact. There is also a domain warm-up feature that helps build the sender reputation of your new domain. As warming up your domain can be a time-consuming and long-running task, getting a tool to help you can be of great help.
The tool enables automated scheduling of emails and follow-ups along with personalization. You can track the progress of the email campaign and the open, reply, and click rates right from your dashboard. A/B testing of email sequences is another feature that helps you improve the campaign further.
Coming to integrations, you can integrate it with Gmail, Office 365, and tools like Mailgun and Sendgrid.
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – The basic subscription plan starts at $24 a month per user. You have a free trial of 14 days that lets you use all the features of the tool.
Customer rating –
Capterra – 4.7/5
G2 – 4.9/5
Klenty is a sales engagement platform that helps in automating cold email outreach. It personalizes emails and automates follow-ups. You can auto-import prospects with CSV or Google sheets of a CRM. Also, the email campaign features include mail merge, A/B testing, and email detection. In addition, it gets you to report such as cadence and team reports and one that has prospect history. You can integrate Klenty with CRMs like Salesforce, Pipedrive, Hubspot, Zoho, and Freshsales.
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – The subscription plan starts at $30 per month per user. There is a free trial of 14 days that offers all the features of the cold emailing tool.
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.8/5
G2: 4.6/5
SalesHandy is an email tracking and outreach automation tool. Though it is a full-fledged application, you can even use it as a Gmail or Outlook extension. Using the tool, you can create emails with the help of email templates and automatically schedule emails and follow-ups. The tool also offers to track individual links so that you can see who clicked them and decide what your strategy for the next campaign should be. Then, there is the mail merge feature that is helpful for mass outreach. Overall, it works well as a cold email automation software.
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – The subscription plan starts at $9 per user per month, but this has limited features to offer. As the features increase, the price of the plans also increases.
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.5/5
G2: 4.5/5
Autoklose is a sales engagement platform with a B2B database having more than 28M prospects. It doesn’t limit itself to just being an outreach automation tool making it more useful for salespeople. It automates drip campaigns, schedules automated follow-ups, personalizes emails, leads, tracks email opens, bounces, replies, and clicks to measure the campaign’s performance.
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – The subscription plan starts at $49.99 per month per user. A free trial of 14 days lets users enjoy all the features of the cold emailing tool.
Customer rating –
Capterra : 4.5/5
G2: 4.6/5
QuickMail is an automated cold emailing tool having exceptional deliverability features. Targeted at sales teams that focus on maintaining high email deliverability, this tool enables easy outreach.
It lets you upload prospects seamlessly, carry out effective outreach by creating campaigns and follow-up sequences. With QuickMail, you can personalize emails effortlessly and ensure deliverability thanks to the features it has to offer. The tool automates the whole process for you, and the entire sales cadence is on autopilot. It is also possible to integrate with other tools you use for sales.
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – The paid plan starts at $59 per month
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.8/5
G2: 4.7/5
Outreach is a cold email software that enables you to reach out to prospects across multiple channels. The tool works well for sales teams using the outbound approach for selling. Personalize outreach, get assistance for cold calling tasks, and connect with LinkedIn prospects. With Outreach, you get an insight into reps’ performance thanks to the in-depth analytics provided.
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – Not disclosed on the website
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.5/5
G2: 4.3/5
SalesLoft is the perfect tool for sales engagement. You can create email templates and save them for future use. You can track email opens, replies, and clicks to understand where your campaign is heading to.
The tool provides an insight into the sales activities and the tasks the sales team has to do. This way the team head can view the team’s performance. It also ensures that they attend to prospects on time. Additionally, it is easy to integrate SalesLoft with other CRM tools.
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – Not disclosed on the website
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.3/5
G2: 4.5/5
With Snov.io it is possible to find leads easily from the massive database, reach out to them by email and manage them using a CRM. It is a platform that helps you with prospecting, outreach, and deal management using CRM. Build campaigns and automate email sending at scale using the platform. It is also possible to track performance using analytics. You can even keep an eye on inbox engagement using the tool’s Gmail extension.
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – The paid plan starts at $33 per month
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.6/5
G2: 4.5/5
Yesware is yet another cold email tool that makes outreach easier for you. You can import prospects from CSV files and create email campaigns. Yesware offers mail merge, open and click rate tracking, reply detection, and much more, making it a go-to tool for outreach.
It is even possible to link Yesware with Gmail or Outlook to send emails straight from your official email address. You can also integrate it with Salesforce CRM to make work processes seamless.
Pros –
Cons –
Pricing – Its paid plan starts at $15 per month per user.
Customer rating –
Capterra: 4.3/5
G2: 4.4/5
There is no doubt that cold emailing software helps simplify the task of reaching out to prospects through email. Though many tools are available, not all provide you with all the features you want for your outreach. After knowing what the top 15 email outreach tools offer, it is easier to pick the one that suits your needs.
Cold emailing refers to the practice of sending cold emails. A cold email is an email you send to a recipient with whom you don’t have any prior contact. The recipient doesn’t even anticipate receiving an email from you.
Cold emails are completely legal. Don’t confuse them with spam emails. Spam emails are sent at once to thousands of emails without research and bothering about the email address validity.
Cold email outreach tools enable you to carry out cold email outreach with ease. It helps you send cold emails more effectively by automating the process for you.
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