Insights

17 Actionable Cold Email Tips That Work Like a Charm

Writing cold emails that consistently deliver results isn’t rocket science.

Yet, it requires a delicate touch and certain elements to prevent your message from landing in the spam folder.

Don’t panic. We’re here to help you get the most out of your cold email efforts.

From targeting your subscribers with beautiful seasonal campaigns to crafting the perfect subject line, here are 17 fail-proof cold email tips to help you win in 2024. Let’s go ahead and get started.

17 Actionable Cold Email Tips

1. Find Your “Why”

First things first: Get clear on your “Why.”

Why do you want to do cold email outreach? What’s your objective? Is it to reach a wider audience? To improve sales? To promote brand value?

Remember that hundreds of emails flood your prospects’ inboxes every day. Your campaign could fail if you’re unsure what you want to achieve.

Thus, writing down your intention and internalizing it before writing a single word on the actual campaign is best. The rest of the ideas will just flow after doing so.

2. Understand Your Audience

Ensure you understand your audience – the people you send your campaigns to.

It’s best to research their interests, demographics, values and more.

Once you understand your target audience, crafting a thought-provoking and relevant message is easier, likely boosting your response rates. This is because you can send a message that is relevant to your recipient.

For example, cold emailing is a strong choice if you’re targeting millennials (born between 1981 and 1996). Studies revealed that this cohort has a strong preference for email communication. [1]

So, as much as possible, gather emails that align with your niche and industry. This way, you can send cold emails to people who care about your services and products.

A smiling woman drinking coffee and reading emails on a laptop.

3. Split Up Your Contacts

Many cold emails fail (easily get marked as spam) because they’re sent as email blasts, have not undergone audience analysis, and are not segmented.

Therefore, an essential cold email tip is to split up your contacts and create buyer personas of your potential customers.

You can include their:

demographics,
job or responsibilities,
buying characteristics,
how they feel or think,
where they are in your customer journey, and
their unmet needs

4. Always Personalize Your Emails

Don’t send a generic message.

Instead, personalize your email to grab your recipient’s attention quickly.

Try writing your cold emails with friendly greetings, including their names. It makes your recipient feel special that it’s a one-to-one email.

5. Use the Right Tone

When cold emailing, you can only use words to win your prospects over. It’s basically a one-way conversation, unlike in cold-calling.

But you can still make a positive impression and ensure genuine engagement by using the right tone.

For instance, you can use a friendly or casual tone when sending to younger generations and add a bit of formality when sending to professionals and older audiences. Don’t be obnoxious or aggressive. And never trash-talk your rivals in the industry.

Whatever tone you prefer, remember that every email is a chance to make your prospect’s day a little brighter.

6. Craft the “Perfect” Message (Should Reflect Your Objectives)

Next, craft your cold email content – that part that could make or break your cold email campaign.

Your goal is to create a copy that reflects your objective. Aside from being appealing, your email copy should also be optimized for several buyer personas (from Tip 3).

7. Get to the Point

Rambling, cold emails suck.

So, if you want your audience to stay engaged and focused on your message, send concise emails. Keep your emails on point by including only essential or relevant information your potential clients would be interested in knowing.

Three people sending an email on a tablet

8. Offer an End-to-End Solution

A great cold email strategy is to offer an end-to-end solution to a problem they’re facing with the help of your product or service.

Your goal in this part is to make your prospects’ lives easier. You can also highlight a specific pain point relating to the prospect’s company.

Tell them what benefits they’ll experience from using your product and service. However, avoid making claims that don’t make sense.

Are you tired of managing email campaigns manually? InboxAlly is here to help. Experience the convenience of an end-to-end solution that streamlines your email marketing efforts. Try InboxAlly today!

9. Don’t Rely too Heavily on Templates

Don’t sound like a robot by relying heavily on templates. And use them wisely if you need to use them to improve your consistency while saving time.

Tailor the cold email template or tweak it to make it sound like you wrote it. Adjust the context, language, and tone if necessary.

10. Don’t Skip the Pre-header Text

Aside from writing a compelling subject line, consider your pre-header text. When recipients check their inboxes, they quickly notice the text appears after your subject line, and that is the secret weapon to enhance open rates.

So, take advantage of it by writing a pre-header that builds curiosity, doesn’t repeat the subject line, and offers a solution to a nagging problem.

11. Avoid Attachments

Send cold emails without attachments because they only make them heavier, alerting the anti-spam filters. If that happens, your cold emails will go to the junk folder.

Instead, focus on getting replies or building relationships rather than adding attachments to your own cold emails. Rather, add a link to specific pages where your prospects can see added information.

12. Have a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)

Let’s say you’ve written impeccable cold outreach emails, brilliant preheader copies, and great subject lines. You’re all set to send, right?

Wrong.

You forgot the value of having a clear CTA. In fact, even if every part of your email outreach is spot-on, it’s still ineffective if you do not direct your prospects on the steps they should take with your business.

Make your CTA as detailed as possible. Remove the friction and make it easy for your prospect to understand your offer. One great example is from Spotify.

Look at this CTA that gets right to the point:

CTA Example: “Drizzy’s back. Listen now.” It highlights the “Listen Now” button on the center page, prompting you to take action.

Blue alarm clock on yellow background with a take action sign.

13. Add a Signature

Adding an email signature is tricky. Some marketers put their names using fancy HTML, but you really shouldn’t have to.

What’s important is you keep it professional, consistent, and straightforward.

Common elements of an effective email signature include your name and surname as the sender, a link to your company’s blog or website, phone number, photo, job title, sign-off, email address, and physical address.

Remember that this part of your email will be your electronic business card. The signature will introduce them to you and your business since you are a stranger to your prospects in cold email campaigns.

14. Proofread

You don’t have to be a grammar nazi to proofread your campaign. You just have to make sure your grammar and punctuation are impeccable.

You may even use tools like Grammarly. Proofreading your copy ensures that your content is top-notch and helps you establish yourself as an authority in your industry.

15. Employ Double Unsubscribe Opt-in

Aside from making it easy for your subscribers to opt out of future emails if they want to, a good cold email strategy is to employ a double unsubscribe opt-in.

It’s an option to confirm a user’s subscription via a landing page or a separate email to officially add them to your list.

This process boosts users’ interest levels, lessens the risk of spam, and prevents accidental unsubscribes.

16. Target the Holiday Season

A robust cold email marketing strategy during the holiday season will help boost your sales because of higher demand during this period.

As such, we recommend you craft campaigns to target Christmas, Halloween, Black Friday, St. Patrick’s Day, Father’s Day, etc.

a woman reading a cold email about holiday sale.

17. Scale Your Efforts (with Automation)

Lastly, automate.

Especially if you want to grow your business and email channel, be strategic with how and when you send your email. Choose software that allows you to perform most email marketing tasks with less human intervention.

Doing so will enable you to focus on more high-level tasks like cross-functional alignment, building partnerships, and strategy development.

With email marketing automation, you’ll also reap benefits such as:

Ability to expand your reach and scale your campaigns
Cost efficiency
Time savings

But wait, there’s more!

Pro Tip: 95% of Cold Email Campaigns Is About Your Audience

A vital tip to remember to be successful in cold email marketing is to make it 95% about your audience and 5% about you.

When you send a cold email about your product or service, speak about its benefits and what your audience will receive rather than what you provide.

And sometimes, one cold email may not be enough. Some people need a reminder, while others are too busy to reply or act. That’s why a follow-up email is necessary.

Inboxally home page screenshot.

Unlock Your Email Potential with InboxAlly

Anyone can write cold emails, but to craft emails that receive responses and don’t land in spam folders, it’s crucial to follow the tips above and use a trusted email deliverability tool.

That’s what InboxAlly is all about.

It’s a tool that prioritizes the deliverability of your cold emails. In fact, it is used by deliverability experts, cold emailers, email marketing agencies, affiliate marketers, email list owners, and businesses new to email marketing.

InboxAlly teaches email providers to put your cold emails in the inbox from the start and keep them out of the spam and promotions folder. On your behalf, InboxAlly sends emails to genuine email addresses to create a good email engagement.

And the best part? It’s easy to use, even for beginners. At the same time, it’s powerful for experienced marketers. It’s an email deliverability software built to help you create a winning cold email strategy, regardless of the complexity of your business.

See for yourself How InboxAlly Increased a Top B2B Analytics and Data Provider’s Cold Email Delivery Rate to 100% in One Month.

Cold email marketing can be tough, but InboxAlly can take the hassle out of the process. Try InboxAlly today for free and learn how it can transform your cold email marketing campaign.