Prospecting Emails – Your Guide For 2023
If you want to use email to increase your business’s sales, there’s one type of email you need to be sending out: prospecting emails.
Prospecting emails are one of the most effective tools out there for generating new leads.
But according to a HubSpot study, 42% of salespeople find prospecting to be the most difficult part of the sales process.
It doesn’t have to be that hard, however, and in this short guide, you’re going to discover how you can start sending out more effective prospecting emails in 2023.
What Are Prospecting Emails?
Prospecting emails (also known as cold emails) are emails you send to potential customers who have never heard about your business before in order to build relationships that could ultimately end up in new sales.
Prospecting emails are a super effective sales tool because:
- They allow you to reach your potential customers right at the place they pay most of their attention: their inbox.
- They create awareness among customers who would never have heard about your products or services otherwise.
- They are scaleable, giving you the ability to reach thousands of people at the click of a button (whereas it would take hours, even days, to reach that many people by making calls or knocking on doors).
How to Send Effective Prospecting Emails
Now that you know exactly what prospecting emails are, and why they are so valuable, let’s get into the details of how you can begin sending effective prospecting emails that get you results in 2023.
1. Build a Targeted List
The first step of any email prospecting campaign is to build a targeted list.
Why?
Because it’s no good just sending emails to anybody.
After analyzing over 12 million emails, Backlinko discovered that only 8.5% of outreach emails ever receive a response.
But when you target your emails to a specific audience that you know is interested in the kind of products your business provides, that response rate increases significantly (as well as your profits).
When building a targeted list, it’s also important that you ensure the emails on that list are valid and safe (not spam traps or bots).
That’s because sending to invalid and dangerous addresses can get your own email address marked as spam, tanking your deliverability and dooming your emails to the spam folder.
One easy way to clean your email list is by using EmailOversight’s email validation tool, which cleans your list of harmful addresses with one click.
2. Write an Attention-Grabbing Subject Line
The average person receives over 100 emails per day.
With so many messages flooding into your prospect’s inbox, the only way your emails are going to be opened is if you successfully grab attention with a powerful subject line.
To grab attention, your subject lines should be:
- Short. Research has shown that seven words are the sweet spot for the length of email subject lines. Not only are shorter subject lines more impactful, they’re also able to be read by people using mobile devices without being cut off.
- Relevant. This is where targeting a specific audience comes in handy. Define what their interests are, and craft your subject line so that it is relevant to that interest. (For example, don’t mention cat food in a subject line being sent to a list full of dog lovers).
- Benefit-Driven. Can you convey or hint at a benefit in your subject line? If you can, then do it. Showing what your prospects have to gain is one of the best ways to immediately grab their attention.
By keeping your prospecting emails short, relevant, and benefit-driven, they’ll have more chance of being noticed and opened, and you’ll be more likely to get the results you want.
3. Personalize It
Remember that study from Backlinko that showed that only 8.5% of prospecting emails receive a response?
It also found that by simply personalizing the content of your emails, you can increase response by as much as 32.7%.
There are multiple ways you can personalize your emails:
- Include the prospect’s name.
- Compliment something they’ve done, whether it’s a piece of content they’ve published or even something they have achieved personally.
- Mention something you have in common with the prospect, such as a contact or a hobby you discovered (through research) that they enjoy.
The more tailor-made your email is for your prospect, the more likely they will be to respond.
4. Add a CTA
A CTA (call to action) is simply an instruction inserted at the end of an email to get the reader to take a desired action (e.g., “Click here”, or “Let me know…”).
Including a CTA in your prospecting emails can skyrocket response because without one, your prospects simply won’t know what to do next.
To come up with a CTA, think: What is the desired action you want your readers to take?
Do you want them to click a link and visit a landing page?
Or do you simply want them to email you back?
Whatever the desired action you want to see from your prospect, including a CTA is a key part of effective prospecting emails.
5. Follow Up
One of the easiest things you can do to boost response to your email prospecting campaign is to simply follow up if you don’t receive a reply.
When you do, you could see up to a 40% higher response rate from your second email in comparison to the first.
To send a successful response email, all you have to do is say hello, ask if they saw your last email, and then sign off with your name. Simple!
You can send more than one follow-up email (and a maximum of three to avoid being disruptive), and you ideally want to give prospects at least 2-3 days before sending each subsequent email.
Conclusion
Sending prospecting emails is a great way to increase your business’s revenue.
Most people struggle with them, but by following the five rules in this guide, you can start sending effective prospecting emails in 2023 that get your prospects to do exactly what you want them to.
