Ready to learn about cold email do’s and don’ts? When it comes down to it, everyone sends cold emails. How you send them is an entirely different story. You can create campaigns that turn people off, or you can create campaigns that grab attention, build brand awareness, and get people interested in your products and services. 

Here are a few do’s and don’ts to follow when setting up your next cold email outreach campaigns. Follow these, and you are sure to get better results.

Cold Email Do’s

1. Do Create Engaging Email Subject Lines: It’s all about the subject line. If your subject line sucks, your emails will never get opened. You will need to do a lot of A/B testing to determine which subject lines work. Be creative, but steer clear of spam trigger words (free, cheap, income, 100%, no fees, etc.), and NEVER use click-bait subject lines. These subject lines only anger people and get you blocked.
2. Do Personalize Emails: At a minimum, your emails should include the names of the contact and company. With some research, you can find info about contacts and companies on their LinkedIn and social media accounts. Mentioning a post, promotion, news, or something you have in common could increase your reply rates. 
3. Do Identify Pain Points: If you want to connect with a contact on a meaningful level, you need to let them know you also understand any issues they may be facing. When you identify their pain points and offer solutions to help them, they get more interested in your products or services.
4. Do Offer Something Of Value: Don’t be someone who sends sales emails to cold contacts. These types of emails end up in the trash, and rightly so. You must first build trust and awareness about your company, products, and services. It can take anywhere from 7-15 emails before someone notices you. By offering items of value in your emails (Case Studies, eBooks, Tip Sheets, Industry News, etc.), you position yourself as a leader in the industry and begin to become an informative and trusted source.

Cold Email Dont’s

1. Don’t Send ME, ME, ME Emails: Cold contacts don’t know you, and they don’t want to read emails about how great you are. Focus on them and how you can help them solve their problems. Keep YOU at a minimum.
2. Don’t Send Lengthy Emails: I will keep this short and sweet. Nobody wants to read a book. Try to keep your emails around 200 words. That’s all you need to spark a conversation. After you’ve established a relationship, then you can send lengthier emails. In the meantime, get to the point and eliminate the BS.
3. Don’t Offer Too Much: Keep your email focused on one point, two at max. If you give them too much information to ingest at once, they will lose focus or get overwhelmed and send your email to the trash bin.
4. Don’t Immediately Ask For a Meeting: This one is pretty obvious. I know you want to ask for a meeting, but do yourself a favor and wait. These are cold contacts who do not know you or your company, so why would you think they want to schedule some time with you? Spend some time building a relationship with them first. Once they start asking questions, then ask for a meeting.

Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for cold emailing. Cold emailing takes time, research, and a whole lot of testing. If you’re willing to put in the time and effort and follow the cold email dos and don’ts guidelines above, your email open and reply rates will increase.