Experience of Writing Cold Emails to Increase Response Rate: 4% to 12%
Hi there, this is Morgan
As a startup, it is very important to get feedback from target users. In addition to getting feedback from friends and family, online feedback from target users is more objective and valuable. This is when email outreach came back to mind.
How to Write Cold Email
We initially failed. My poor email outreach experience resulted in only a 5% click rate, a 4% response rate, and barely any positive response, only with “no interest”, “please remove me from your list”, or something along those lines.
Then we started looking for tips and tricks to use in the next round of outreach, which resulted in a 15% click rate and a 12% response rate, truly amazing! Now, I’d like to share with you what we learned, and I hope you can all achieve your goals through email marketing.
Table of Contents: hide
Display Products in Scenarios That Users are Interested in
We Polish Each Email by Hand
I know there have been numerous articles telling you not to use templates, but some people, like us, choose not to believe it.
We had a lot of influencers and users to reach out to in the first round, so email templates were our first choice. That was the first major blunder, and it was one of the main reasons why people didn’t want to click on our emails. Fair enough, no one wants to see the same words over and over.
The first thing we did was to find users more accurately, then we tailored emails to recipients in the second round of outreach and polished them at least twice before sending them out. It turned out that more recipients expressed positive interest in Gemoo.
So, please don’t use templates anymore. Spend some time to polish and figure out email content yourself. I know it’s time costing, but worth it.
Negative Response vs Positive Response
Display Products in Scenarios That Users are Interested in
Instead of boring words, why not create a product template with different scenarios and show your recipient what value the product can offer them directly?
We were trying to see if Gemoo was useful for teachers, so we reached out to teachers to describe how great Gemoo was before we realized how important it is to show the product rather than tell it because no one wants to read loooooooong emails.
Then we attempted to create some templates for teachers to demonstrate how Gemoo could assist them in organizing weekly plans, school reminders, class albums, and so on. Surprisingly, we received some positive feedback from our target audience.
What We Showed to Teachers
Positive Feedback from One of The Recipients
People Love TL;DR, So Keep It Brief
No one wants to waste time reading emails, so please must be brief and to the point. We use some tricks to accomplish this.
The subject: remember to include the recipient’s name, and keep it short in 10 words, preferably 5 words, because that is the longest content the title can display.
The body: use one sentence to express your purpose, and pay attention to the format of your content; it is far better to line up your points and explain them in less than two sentences.
Next, always remember to express how eager you are to receive a response; for example, “looking forward to hearing from you” or something similar will help to increase the response rate.
Finally, always remember to be polite.
Shorter Emails with The Format Can Be Easily Read
Pay Close Attention To the Details
Email outreach, in my opinion, is an official one-on-one conversion online that requires attention to details in the same way that it does offline.
Before the conversation, you should greet others by name, which means you can include the recipient’s name in the subject line to show your respect and customization.
When conducting email outreach, you must first express greetings and provide a brief introduction, just as you would when conducting an offline conversation. You can also leave a positive impression to the recipients by expressing how much you love their videos or articles.
After your offline meeting, you should prepare a business card, likewise, leaving a signature for your emails will be more polite and ensure that others have a better understanding of your company and your role.
Without Signature VS With Signature
Details are crucial in preventing cold emails from becoming spam.
That is all of our current experience, which has done us a great favor in raising the response rate in just two weeks. If you’re looking for more marketing tips and tricks, I’ll keep posting with the help of my teammates!
Don’t forget to reach out to me.
