While some people shudder at the idea of sending out cold emails, it remains one of the most efficient ways to generate leads for your business. It may feel like social media marketing is where everyone is focused these days, but sales prospecting through email outreach continues to be a top performer in bringing in new business.

First, what is email outreach?

Email outreach, or cold email outreach, is a powerful sales and marketing strategy that helps businesses engage with their prospective client base.

As a consumer, you likely have unread email newsletters from your favorite brands sitting in your inbox. So, if there is the risk of your emails getting ignored by potential clients, is it worth using this sales prospecting technique? Keep reading to learn of the benefits and strategies for getting real results when you send emails. 

Benefits of email outreach campaigns

If done effectively (and we'll dive into strategy next), outreach emailing can help your company expand its reach and generate new customers. Sure, some social media influencers can make it seem easy to connect with millions overnight, but email is still the primary communication channel for developing business connections.

You are also at the whim of an algorithm when using social media channels to expand your reach. With email, you're far more in control of ensuring your message gets in front of your prospective clients. It's more cost-effective, too, than paying to boost your social posts or run Facebook ads. When done well, engaging outreach email has the power to cultivate the type of business relationships needed for long-term success.

Develop an email outreach strategy

When it comes to sales outreach, especially cold emails, a strategic approach is a must, or you risk annoying potential clients or landing yourself in the spam folder.

Get specific with your ideal client

First, make sure everyone on your team is clear on who your ideal is. Your business exists to solve specific problems for specific clients. The more specific you can get around who your ideal client is, the better your whole team can serve them!

Define who your ideal client is and also who it isn't. Sometimes it helps to spell out why certain types of clients were too difficult to manage in the past and why you won't be going after similar clients in the future. Involving your marketing team in this process is also a great way to ensure everyone is targeting the right audience in their endeavors to drive new business.

Determine the ideal businesses you want to target by industry, size, and location. This will help your sales team narrow down their search and determine the whole process and expected sales cycle length for your outreach strategies.

Leverage segmentation to get even more targeted

The next step is taking your target audience and finding ways to segment the audience even more. Used significantly in marketing campaigns, segmentation is the process of grouping different types of prospects or customers to provide even more relevant communications.

Everyone is trying to keep their inbox under control, so keep in mind that you're competing for your recipient's attention amongst their always-growing list of unread emails. Recipients are actually 75% more likely to click on emails from segmented campaigns than non-segmented ones.

Create a successful email outreach campaign

With your strategy in place and your target audience in mind, let's now look at what tactics you can employ for the most successful outreach emails. Here are a few tools and tactical focus areas for your next outreach campaign.

Stand out with creative subject lines

An email subject may be short in word count, but they pack a powerful punch with your outreach success. A good subject line is often the deciding factor of whether your email is opened and read or directed immediately to a junk mail folder. This is why they shouldn't be an afterthought when drafting emails, but a part of the email that receives the most thought and A/B testing in your email tools.

Try to use personalization when crafting an interesting subject line, such as including your recipient's first name in the subject. Also, be as direct as possible in the problem your services are going to solve for the recipient and avoid overly general statements that lead people to think the email was sent to a large email list.

Opt for personalized emails

When writing outreach emails, it's important to have done your homework so that you're always sending out a personalized email. At a basic level, a personalized email uses the recipient's info, such as their first name or their company's name in the email or subject line. Double-check the spelling of those names before sending an email, as incorrect spelling can really have the opposite effect you want personalization to have!

To personalize an email also means demonstrating that you've done your homework. You should be able to identify not just why you're reaching out, but specifically why you're reaching out to them. What do you know about them that resonated with you and motivated you to reach out?

Did the company just celebrate a milestone or achievement that you could mention that is relevant and worth noting? Personalizing your emails may take more effort but will have a significant impact on your response rate than being generic in your approach.

Write straightforward outreach emails

When it comes to email outreach, there's no time for fluff. If you've been successful with your subject line and the recipient is reading your email, it's time to be direct, use simple language, and get to the point.

When you have a lot to say, the challenge is writing the least amount to keep their attention and get them to take action. You want to be as concise in your message as possible.

Provide clear calls-to-action

Sometimes when we send out prospecting emails, we want to appear helpful, so we provide a variety of resources and links. While the intention to provide value in the email comes from a good place, you'll have more success in getting responses if you have fewer and very clear calls to action. 

Rely on automated workflows

It will likely take a few emails to get a response from your prospect, which is where follow-up emails come into play. You can schedule follow-ups in your calendar, but that can be messy. A more effective approach is simply to create an email campaign in your outreach tools like email outreach software. This way, you'll have a series of emails ready to go and even pre-scheduled.

B12 gives you a robust email marketing tool that empowers your team to engage prospects with high-quality outreach templates, pre-written messages, and automated workflows. An all-in-one platform like B12 lets you consolidate efforts and remove silos from reaching, engaging, and converting leads online. With B12, your website, email marketing, contact manager, content marketing, SEO, online scheduling, and more are all integrated so they work together more purposefully and help you save time.

Show trustworthiness with a custom email domain

Lastly, when it comes to engendering trust with prospective and existing customers, take a look at your own email address. Do you have a generic Gmail address when trying to connect with potential business or a custom email domain?

A custom email domain is important when engaging in cold outreach email because it communicates professionalism and reliability to your prospects. If your company hasn’t set one up yet, don’t fret. Along with marketing tools, your B12 subscription comes with a custom email address that matches your website domain.

Track your results and adjust your outreach emails

Finally, don't forget that any strategy and set of tactics always needs to be tested to see what works best with your audience. Set outreach targets, then review the successes and shortcomings you've had with email campaigns to potential clients.

Tracking the results of your emails is crucial for understanding what works and what doesn’t, so you can make adjustments and see better results. Important metrics to track include opens, clicks, and replies.

Add email outreach to your sales funnel today

It may seem like using cold email outreach to find new clients through cold email outreach is a lot of work, but its benefits are proven. It's a low-cost way to grow your business and learn more about your audience, including the messaging that appeals to them.

To get started, find an email template you like, start customizing it, and collect the email addresses or old leads who need re-engaging or new leads you haven't nurtured yet. Implement email outreach to your lead generation strategy today to convert more of your ideal clients.