Check out the following response I got last week – it highlights a big thinking error I see among business owners right now…
“Chelsea, I know I need to send cold emails to prospects but I get 10-15 cold emails per week and I never respond!”
That’s a valid response, but here is the cold hard truth about owning a business.
When you have a great product or service – one that can genuinely help someone – you owe it to yourself (and your business) to tell as many people as possible.
If you don’t want to tell people about your business, you probably shouldn’t be in business.
And...
If you don’t send cold emails to introduce your product or service to potential customers - you most likely won’t be in business very soon.
You need to be emailing new prospects every day who might be interested in what you are selling.
Which means you should always be running a cold email campaign.
Yes, I know doing so can be time-consuming, so if you are serious about increasing your company's revenue and closing deals you should use an email automation and cold outreach software.
Here are two reasons why:
1: The average response rate to cold emails is roughly 1-3% – according to my personal experience and Hubspot.
(This doesn’t mean these people are going to respond in a positive way, or want to hop on a discovery call with you, this just means they’re going to hit reply.)
This means in order to get 10-30 people to respond, you have to send at least 1000 cold emails.
A thousand emails would take the average person a week to send and as a business owner, you would have to pay that person to send those emails. A Virtual Assistant at $30 per hour at 40 hours is $1,200 per WEEK!
This is where an email automation and cold outreach software comes in. Email automation programs can help you reach out to thousands of leads every month so you can increase the number of replies you get.
And 2: According to earthweb.com, the average person receives 100-120 emails a day.
So if you want your prospects to reply to you, your email has to look like a human wrote it.
This is where A.I. personalization comes in.
Although A.I. can do a lot of the dog work for you, you still need someone to edit the copy to make sure your emails are engaging, relevant, and conversational.
But how do you reach enough people without sounding like a bot?
Here are 3 steps you can follow to do just that:
Step #1: Choose a Cold Email Software
Technology automates the process of sending emails for you, so the first thing you need to do is choose what cold email software you’re going to use.
There’s plenty you can choose from, but I'd personally recommend Mailstand, Lemlist, or MailMeter.
Step #2: Find (or buy) a List of Contacts
You may prefer to do your own research and build up a list of contacts organically.
But if you don't have time for that, you can buy a list of contacts from lead generation companies like CLOHZ, ZoomInfo, Seamless.AI, or Rocket Reach.
Once you have a list of 1,000 contacts, you’re ready to move on to step #3.
Step #3: Tweak the First Line
Now all you need to do is upload your list of contacts into your email software and write the email copy.
Bear in mind, every contact will be getting the SAME email, therefore I’d encourage you to tweak the first line of each email – so your contacts don’t feel like they’re being spammed.
You can either:
Tweak the first line yourself
Pay someone to do it for you
Use an A.I. software like Lyne.ai to automate this process for you
That said, if you’re using A.I. to customize the first line of your email, you’ll still need to edit the copy to ensure the language is relevant.
Here’s an example of what I mean by that:
A couple of weeks ago, I was doing outreach for a (male) client who works with foundations. A prospect from the menopause foundation was on our leads list.
Our company used A.I. to speed up the process, the first line read:
“Hey [FIRSTNAME], I’m in menopause…”
Which is not only biologically impossible but a very strange and cringy way to start an email.
But don’t let that put you off using A.I. for cold outreach.
Because when you follow the 3 steps I’ve outlined above and use a mix of A.I. and personalization…
Not only will you be able to reach out to thousands of prospects every day, your emails will be personal and relevant which will increase the amount of replies you receive.
The reality is if you want to increase your bottom line (and smash your sales targets) you need to be doing some sort of cold outreach every day…
… And A.I. helps you reach more people in LESS time, so why wouldn’t you leverage that to make more sales?
I mean, you COULD continue to personalize your cold emails and never hit the numbers you need to make sales…
You COULD continue to think A.I. is for ‘spammers’ and never experience the true benefits of this technology…
You COULD continue to bury your head in the sand and tell yourself you don’t have time for outreach…
Or, you could accept the fact that A.I. is here to stay, follow the 3 steps I outlined above, and see what happens.
I think we both know which option will generate more leads, more discovery calls, and ultimately, more money for you and your business.
Thanks for reading,
Chelsea
PS: If you have any questions, or want more information about how a cold email campaign can help you close more deals – drop me a message.
PPS: Ring my bell for more business (and sales) insights.