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If your business relies on cold email to make sales, the open rate you get is going to be one of the most important factors affecting your success. As such, it is time you learn what you can do to increase your open rates.
After all, higher open rates mean more eyes on your offer. More eyes on your offer mean more appointments booked or checkouts initiated, which inevitably leads to more sales.
But, getting a higher open rate is a bit more convoluted than simply tweaking your subject line. After all, getting the subject line right is one of the toughest parts about seeing success when cold emailing prospects.
There are other factors at play, too, such as the intro text, the time and day you're sending emails, and of course, the prospects you're emailing. Everyone is quick to change their subject lines, but have you considered whether or not you're even emailing the right individuals?
This all sounds like a lot to try and optimize, doesn't it? Don't worry - you don't have to go the path alone. Today, we're going to address all of this and more to help you start increasing your open rates and gaining more business. Let's start with some cold email statistics and benchmarks you should be shooting for.
What Is A Good Cold Email Open Rate?
First and foremost, we want to talk about cold email statistics. This way, you can see how your current metrics stack up against industry averages. What is a good cold email open rate? What is a good click-through rate? How many appointments should you be booking for every 100 cold emails you send?
This obviously varies greatly from industry to industry, and from offer to offer. The higher ticket your offer is, the lower your metrics will be than an e-commerce brand selling a $20 product. So, we're going to evaluate cold email open rate metrics in particular.
Cold email open rates range from anywhere as low as 10% to as high as 25%. The more intriguing your offer and the more familiar your prospects are with you and your business, the higher your emails will rank on this spectrum.
Why Does Your Open Rate Matter So Much?
Open rates are the number of recipients who open your emails. It lets you know if your cold email campaigns are working or if people are ignoring your emails. If your business relies on cold emails to make sales, then you obviously want higher open rates.
The higher your open rates are, the more likely your recipients will take the course of action you want them to take that ultimately launches them into your sales funnel. If your open rates are low then you might want to alter something in your cold email campaigns. Low open rates could be a warning that your recipients aren't engaged or interested in what you have to offer. This also increases the chances of your future emails ending up as spam.
What Are The Factors Affecting Your Open Rate?
Contrary to popular belief the subject line isn't the only factor that affects your open rate. What your introduction text says, who you're sending the email to, and when you're sending the email are other factors you should be considering when sending out cold emails. Here's how these factors affect your open rates and how you can utilize them to get more opens:
The Subject Line
The email subject line is the most important part of your cold emails. It's the first thing your recipients see. If your subject line isn't interesting, it's easy to scroll right past your email—or worse, to simply archive the email.
The average high-profile decision-maker receives 126 emails a day. With that many emails coming into their inbox you want to make sure that your subject line stands out. Some brands make their subject lines sound clickbaity to catch the recipient's attention. This may be effective for some, but it might scare away others. With the number of email scams and phishing schemes happening today, people are wary of the emails they open.
That's the tricky part about cold emailing. You're emailing prospects who don't know who you are yet. If you make your subject line too clickbaity they might think it's a scam. An effective cold email subject line is eye-catching, but not clickbaity. Walking this line is what separates the best cold emailers from the rest.
If you want to intrigue your recipients without sounding spammy, try using a subject line that asks a question relevant to the product or service that you're offering. If your subject lines aren't relevant to your content, the recipient might think that they've been misled. They might not bother opening your future emails either.
Statistics show that a personalized subject line not only gets higher open rates. They also get a higher average response rate. The response rate is what really matters - if you have a 100% open rate but a 0% response rate, who cares?
Recipients also prefer subject lines that are short and sweet. Try to keep your subject lines under 40 characters so it doesn't get cut off.
Composing subject lines might seem simple, but composing subject lines that get higher open rates and response rates is not. If you aren't 100% sure about how effective your subject lines are, you can always try split testing to figure out the right subject lines to use.
The Intro Text
If the subject line is the hook to get recipients to open your cold emails, the intro text is what reels them into your offer. This is the part where your opens convert into sales. It also helps the recipients decide whether or not they should keep reading or if they should mark you as spam.
When writing your introduction text, there should be a nice flow from the subject line. The intro text needs to be relevant to the subject line and the rest of your content so that readers don't feel like they were misled. There are several ways to write the intro text, but the most important thing to keep in mind is that—like the subject line—it has to be personal and conversational.
A common technique used in cold emails for writing the intro text is called the Attention Interest Desire Action or AIDA model.
You start by grabbing the prospect's attention by asking them a question or sharing an interesting fact or statistic. Then you make them interested in your offer by giving them an idea of your brand and what you do. Follow this up with a pain point or a reason for them to want your offer. Finally, end it with a call to action. This tactic tends to work wonders.
The Prospect
Cold emailing is all about personalization. But personalization doesn't only apply to the subject line or intro text. Personalization also means targeting prospects that have similar interests to what you're offering.
If you're sending emails to thousands of prospects but your open and response rates are low, you might be sending emails to the wrong audience. So how do you get the right prospects?
Let us be the first to tell you that finding prospects (particularly the right ones) is no easy task. It takes a lot of time and effort, but it is definitely worth it.
The first way to find the right prospects is by looking at your current customers. These are people who you know for certain are already interested in your product. You can check out their LinkedIn profiles and see what demographic they fit into. Then you start looking for prospects that are in the same demographic.
Another way to find prospects is by looking at your own business and what you offer. What are the benefits that your business or product can provide to your prospects? How will it make your prospects' lives easier or better? Which prospects need or want it the most? Once you've identified your key benefits, you can start to identify the prospects you should be targeting.
Looking at your competitors' prospects can also give you an idea of what demographic you should be targeting. After you've identified your target audience all you have to do is find their contact information. Contact information can be found on LinkedIn or Facebook. You can also find software specifically used for generating leads.
The Send Day & Time
People tend to open their emails more often during the workweek and less during the weekends. There are three "sweet spots" in the day for cold emailing your prospects. The first is when they're at work. This way, you get to be at the top of their inbox. Anywhere between 9 AM to 11 AM works best.
The second best time is around 1 PM to 2 PM while they have that mid-day lull and pause their work to check their inbox. Another great time is when they conclude their day around 5 PM to 6 PM, and check their inbox one more time before heading out for the evening.
Email send days/times aren't an exact science. Tons of research has been conducted but a blanket rule is yet to be identified - you'll have to do your own split testing for your specific industry.
How To Raise Your Cold Email Open Rate Through AI
Cold emailing is both an art and a science. The art is mainly in writing the content, while the science is in the research and data analysis. If you want a higher open and response rate, you need to learn how to balance both the art and science of cold emailing.
Creating engaging content - specifically subject lines and intro texts - that'll increase your opens doesn't have to be difficult. Write compelling first lines that are sure to convert email opens to sales with the help of Quicklines cold email writer.
Will Quicklines Really Help Your Cold Email Campaign?
Quicklines makes it easier and faster to create high converting first lines with the help of AI. It doesn't just generate headlines based on your product. The AI-powered technology takes a deep dive into all your prospects' social channels to create highly personalized first lines.
You're probably worried that the AI won't be able to generate human-sounding content. But the main purpose of Quicklines is to write natural and authentic first lines that can help you build better relationships with your prospects. Trust us, your prospects won't even know that they're talking to a robot.
With Quicklines you don't have to worry about inconsistent or awkward first lines either. Our AI-writer has consistent performance and has a 90%+ success rate on ready to send first lines. This means you don't have to do any post-editing once Quicklines has created the first lines for you.
The process doesn't take long either. Single lines only take less than a minute to process. So if you've got cold emails that you need to create right away, Quicklines gets the job done as fast as possible.
Get higher open and reply rates when you create cold email first lines with Quicklines. It's fast, easy, and completely hassle-free. Eager to convert your opens into sales? Here's how you can get started with Quicklines:
How To Get Started
1. Create an Account
Visit our website and create your Quickline account. Every new account gets a 7-day free trial.
2. Upload Your Leads List
Add your prospects' LinkedIn account URLs or upload a CSV file of your leads.
3. Send the Best Lines
Quicklines will generate 10+ lines for each of your prospects. Save the lines and send your favorites.
Once you've sent your best lines, all you have to do is sit back, relax, watch your open and reply rates grow. With the help of Quicklines AI technology, you'll be a pro at cold emailing and generating more sales in no time!
