Cold Email Copywriting: Trends & Tips in 2023

Are you aware of the fact that almost 300 million emails are being sent every day?

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This means you need a stellar email copy if you want your emails to stand out in your customer's inboxes. How can I expect my email to be so good to be opened and read by every recipient? This is where cold email copywriting comes in place. Writing cold emails is the most enjoyable task in the world right now, and the main point is that you should be very serious about your customers. 

As we all know that writing cold emails and getting responses to all is a hard nut to crack. It would help if you blended some effective copywriting strategies that make sense and a call-to-action at the end that eventually hits the prospect, and they respond to that email as soon as possible. In this guide, I will show you how to draft a cold email, what to do and what not to do, and much more.

What is a Cold Email?

In the sales business, sending an email to any client who is not already aware of your brand is known as a cold email. In this case, the recipient is not expecting an email from you, so you need to ensure that your cold email looks the best to be opened and read by them. Such emails help build relationships with new clients and get more business leads. 

The components of such emails are:

• From whom is the email being sent?
• The subject line of the email.
• The email body.
• Call-to-action buttons.

The line is the information about the sender, which has to be a human being, as nobody wishes to receive automated emails. The subject lines should be so compelling that the recipients get attracted and open your email. Create an interactive email body to get the email responded to. And at last, adding call-to-action encourages the clients to respond to your emails. 

What is Email Copywriting?

Email copywriting is a technique involved while writing emails that persuade recipients to take the specific required actions, like signing up for the service, making the purchase, or just clicking on a link. This is a direct, persuasive, and concise type of writing email. As the primary purpose of email copywriting is to get the recipient to take action, it is essential to draft your emails clearly that look relevant to the clients.

Now you must be thinking that why is cold email copywriting important? As we know, cold emailing is the best way to approach new prospects with a personal touch. Using the power of copywriting can quickly help your business to grow. Creating your cold emails concisely will surely bring loads of clients to your company. However, there are some tips that you can follow to get more responses from all clients. 

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The Critical Sections of Cold Email Copywriting

Before copywriting a cold email, consider how to make it great. So below are the four points to include in it to make it great and exciting:

• A killer subject line
• Compelling introduction line
• An engaging email body
• An irresistible call-to-action button

1. A Killer Subject Line

The subject line of an email is the first thing any recipient reads about the email. It should never be generic, bland, or spammy; otherwise, it will land in the inbox's spam folder. It is said that almost 47% of people decide to open any cold email only when they find the subject line interesting. 

So your subject line must catch the recipient's attention. You can personalize your subject line, but keep it short and crisp. You can discover some examples of cold email subject lines that get your emails opened from the best email marketing software, Smartlead.ai.

2. Compelling Introduction Lines

When the first step gets cleared, and the recipients like your subject line, they tend to open the email. And now, when it comes to the introduction or the opening lines, they should be much more convincing, which makes the recipient stay and continue reading the email. These lines help you to start a conversation with the customer. Taking opening lines tips from Smartlead.ai will get you that lead.

3. An Engaging Email Body

An engaging email body's primary purpose is to deliver everything you have promised the customer so far. In this part, you need to mention the reason behind your email to the customer and showcase what you can add to their lifestyle. 

4. Call-to-Action Buttons

Once the recipients finish reading your email, you must tell them precisely what you expect them to do next, like visiting your website, scheduling a meeting, watching any video, or signing up for newsletters. So there has to be a call-to-action button for them in the end. These buttons help in engaging the customer with your content further for conversion. 

Tips to Level up the Cold Email Copywriting Efforts

Let's get into these fantastic cold email copywriting tips that can help in boosting email response rates:

1. Know About Your Target Audience

You need to know more about your target audience to get responses to your emails. Ensure you are aware of the basic information about your prospects like

• Their demographics.
• Their challenges, and 
• Their preferences

Knowing your target audience's information helps create cold emails that look relevant to them.

2. Start With Asking Open-Ended Questions

Your emails should not only be about using them for sale. To succeed in copywriting cold emails, you must start with a hook. A hook is that which catches the recipient's attention and compels them to go ahead and read the entire email. The best way to do this is to start the emails with some open-ended questions. Some of the examples are:

• What do you think about (company or industry)?
• You might be interested in this article.

3. Wait to Start Selling at the Early Stage of Your Email Conversation

As we all know that cold emails are an excellent channel for sales marketing, but if you start selling at the initial stage or in the first email itself, you are still waiting for results. You should use cold email copywriting for starting a conversation with your customers and not for selling. Introduce yourself and your brand; if your customer is engaging, they will contact you.

4. Keep Your Email Short

The thumb rule of cold email copywriting is to keep your email concise. You have to get to the point by not wasting the recipient's time because nobody reads emails that are too wordy or complicated. To share additional information, you can add links to your website for them to visit and check.

5. Stop Bluffing About Yourself and Talk About the Prospect

Always remember that cold emails are not for you; they are to tell the recipients how you can help them. So always avoid talking about you or your brand.

6. Personalize the Cold Email Copy 

Sending generic emails is surely getting you to land into the spam folders. Drafting your cold emails with personalization makes them look more relevant to the reader. Personalizing the body of the email makes the recipients feel special, and it seems to them that you are talking to them and offering them some value through your products or services.

7. Write Compelling Subject Lines

From a shopper's perspective, you only enter a store once you like that window display. Similarly, it works in emails, too; until the subject line looks good, the customer will not enter or open your email and read it. Ensure your subject lines are between 6 - 10 words, with no long lines. 

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8. Add Social Proof

See, indeed, the recipients do not believe all that is written in the emails. Therefore, adding social proof in your emails is one of the most persuasive cold email copywriting techniques. Social proof is like evidence showing how your products or services have been adding value to many other customers. 

As social proof, you can include the following:

• Case studies about your brand,
• Customer reviews or testimonials
• Press mentions
• Awards, and more

This example explains it well:

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9. Edit Out the Errors 

Once you are done drafting your cold email, ensure to go through it once again and proofread it thoroughly. While proofreading them, check for the following:

• All kinds of typing mistakes
• Punctuation errors
• Grammatical errors

Any such errors, if the customer reads, they tend to delete the emails.

10. Avoid Using Spam Words in Your Emails

Along with the correct grammar in cold emails, the usage of spam words is also prohibited. To ensure that your cold email copywriting is free from all sorts of errors, you can use online tools to avoid such mistakes. Some of the common spam words you can prevent from cold email copywriting are:

• Extra cash
• Pure profit
• Free trial
• Prizes
• Offers our discounts
• Giveaway
• Full refund and more.

11. Make the CTAs Easy to Understand

Just like the subject lines of the emails, ensure that the CTAs (Call-to-actions) is also evident for the recipient to understand and react as expected. To write a perfect CTA for your cold email copywriting, you should:

• Avoid using too many words in your CTA
• Avoid using complex expressions in your CTA
• Be clear and straight about what you want them to do
• Use a suggestive and conversational tone in your CTA

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12. Send Follow-up Emails

Sending follow-up emails to your cold emails increases the response rate by 65.8%.It would help if you utilized the potential of follow-up emails. Sending follow-up emails shows the customer that you care about helping them. So in your follow-up emails, you can:

• Include lines about relevant blogs
• Share some tips on their pain points
• Suggest some best practices where they can improve.

The Mistakes to Avoid in Your Cold Email Copy

While drafting your cold emails, you can create this list of mistakes as a checklist. Before sending these emails, just go through the checklist and reduce your errors and increase your leads:

• Stop writing generalized content.
• Do not overload your emails with content; keep your email body short and up to a point.
• Try using statistics in your email that show credibility to the customers.
• Avoid pressurizing your prospects; write emails in a conversational tone.
• Remember to personalize your emails.
• Always proofread your emails for grammar and punctuation errors
• Adding no information about yourself, like your brand name, address, website, and contact details.
• Not using the appropriate and genuine email addresses for sending cold emails.
• Missing to focus on the pain points of the recipients.
• Stop writing long paragraphs in the body of your emails.

Best Cold Email Copywriting Tools That You Should Use

There are a few tried and tested cold email copywriting tools that you can use to generate more leads for your business:

Benefits of Cold Email Copywriting

We all know that cold email copywriting can be challenging, but it is an art. However, whatever time and effort it takes, it is all worth it when you see positive results. Getting a cold email opened, read, and responded to is the best result of a marketing campaign. Some more benefits of cold email copywriting are:

• You get higher email open and conversion rates when you draft correct and compelling subject lines and opening lines.
• Strong and long-term relationships with your customers when they learn about you and your brand.
• Increased return on investment when you draft your cold emails on point.
• Personalized emails lead to 32.7% more responses from cold emails. 

Elements of Cold Email Copywriting

Below are some effective elements of cold email copywriting that help in driving more sales for the business:

• You should know what you are selling to the customers and whether those products or services benefit them.
• You know about the likes and dislikes of your target audience and whether or not your brand will benefit them.
• Write compelling subject lines that attract prospects. Show an emotional connection with the prospects by conversing with them in a friendly tone.
• Use bullet points in the body of the email to highlight important details about your brand and how much that benefits the recipient, as bullet points are easy and quick to read out.
• Ensure you give the recipients only one option, as they might need clarification. Therefore, when you know about your target, show them only the beneficial options by limiting their choices.
• Ask for actions at the end of your emails to help get results. 

Step-by-Step Guide on Writing a Perfect Cold Email

Along with the tips mentioned above, you need to follow a step-by-step procedure while drafting these cold emails for your business:

• Start Your Email by Greeting the Recipients With Their First Name: A study proves that when a recipient sees an email with their first name, they get interested, which becomes the first step towards getting a response to that cold email.
  

• Write a Compelling Opening Line: Start the email with a compelling opening line because you have those initial 3 seconds to grab the client's attention and get them into your email.
  

• Establish Your Credibility: Remember, at this point; you are a stranger to the recipients, so establish your credibility or identity in front of them. Give a small introduction about yourself and highlight similarities between you and them, so they are interested in getting to know you and your brand.
  

• Tell Them What you are Offering Them: Along with your introduction, tell the recipients about the products or services you offer them. Ensure those benefit them; only they will be interested in knowing about those products. The products which don't add value to customers, customers delete such emails.
  

• Ensure Your CTA is Straightforward: Straightforwardly draft your CTAs so the customer can read them and quickly decide on the next step.
  

• Express Gratitude: At the end of the body of your email, remember to show your gratitude towards your customer and thank them for taking the time to read your email.
  

• Properly Sign off Your Email: In the end, ensure to add your company's name, address, phone number, and website details that show a proper signing off from the conversation.
  

Final thoughts

As we all know that people check their emails regularly. Therefore, sending cold emails is a great way of warming up your prospects, increasing your brand awareness among them, and bringing more sales and revenue for the business. Cold email copywriting can be frustrating and disappointing at many stages, but it needs reasonable effort and time to get high results. 

So the best way to get these results is to plan and draft these emails strategically. Exam prospects are unique, so remember that your cold emails should look like a one-to-one interaction and not just some templates. You can also refer SmartLead AI to create some of the best cold emails. Along with the tips mentioned above, you can use some cold email copywriting tools to make this emailing process exciting and personalized.

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