Tired of sending Mass Cold Emails? Try these 5 tricks instead.
Thursday April 21, 2022
Mass Email is still one of the 5 Most Used Strategies in Digital Marketing.
And it remains true that pretty much any business should, it's still one of the few truly reliable ways to repeatedly reach your customer base. Running a cosmetics company? Collect emails from virtual shoppers and send updates about new product launches and rotating discounts. Run seasonal sales and schedule email blasts. Really, the reasons to keep your clients reminded and aware of you are endless.
And yet there is one pitfall to email marketing that goes too often overlooked. That's reputation.
Email Reputation or Sending reputation is an internal metric every service provider uses prior to delivering your emails. When it comes to sending mass emails, reputation matters. Every email service and commercial SMTP tracks your:
And these numbers are serious. Your reputation is an aggregate of these numbers against one another. If your bounce rate is too high too often, if someone reports your email as spam, your reputation goes down. This negatively impacts your ability to send mass emails and will frequently result in companies you try to send emails to diverting your emails to recipients spam and junk folders.
That's a long-winded way of saying if you do mass emailing wrong, people won't open your emails and may not even get them. Kind of defeats the point, doesn't it?
If you're feeling frustrated you aren't alone. Instead of sending a bunch of cold emails and messing up your reputation, here are 5 strategies you can use to up your mass marketing game instead.
1. Set up Thank-You Emails
Obvious, right? Stay with me.
So somebody purchased your product, huzzah! That makes a lot of sense to quickly write a follow-up email thanking the new client for their purchase or for signing up with you or making a reservation, whatever the case may be. But what's next? You've got the clients email, you've even gotten a free opportunity to reach them. Are you just going to confirm their purchase and move on?
Better Idea: Put a Call to Action in your Thank-You Emails.
Right there, thank the client for making the time for your company, then remind them how special it is to have their support. If you have a service, tell the new client what other people are enjoying every day about the service you provide. Make them feel included by purchasing from you!
Remember: The moment a client purchases from you is the same moment you have their undivided attention.
Consider asking your client:
- Do you want regular discounts?
- Do you want to receive useful tips and tricks?
- Do you want faster service?
- Do you want regular updates or to stay informed?
A client who responds "yes" to any of these questions is giving consent to participate in your marketing!
2. Get a list of Clients you Haven't Heard From
Haven't seen any activity from some of your clients in a while? You can obviously clear those contacts from your list and improve your open rate, but is that all there is to it?
Better Idea: Instead of dropping contacts that have gone cold, put them in their own list. Place clients who open your emails less frequently into their own group and start creating tailored messages to tempt their interest.
Since this group has historically ignored your emails, you will be likely to see lower open rates among this audience. Don't fret! A low open rate won't affect your email reputation.
Now here's the really cool part: Since you've segmented your audience by who's opening your emails, you're slowly dialing in on an audience of only your most engaged followers. Whenever you see a dip in your email reputation (which by the way you should always be tracking), you can email this group of engaged followers and watch your rep see a positive boost from the response!
3. Only Send Cold-Emails in Small Batches
Okay, so this is more like a practical tip than a trick.
Cold-Email is the most dangerous method of outreach out there in terms of risking your Email Domain and SMTP. For this reason, you should only ever run campaigns in small batches. We're talking about 100 at a time here.
This reduces the risk to your SMTP and makes the chances of getting your domain in jeopardy significantly lowered. Get a positive response? Immediately filter those responders into their own group as we've shown you above. By following through in this way on small batches, you can intersperse your cold outreach with targeted campaigns that will boost and bolster your reputation.
Remember: You only ever cold-contact a client once. Making a good first impression means being able to touch back to those clients again.
Better Idea: Alternate sending "Small batch" cold email blasts with email marketing to your best audience members. Your open rate and deliverability will stay high and your SMTP Provider will thank you.
Recommended: How to Write a Great Cold Email.
Which brings us to--
4. Alternate Sending Cold Emails and Mass Emails to your Opt-Ins
Let's break down the steps of what we covered so far.
- Send Thank You Emails with a CTA to Opt-in.
- Filter clients who Ignore your Emails into their own list.
- Send Cold Emails only in Small Batches.
These steps can all fit neatly into very simple "to-do's". Now we're going to talk tricks that will really take your emailing to the next level. This step isn't just a tip. Done correctly, it's the no.1 way you should make all your emailing lists going forward. Ready?
Okay. So you just cold emailed about 100 people by obeying step 3. Did people ignore your email? Step 2 them. Did they open your email? Step 1 them.
Immediately follow up to only the clients who opened your cold campaign with a "thank you" and opportunity to get future updates from you. Secure a "yes" and add those clients to your emailing list! You now have a list of clients who are warm leads in your pipeline and above all, are expecting to hear from you.
A Reminder: Always remember when running lots of emails to make unsubscribing an easy and available option to your clients. It sucks to lose a lead sometimes, but it beats receiving a spam complaint pretty much every time.
5. Put Your Most Engaged Users in their Own List
This is the coolest step yet. Ready?
For this to work you need to know your open rate and have visibility of which recipients have opened your emails. It's handy to have a software that tracks that for you.
First, check the open rate of your last email campaign (note, if you're following steps 1-4 above, it should already be high, we're going higher!). Do you have a list of the people who opened your email? How about how many replied? Are you keeping records of that? If you aren't, you can probably email this list again and consistently match your open rate from before, but that's not what we're here to do, right? You want clients, and we can do better.
Better Idea: Scrape lists of only the clients who open your emails or reply and put them in their own "very best" list. Ever seen an email list with no bounces and an open rate as high as 80%? This is your mega-list.
This list is so good for your business in fact it's very likely time to take your relationship with these clients a step further. Are these readers signed up with you yet? What do they find attractive or interesting about your service? These are the users you can survey, interview, even sign. Consider following-up, calling or moving through your sales process to close these leads.
Reminder: Keep good records of your engagement with your leads! Knowing your business history is essential to sales and It commonly takes between 5 and 7 touches to close a good lead.
By following these steps you're going to see positive results from your email marketing like you've never seen before. I guarantee it.
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zoe
Zoe is the content director for Dave Talks Business and AllProWebTools. Part editor, writer, video producer, graphic designer and community wrangler, he works with his team of talented creatives on a ship towards success.
"Go forth and conquer!"
