What is cold email marketing?

Cold emailing is harder than most communication for two reasons. You have no relationship with your audience yet, and you lack non-verbal feedback, so you can’t modify your approach in real time. As a result, most cold emails fail. But they can work well. People have built careers and launched start-ups with little more than cold emails. There isn’t much research work done on cold email, though Shane Snow did an interesting experiment for his book Smartcuts. He sent 1,000 cold emails to executives and got almost no response. So he tried again with a smaller slice of the same group and got better results by applying a few principles that line up with my extensive cold email experience and some great advice from people.


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An effective cold email provides the below benefit:


1. Validate yourself: When we meet a stranger or get an email from one, we want to know who that person is and why that person matters to us. Remember that when you’re the stranger. You have already done a bunch of research on the people you’re emailing, but they don’t know anything about you. You need to know to show them you’re credible and that they can trust you. Knowing someone in common is the strongest form of social proof you can offer. If you have a connection mention that. A mutual friend means you are no longer strangers. If you have any authority, credibility or social status that is relevant to this person and your request, mention it quickly. The more important you are, the more likely you are to get a response.


2. Alleviate your audience’s pain or give them something they want: why should the recipient care about your email? Why should this busy person take the time to respond to it? If you have done the research and found a major pain point of the recipient, and you can offer relief, highlight that. If you can’t solve a problem, give people something they want. Offer to connect them with someone they’d like to meet.


3. Keep it short, easy and actionable: The opportunity to help someone is very enjoyable for a lot of people. The more shorter and crisp it is the more you are going to get the response.


4. Be appreciative and a little vulnerable- You are asking someone who does not know you for a favor. By expressing gratitude and some vulnerability, you give them the feeling that they are a good person if they choose to help. You also give them a little rush of power and status, because you’re approaching them.

5. Low cost: Cold email marketing is a cost-effective way to reach a large audience. Compared to other forms of marketing such as paid advertising, email marketing can be relatively inexpensive.

6. Direct communication: Email provides a direct and personalized way to communicate with potential customers. With the right messaging, you can create a connection with your target audience and build trust over time.

7. Scalability: Email marketing allows you to reach a large number of people with minimal effort. With automation tools, you can send personalized emails to a large audience without spending too much time on manual outreach.

8. Measurable results: Email marketing provides measurable results, allowing you to track your open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. With this data, you can optimize your campaigns and improve your ROI over time.

9. Targeted approach: With cold email marketing, you can target specific individuals or companies that are most likely to be interested in your products or services. This targeted approach can lead to higher response rates and more qualified leads.

10. Personalization: Cold email marketing allows you to personalize your messages to your target audience. By including the recipient’s name and addressing their specific pain points or interests, you can increase the chances of your email being read and responded to.

11. Brand awareness: Even if the recipient does not respond to your initial email, cold email marketing can help increase your brand awareness. Consistently sending out relevant and valuable content can keep your brand top of mind and position you as a thought leader in your industry.

12. Competitive advantage: If your competitors are not using cold email marketing, this can give you a competitive advantage. By reaching out to potential customers before your competitors do, you can increase your chances of winning new business.

13. Customer feedback: Cold email marketing can be a useful way to gather feedback from your target audience. By including a survey or feedback form in your emails, you can gain valuable insights into your customer’s needs and preferences.

14. Relationship building: Cold email marketing can be an effective way to build relationships with potential customers over time. By sending personalized and relevant content, you can demonstrate your expertise and build trust with your audience, which can lead to long-term business relationships.


There are a lot of businesses that are excelling due to cold email marketing strategies. In the past epoch, direct mail and cold calling have been top-of-the-funnel marketing methods for businesses attempting to acquire new customers. The problem with cold calling is that it is time-consuming and virtually impossible to get the prospects on the phone. Direct mail used to be effective, but now executives spend most of their days checking email. You can send thousands of emails in minutes to generate massive demand for your product or service. Thus we can clearly define cold email marketing as a strategy that concerns sending marketing offers to people who have never emailed with us before. This is clearly becoming a supremely active part of businesses.


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