Importance Of Timing For Lead Generation Using Cold Emails
Timing matters to a great extent in lead generation.
Why?
Let me explain.
When it comes to B2B cold email outreach, there are three kinds of prospectors –
- those who focus on the numbers,
- others who focus on personalization,
- and finally, those who target relevance.
The first cohort sees cold outreach as a numbers game. Reach more people, and you get more responses. The open rate and responses may not necessarily be optimal. But when your target pool is massive, sales teams can get away with this approach.
The second cohort are generally sales teams that target extreme email personalization. Each of their outreach messages is tastefully personalized. Such teams may not necessarily need an automation tool for their outreach since the focus here is to make every message unique. This may be a good approach when you have a tiny target pool and sell a high-ticket item.
The third cohort that most readers of this blog may fall into relies on the relevance of the outreach message. Here, the target audience is segmented based on various parameters like industry, geography, gender, designation, company profile, etc, so the messaging is highly relevant to the recipient.
You can never convert 100% of your prospects
Regardless of which cohort you belong to and how well you target your message, it is nigh impossible to convert prospects into responses 100% of the time.
Getting prospects to take the action that you want them to, can take time. Even the best campaigns look something like this.

Notice an open rate of 88% – yet, only 18% of these recipients replied.
Why is this the case?
The answer to this question lies in the following three different kinds of email recipients that any message targets (besides bots, of course).
- People who like your proposal and are keen to take the discussion forward
- People who do not like your proposal and do not want to talk to you
- People who may be interested in the proposal, but do not consider this an immediate necessity
Besides ‘out of office’ responses, which are counted into your reply rate, the responses to your emails are made up primarily of the first two types of people mentioned above.
People who are interested in your offering, reply positively and agree to talk to you further, while those who are not interested may ask you to stop emailing them.

Timing matters in lead generation
The major chunk of people who open your messages do not reply right immediately.
Why is this the case?
The simple answer is that they do not consider your proposal an immediate necessity.
This could be due to any number of reasons.
Perhaps they have a presentation in the next hour and can’t be bothered about your message now?
Or, it could also be that they do not have the budget or bandwidth to have the conversation now. However, they may potentially be interested if you do reach them at a later time.
For this reason, you need to nurture these prospects regularly. Reach out to them every month or so, but without being spammy.
Research shows that around 80% of sales leads require at least five follow-ups after the initial conversation. The operative word here is “at least”.
Some prospects may need more than five follow ups to elicit a positive response.
How do you continue to nurture a prospect over several months without spamming them?
There are a few ways to do it.
#1. Sharing helpful resources
Sharing timely and helpful resources can be one way to do it.
For example, if you are reaching CFOs during the tax season, you could send them useful checklists to go through the filing seamlessly.
You are not pitching your offer through such communication, of course. But do remember that your outreach is also a branding exercise and this strategy helps you stay top of the mind.
Your prospects are going to remember you and respond when they have an actual need.
#2. Client introductions and co-partnerships
We are all here to grow our respective businesses.
And what better way to stay connected and continue networking with your prospects than helping them with growing their own business.
Let’s assume you run a legal consultancy in New York, and have a client offering executive sales coaching.
You could email your prospects about the free workshop they are organizing. It helps everyone – you get to stay relevant among the target prospects, the client gets new signups while your prospects could get valuable sales consultation.
This strategy can also be used in the hyper-personalized outreaches that are part of a broader account based marketing strategy.
#3. Sharing case studies
Human attention spans are on the decline constantly, and this is becoming increasingly noticeable in cold email outreach.
How do you share all of your value proposition in bite-sized emails?
Case studies are quite handy in this aspect.
One way to do this is to publish an exhaustive case study of how your solution helped a client and share only the fundamental aspects of your project (the pain point, your solution, and the measurable results) over email.
Perhaps even share video testimonials from the same client to cement your industry authority even further.
This helps the recipients continue to engage with your pitch until it is necessary for them to reply and talk business with you.
You may check out the SmartReach.io case studies for a quick understanding.
#4. Newsjacking and pop trends
This is a strategy that can be brilliant when done right. This involves using news topics that are currently trending and using them to make a pitch for your product.
But remember that this is not social media.
Your job is not to be witty or edgy.
The objective is to use the top headline only if it is relevant to your industry and pitch.
For example, a corporate wealth management company could use news related to Federal interest rate hikes or cuts to pitch how their offering is relevant to their prospects. You could use visual design tools to generate beautiful charts to make your emails more engaging.
But regardless of what kind of nurturing you do, make sure to craft a message that continues to highlight who you are, and what you do.
Find subtle ways to end your emails with a CTA that invites the recipient to a meeting, a product demo, or to check out your pitch deck, as the case may be.
Adding value to the recipient without communicating what is in it for you can make the recipients more wary, and be counterproductive.
Getting the timing right for lead generation campaigns
The objective of any cold outreach campaign is to elicit positive or negative responses.
While adding value to your recipients is important, the performance of your campaign is only measured by the positive responses you have got.
This is possible by getting the timing of your outreach right.
Matching frequency to purchase frequency
Your follow-ups should align with the purchase frequency.
An insurance brokerage, for example, may do well to reach their corporate prospects just once a month. Organizations typically renew their insurance policies once a year, and the renewal process takes just 30-45 days.
Reaching them once a month is adequate to be top of the mind when they are in the market for renewal.
Diversify your outreach channels
Sometimes, you may want to reach the target more often than ideal. In such cases, diversifying the outreach channel can be a nifty way to stay connected.
For example, you could have a monthly nurture cycle over email while making contact every 2-3 months through cold calling , or LinkedIn.
Time it right with SmartReach.io
SmartReach.io is an AI-enabled sales engagement platform that helps businesses improve their lead generation and outreach processes using channels such as email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, text messages and calling.

Its wide range of tools automates and streamlines B2B sales processes.
Timing your outreach is quite seamless with SmartReach.io.
Simply create automated sequences timed to the future so that you continue to nurture relationships 100 or 200 days from now.
You can also set similar ones for 120, 150, and 200 days.

SmartReach.io takes care of the prospecting + data enrichment + outreach process — within a single platform under a single subscription plan.
Try SmartReach.io for free for 14-Days. (No credit card required).
Wrapping Up
The key to a successful lead-generation campaign is to stay on top of your prospects’ minds without being too pushy.
By nurturing them and adding relevant value, you increase the chances of converting them when the timing is right.
Using tools to automate repetitive tasks can help you focus on what’s essential and matters. It will also help you put your foot in more doors, send emails faster, and have better conversations with new prospects.
B2B clients, like B2C customers, want quick, customized, and relevant responses. So, consider your buyers as humans with distinct wants and needs.
And again, it’s all about the right timing.