In the B2B marketing landscape, cold emailing is one of the common strategies to reach out to potential audiences, prospective key stakeholders, partners, or collaborators. However, unauthentic ways of cold calling are leading to low response rates. Many B2B marketers and sales representatives are frustrated by the lack of responses and replies to their cold email campaigns. If you’re also aiming to improve your cold email response rates, let’s first understand why B2B cold email response rates are low and then look into the strategies to increase cold email open rates.
Why are B2B Cold Email Response Rates Low?
1. Missed messages due to overloaded inboxes
The number of businesses adopting email marketing is increasing and as a result the professionals receive the sheer volumes of emails on a daily basis. The audience or consumers are constantly bombarded with emails from vendors, colleagues, clients, and other businesses. If the inbox of your prospective audience is crowded, it means your cold email is competing against hundreds of other messages for attention.
The crowded inboxes and competition are the significant challenges in turning your email response rates low. If your subject line, preview, or opening line doesn’t stand out along with relevance, it’s likely that your emails will be ignored or sometimes even sent straight to the spam folder.
2. Lack of personalized content
Generic emails do not serve any purpose, as the audience is specific about their requirements and simply does not want to engage with generalized messages. For instance, a generic email that uses a broad greeting like “Sir/Madam,” “Greetings,” or “Good Morning” is unlikely to make a lasting impression.
Personalization in the present day goes beyond just using the recipient’s first name. Rather, it involves showing a deep understanding of the needs of your prospective audience or your present clients. Especially if you are a B2B marketer, you have to personalize your email by understanding the company’s industry, challenges, and opportunities. By demonstrating that you have done your homework and have a reliable and tailored solution for their businesses, you significantly increase your chances of getting the response.
3. A big no to one-size-fits-all approach
Many times cold emails are sent without considering the recipient’s specific challenges, needs, and pain points. As discussed above, non-personalized generic messages tend to turn off potential leads, who often feel like the email was not crafted keeping their particular business in mind. Hence when the prospect feels like the email is irrelevant to their needs or doesn’t offer any real value, they are much likely to respond and look for niche-oriented services.
Also, if the message is too focused on the recipient’s product or service without addressing how it can solve the problems, it is more likely to be unsubscribed. In B2B, decision-makers and professionals will look for solutions to their specific business challenges, and not just a sales pitch filled with unrealistic/irrelevant claims.
4. Poorly crafted, misleading subject lines that fail to convey actual intent
The 3-7-word subject line is the first thing a recipient sees, and it is the deciding factor in whether the prospect will open your email or choose to ignore it. Many cold emails choose uninspiring or overly promotional subject lines, which get lost in the ocean of similar sales messages.
If the subject line doesn’t grab the attention or create a sense of curiosity, the recipient is unlikely to open the email and engage. A subject line that is too vague and broad with intent can result in your email being marked as spam or deleted.
5. Unclear, confusing CTA’s
CTA is an important aspect of cold emails but unfortunately, marketers take it lightly. Whether it is a scheduling call, requesting a free demo, or providing information on niche services, a cold email should have a clear purpose, and many marketers fail to articulate this clearly.
Instead of giving direct information about the next step, they leave recipients confused about what has to be done next. Weak CTAs can be a major barrier to getting a response from the recipient.
6. Time and frequency matters
Timing plays a significant role in the success of cold campaigns. The ultimate goal of sending messages is to make users see and engage them. But if you send emails at the wrong time of the day, on weekends, or during the busy hours of the recipient, the messages may be missed or ignored. But even after getting the timing right, sending too many follow-up emails in quick succession can annoy recipients and they might spam you or unsubscribe.
Balancing the frequency and timing of follow-ups is crucial to keep the prospects engaged without overwhelming them with the information.
How to fix it: Strategies for increasing cold email response rates
1. Intent-based, compelling subject lines
Your subject line is the first chance you get to make a good impression on the recipient, so it needs to capture their attention right away. A compelling subject line is short, clear, and relevant. Do not make it in overly promotional language or make it sound gimmicky. Instead, focus on personalization, speak about the recipient’s interest, or address specific pain points.
For instance,
• How Span Global Services can save 20% on operational costs
• A quick fix to improve your dropping CTRs
2. Thoughtful personalization of your emails
Collect data from your prospective audience and use personalization wherever necessary. As said above, the personalization of emails is more than inserting the recipient’s first name. It is more about tailoring your emails to each prospect’s businesses and their specific needs. However, in the era of AI and hyper-personalization, craft your emails keeping in mind the ethical considerations.
For instance,
• Mention your work experience with a similar niche.
• Highlight a visible challenge they may be experiencing and offer relevant support (to boost their social media, to improve their website user-friendliness, etc.)
• Reference a mutual connection or shared interest.
Personalized emails demonstrate that you have taken time to understand their business, and this helps to increase your chances of engagement and improves cold response rates.
3. Prioritize problem-solving and value creation rather than emphasizing features
B2B decision makers are interested in solutions that can improve their business, save them money, or support that help them achieve sustainability. Instead of focusing on the features and qualities of your product/service, emphasize the benefits and results it can provide.
For instance,
• Mention, “Our platform helped 35 businesses streamline their operations, and here are the results”
• We helped XYZ company in increasing their lead generation by 32% within 3 months
• Our social media team leveraged UGC to maximize engagement rates, and brand visibility to 2x.
4. Use a strong yet clear CTA
A compelling and clear CTA is the bridge between engagement and conversions and it is crucial because it guides decision-makers on what to do next, and ensures they take the desired action. A strong CTA can instill a sense of urgency, reduce confusion, and make the next steps easy to follow.
In the CTA make it clear that “what do you want the recipient to do after reading your email? After performing a certain action as per CTA, what will they receive in return? This helps to improve engagement rates and increase cold email response rates.
For instance,
• Click here to schedule a 15-minute call to discuss how we can solve low engagement rates.
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• Click here to download free resources on “how to use plugins on WordPress?” For advanced tutorials, contact us here.
5. Optimize your timing and frequency
The timing of your cold emails can make a significant difference in response rates. Understand your recipient’s activity and aim to send emails during business hours. Avoid Mondays and Fridays as they can be the peak hours for starting and ending a work week. Do your research and if necessary mark each client at their preferred and active hours instead of automating emails to everyone at the same time.
Here are a few tips:
• Be mindful of the time zones when reaching out to international clients.
• Do not expect a reply right away. Send gentle reminders or follow up politely. Space out your follow-ups to avoid being perceived as pushy.
• If you are using automated follow-up messages, make sure to segment them according to their active hours, frequency, and engagement level.
Well-timed follow-up emails can remind the recipient of your initial message and increase the likelihood of a response.
6. Measure, Optimize, and Improve
A/B testing is the proven way to increase the B2B cold email response rates. Test different subject lines, CTAs, email copy, frequency, and sending times to analyze what resonates best with each audience segment. Analyse open rates, response rates and use other key metrics to refine your approach.
Sending follow-up emails to consider your solutions to the B2B decision maker who has already shown interest in your offer/services can be annoying. Do not generalize follow-ups, and maintain thoughtful segmentation.
Conclusion
All the above strategies can be used to increase the cold email response rates. However, each strategy should be given a thought before implementing and needs to be aligned with your business objectives and challenges. With careful testing and iteration, cold email campaigns are a powerful tool for generating leads, building brand awareness, and maximizing ROI in the B2B space.
