Your step by step guide to build and execute a successful cold email outreach campaign

Includes our 7 step proven process for developing and executing a successful cold email outreach campaign

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Generating new business can be hard, but it doesn’t have to be. 

We have developed a predictable cold email system to target your ideal customers, get in contact, nurture the relationship, and close new deals. Follow our system and you will be confident about generating the new clients your business needs. To make this system as clear as possible, we have developed a 7-step process which is proven to work.

What do these 7 steps actually entail? How should you apply them to successfully construct your cold email outreach campaign?

Let’s start with step number 1, defining your Target Audience. 

You need to know who you want to target. For B2B companies this usually comes down to answering these questions:

• What job titles are you targeting?

  • There may be many titles you are targeting but even a long list of titles is better than nothing. 

• What job functions are you targeting?

  • Operations, sales, management, marketing, etc. Know the responsibilities you want to target.

• What seniority are you targeting?

  • Are you going for entry level, middle management or executives within the company? This is a great way to filter out people you really don’t care about. 

• What location(s) are you targeting?

  • Even if you service customers in a wide geographic area it's key to know what that area is and make sure you filter by it. 

• What industries are you targeting?

  • This is one area we see people struggle with. If you have a good sense of your target industries, you are on a path of success!

• What size companies are you targeting?

  • This is usually set as either an employee count or revenue amount. Choose the one that means the most to you (we often recommend employee count as it's easier to get a more accurate metric for this).

The most important thing is you need to know is who you are targeting. Once you have that information, it’s time to start building your list. 

When you’re building your lists, you have 4 options to choose from in order to achieve a list with high-valued and targeted prospects. 

• Purchase a list from a trade association.

  • Trade associations are less likely to do this these days but the ones who do usually have great lists. They are often very up to date and are full of an audience interested in a specific topic. If you can get them at a good price, this is one of my favorite ways to build a list.

• Pay a Virtual Assistant (VA) to scrape email addresses. 

  • Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, etc. are filled with VA’s that offer list building services. Some are better than others so make sure you do your research… choose one you are confident in. It’s helpful to ask for a sample list upfront to make sure you know what the final deliverable will look like.

• Hire a list building agency.

  • I have had great success hiring list building agencies. You will pay more per record with this option, but the records are often higher quality, and they can often get email addresses in niche’s that are tough to find otherwise. If you are struggling to grow a list in any other way, this is a reliable option. Also, ask them about “data enrichment”... you can get more information on every prospect like what services they offer and the industries they serve which will help you craft a more personal message.

• Subscribe to a list building tool. 

  • Zoominfo is the main player in this space but it’s very price prohibitive for many businesses. It’s the tool most agencies use. There are plenty of other tools you can find through a simple Google search, but each has its pros and cons. Nothing is perfect. We use many to get good lists for our clients. Definitely check out Seamless.ai if you are breaking into the game. 

To ensure your list is filled with valid email addresses it is important to use an email verification tool before you start sending your cold email outreaches. This will save you both time and money as you’re minimizing the risk of sending emails to invalid addresses. 

Step number 2 involves Fulfillment which will be the process of setting up your domain as well as your software.

You domain name is a crucial part of your email outreach due to two reasons:

If you don’t know what a domain name is, it’s the text between the “@” symbol and the “.com”, “.org”, “.net”, or, “.io” in your email addresses. For example, our domain name is “roycebrookmedia” since my email address is jeremy@roycebrookmedia.com. Some people will say the entire “roycebrookmedia.com” is the domain (which is technically correct)... just know it could refer to either :)

• Your domain name is one of the things your recipients’ servers will check to see if your email should be delivered to their inbox. A domain that has been flagged for spam or malicious activity will have a hard time getting its emails to show up in their recipient’s inbox.

• Your domain name is one of the key ways your recipient will understand who you are and if you are “legit”. If you are sending an email about accounting services but your domain is “paintballpalace.com” you will struggle to get interested buyers on the hook.

If you are new to cold email outreach, it’s very important to warm up your domain. If you start trying to email hundreds of people right away, your domain will get flagged for malicious activity and that will basically be the end of that domain.

For that reason, we recommend two things:

1. Run your campaign on a domain that is not the one you use for everyday email communications. 

2. Build a ramp period into your cold email outreach that slowly (but efficiently) gets your domain warmed up. 

All that said, you will need to invest in an Email Warming Tool.

If your cold email platform does not have a domain warming solution built in, then investing in a “warming” service is going to be very helpful. If you don’t, you will risk the success of your entire cold email campaign. You won’t know if your emails are delivered to spam inboxes or real ones. 

Two examples of warming tools that we like are:

• Mailwarm

• Warmup Inbox

The next step within fulfillment is choosing your email distribution software. There are four main things to consider when choosing your fulfillment software, however, it usually does not matter which one you choose. 

The four things to consider are:

• Reputation

  • This is not the time to experiment. There are too many great quality options at solid price points to try one that isn’t proven. Once you get used to a platform, it is not fun going through another learning curve to get up to speed on another. Just pick one you are confident will work for you and stick with it.

• Ease of use

  • This may be the most important factor. Sign up for a few free trials while you are searching for the one you want. If you can’t figure out how to navigate the platform and build an email in the first 20 minutes, move on to the next option

• Integration

  • Do you need your email fulfillment software to integrate with a CRM or a dashboard solution? Make sure the software you choose works well with the systems you already have in place.

• Price

  • Price is last on this list and for a good reason. Most of the tools out there are priced similarly and usually people who pay a higher price, have a good reason to do so. But what kind of list would this be if price wasn’t included… a bad one. 

The third step to our 7-step proven process is Cadence, where you decide on the frequency you send your messages.

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Your Frequency

Often referred to as your campaign’s “cadence”, the frequency of your emails is a key decision you will have to make. I am a big fan of, “not one size fits all” here. 

Your frequency needs to match the goal of your cold email outreach campaign. If you are hoping to set meetings to sell your service, you should have a frequency that lets you demonstrate your authority and expertise without being pushy or sounding needy. If you want to sell your service before a deadline, sending very frequent emails could be just what you need to do. 

Your timing matters

Not only does timing matter but it is a huge success factor to your cold email campaign. Many experts will tell you Tuesdays and Thursdays are the best days to send emails, however, I have found Wednesdays to be just as good and Mondays are more than fine. 

Avoid Fridays.

Also, make sure you understand timing in your particular market. Sending emails to CPA’s during tax season is an excellent way to be ignored. Likewise, sending emails to the retail market in November and December will yield very little.

The fourth step of our 7-step process is learning how to master your first impression, e.g., the Subject Line.

I look at the subject lines as having two primary goals (the latter is more important):

• Create interest/Curiosity. 

• Get your email opened.

Subject Line – AB Testing

For better or worse, the only way I have seen real success when writing email subject lines is through good old-fashioned trial and error. In the email marketing world, we call this A/B testing or split testing. This is the key to winning the subject line game. 

Every email marketing software comes with a way to AB test your emails. Get familiar with how your solution handles these tests as fast as you can!

If there is one thing all good subject lines have in common, it’s they are short. Yes, yes, yes, I know there is an exception to every rule, and you may have had success getting emails opened that have very long subject lines, but most people do not. I’m happy to be proven wrong here but in my experience, shorter is better. 

Step number five is to craft your Opening, or what we refer to as your hook. 

The most important thing about your opening line is it must not be about you! In fact, it would be great if the first word in your opening line is “you”. If it’s not your first word, it needs to be in there somewhere. 

Here are some great examples we have used with great success:

• Imagine if your sales reps had their calendars full of qualified appointments every week, can you picture it?

• Do you have great business development? Are you continuously signing new clients and scaling the growth of your business?

• Are you looking to take on new clients?

The sixth step is to create your Offer.

This step is probably the step people miss the most. You need to bring some kind of value to the table that is strong enough to justify interrupting your prospects day. 

It can be a link to an article you think would be valuable, a tip on how they can do their job better, an uplifting quote to help them through their day, even a joke to entertain them… the point is, you cannot expect something in return without offering something first.

We typically cycle through four different options when we construct our offer. These four options include:

• Valuable content 

• Entertainment

• Pro tip

• Something free

The last step, step 7, is how you instruct your prospect or lead to the next step in your sales funnel. Therefore, this step is Call-to-Action (CTA).

Don’t expect your prospect knows what to do next. You need to guide your prospect and tell them exactly what they need to do. Be specific, tell people exactly what you want them to do: “reply to this email”, “click here to schedule a call”, “call this number to get started”. 

Not every email needs a CTA.

In fact, I don’t like having a CTA in every email. When you get more sophisticated in your email outreach you can have CTA emails go out after your prospects take certain actions, like clicking a link in an email, visiting your website, or watching a video. These responsive campaigns are very effective but there is no need to overcomplicate things if you are just starting out. Just know there is room to grow here.

If you plan to run a long email campaign then a three-email cadence of value, value, CTA is a great one. 

If you’d like to learn about our 7 steps in more depth and start mastering cold email outreach, then feel free to download our entire playbook for free. All you have to do is type in your name and email and we will send it to you instantly.