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The average cold email open rate sits between 15 and 28% and varies depending on the industry. At Fide, we consistently hit over 70% and you can too.
In this article, we're going to look at four ways you can boost your open rates and improve your cold email campaign's chances of success.
The success of any outbound campaign depends on the quality of your prospect data. In the case of email campaigns, you need to make sure that your prospect's emails are current and verified.
As a general rule of thumb, people change employers or change roles about once every 3 years. This makes it very difficult for B2B databases to keep track and stay up to date with the correct contact details.
If you're using a static database, over a third of the data will be obsolete in 12 months and over half (55%) will be obsolete in 2 years.
How do you get around this? Hand curate and build your database before every outbound campaign. This is why at Fide, we only work with live data within 5 business days of a campaign being launched. We strongly suggest you do the same.
If you can't, we can help with that.
We send tens of thousands of cold emails a month for both ourselves and our clients. As a result, we've found that there are certain days and times of day that work best for getting an open and a response.
The best days tend to be Tuesday and Thursday, with the best time of day being between 10 AM and 12 PM.
This doesn't mean we or you should only send emails at these times. Instead, we recommend you split test every campaign and ensure your prospects receive at least one email each day. Split and AB testing is the basis of any email optimisation.
For example, Prospect A may receive:
Whereas Prospect B may receive:
By running a simple split test, you can find what works for you and your target market before contacting the rest of your database.
One of the biggest problems we see with poorly executed campaigns is landing in spam. Both spam and the promotional folder of email accounts are your biggest enemy and the death sentence for your campaign.
Fortunately, it can be avoided quite easily by warming up your email before starting a campaign.
The easiest way to warm up your domain is to use automated tools like Woodpecker, GMass and Warmup Inbox.
These tools work by connecting with your email account and domain and sending long emails to other accounts trying to get warmed up. These emails are then automatically opened by the recipient and if they've landed in spam, marked as 'Not Spam'. Depending on the platform you're using, it'll also automatically respond to these emails.
Once your domain is warmed up and you're no longer landing in spam, you can then launch your campaign. We also strongly recommend continuing to warm up your email account during the campaign to ensure the best deliverability.
Open rates are determined by your subject line - if the subject line doesn't resonate with the prospect, it'll be deleted, marked as spam or ignored.
To increase your chances of getting opened these are the two keys:
Most importantly, AB test your subject lines. Using a small sample of prospects, enrol 50% into a sequence with Subject Line A and the other 50% into Subject Line B. From there, compare rates and use the winning formula for the remainder of your campaign.
As we've hinted above, testing and experimenting with your email campaigns is the key to identifying what formula gives you the best chance of success. AB and split test your subject lines, days of week and time of day to find what works for you.
But before doing the above, make sure you've warmed up your email domain and built a list of verified and fresh prospects.
If you need any help along the way, feel free to get in touch with us to learn more about our data and appointment setting services.
