What Are Average B2B Cold Email Response Rates & Tips to Boost Them
What Are Average B2B Cold Email Response Rates & Tips to Boost Them
What Are Average B2B Cold Email Response Rates & Tips to Boost Them
Nov 5, 2024
Picture this: you spend hours crafting the perfect cold email to reach a key decision-maker at a target company. You’ve researched their business, identified a pain point you can help them with, and personalized the email to establish rapport. But what happens next? If you’re like most sellers, you probably never hear back from this important prospect. In fact, the average B2B cold email response rates is around 1%. While this shocking statistic may leave you feeling disheartened, it does not tell the whole story. In fact, there’s a lot to learn from exploring B2B cold email response rates. For instance, understanding average cold email response rates can help you set realistic expectations for your outreach. In addition, analyzing the factors that influence these rates can help you identify actionable strategies to significantly improve your own cold email deliverability results. Let's take a closer look.
Inframail's email infrastructure solution can help you build a healthy sender reputation and improve your cold email response rates so you can achieve your outreach goals faster.
Table of Contents
What is a Cold B2B Email?
A cold B2B email is an unsolicited email sent to potential business clients or leads who may not yet be familiar with the sender. The goal of a cold email is to introduce:
A product
Service
Solution
Spark interest
Initiate a conversation or relationship
Cold emails are a common tool in business prospecting.
B2B Cold Email Campaigns Generate Leads
A cold email is an outreach marketing strategy in which you send unsolicited emails to potential corporate clients. The emails are:
Personalized
Concise
Tailored to the recipient’s interests and needs
The goal is to:
Generate leads
Build relationships
Increase sales
B2B cold email campaigns aim to target specific individuals or businesses. The product or service offered may interest these particular firms or individuals. Correctly executing this approach can help companies to expand their reach. It can also enable them to connect with potential clients cost-effectively. It’s essential to avoid spamming or sending irrelevant emails that can damage a company’s reputation.
Cold Email Response Rates: How to Calculate Them
The average cold email response rate is about 1%. The kind of email you send can significantly impact the response rate. Some sales emails can achieve high response rates of up to 5%, 20%, or even over 40%. Generally, the higher the response rate, the better. A good indication of a high response rate is if it is about half of the open rate.
Open Rate: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?
Measuring your cold email response rates provides insights into your campaign’s efficacy and highlights areas where you can improve. To understand your cold email’s performance, you need to track various metrics:
The open rate is the percentage of people who open your email. It shows how well your subject line works and how much people trust you as a sender. Most CRMs have built-in features that allow you to track and analyze these response rates in real time. To determine the open rate, use this formula:
Open rate = (Number of unique opens/Total number of recipients) x 100
Plugging in the numbers:
Open rate = (250 opens/1,000 recipients) x 100
Open rate = 0.25 x 100
Open rate = 25%
Thus, the open rate for this email campaign is 25%. This means that 25% of the recipients you contacted opened and viewed your email.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): The Next Step in Cold Email Response Rates
CTR indicates the number of recipients who clicked on links in your email after viewing it. Remember, just because someone opens your email doesn’t guarantee they’ll interact with its contents. Some might skim the surface without clicking any links. Monitoring these clicks offers a clearer insight into how engaged recipients are with your material. To determine the click-through rate (CTR):
CTR = (Number of clicks/Total number of emails sent) x 100%
Say you sent an email to 1,000 potential leads. Out of those, 50 recipients clicked a link within the email. Using the formula:
CTR = (50 clicks/1,000 emails sent) x 100
CTR = 5%
The CTR for this campaign is 5%, which means 5% of the recipients clicked on a link in your email.
Insight:
What are good click-through rates for cold emails? The average click-through rate for cold emails is 3.67%. So, 5% or more can be considered a very good CTR for a successful cold email outreach campaign. If you’re wondering how to increase this number, consider that personalized emails receive 41% more clicks than generic ones. This means that including personalization in your email body or subject line may be the key to increasing your response rates.
Reply Rate: Why It’s a Key Metric for Cold Email Campaigns
Reply rate refers to the percentage of recipients who responded to your cold email campaign. This also indicates the overall success of your outreach. A study by whitecream.com showed that while 21.5% of cold emails are being opened, only 1 to 4% of recipients choose to respond or reply to the email.
Insight:
When comparing the days of the week, people who respond to cold emails receive the most on Fridays, with an average response rate of 20.98%. In contrast, Saturdays and Sundays see the fewest replies because people may not access their work emails over the weekend.
The Conversion Rate: Moving Beyond Responses
A cold email conversion rate is the percentage of recipients who engage with your message and then take a desired action—such as signing up for your service or purchasing. According to LinkedIn, the average conversion rate for cold email campaigns is 15%. To determine the cold email conversion rate:
Conversion Rate = (Number of conversions/Total number of emails sent) x 100%
Suppose you sent a cold email to 1,000 potential clients. Out of those, 30 signed up for your service. Using the formula:
Conversion Rate = (30 sign-ups/1,000 emails sent) x 100
Conversion Rate = 3%
Thus, the conversion rate for this campaign is 3%, which means that 3% of the recipients took the desired action (signing up) after reading your email.
Measuring the response rate of your cold emails involves looking at key metrics such as:
Open rate
CTR
Reply rate
Conversion rate
Each metric offers a unique insight into how recipients engage with your emails and where you could improve. While the average cold email statistics may seem low, you must understand that you can significantly increase these numbers with the right strategies.
Why Do Cold Email Response Rates Matter?
It is one of the key metrics that indicates your email campaign’s success. When you send cold emails, you want a response from potential customers or clients. A higher response rate means a greater level of interest in your offer. This, in turn, increases your chances of converting recipients into customers. Cold emails generally aim to generate interest and engagement.
Tracking the response rate helps determine if this goal is being achieved. Measuring your email campaign’s effectiveness can help you make necessary adjustments to improve your results. Analyzing data and experimenting with different strategies can optimize your cold email campaign.
Factors That Impact Your B2B Cold Email Response Rate
Before sending a cold email, there are four key factors to consider that can make a significant difference in your response rate. Neglecting any of these factors could lead to a low response rate, while optimizing them can increase your response rate from 1% to 50% or more. Making necessary adjustments before hitting the send button is essential. Paying close attention to these factors can help ensure the success of your email outreach.
Deep Personalization
Deep personalizing your email with relevant information about the recipient can increase the chances of a response. This is because it helps make a connection and encourages engagement. Use the recipient’s name in the subject line to customize your communication. To catch their attention and establish a connection, reference them or their place of employment in the email body.
It’s about incorporating anything to inform recipients that your email was created exclusively for them. Customizing your emails per individual requirements is fantastic, so the recipient feels valued.
Your Industry and Offering
The relevance of your offering to the recipient’s industry and needs can impact the response rate. It shows that you understand their specific challenges and can offer a solution. On the other hand, if your offering is irrelevant, the recipient may dismiss it as spam or a waste of time.
Researching and tailoring your message to the recipient’s industry and needs is essential. This can increase the chances of a positive response and ultimately lead to a successful business relationship.
The Intended Call-to-Action
A clear and specific call-to-action can make it easier for recipients to respond to your email. Including a clear and particular call-to-action in your B2B cold email can increase the response rate. This is because it makes it easier for recipients to know what action to take after reading your message. Without a clear call-to-action, the recipient may not know what you expect from them and may not respond.
Your call-to-action should be specific and relevant to the recipient’s needs, so they can see the value in taking the action you suggest. Call-to-action examples include:
Scheduling meetings
Requesting more information
Downloading a resource
Your Timing
The time and day you send your email can affect its visibility and response rate. Sending your email at a time when the recipient’s inbox is overflowing can cause it to get lost and go unseen. Similarly, if you send your email on a day when the recipient is likely to be busy or out of the office, they may not see it until much later or not at all. Consider the recipient’s time zone and work schedule to maximize visibility and response rate.
For example, emailing early or late in the day can increase visibility. Sending it mid-week may increase the chances of a response. Incorporating these factors into your email strategy can increase the chances of getting a response.
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What Are the Average B2B Cold Email Response Rates?
The average cold email response rate is 5.1%, with the average open rate being 27.7%. Last year, these numbers were 7% and 36%, respectively.
Businesses operating in legal services:
Show the highest reply rate of above 10%.
December has the worst reply rate among all months, which is most likely due to the holiday season with the average of 4.67%
The highest reply rate was in July at 6.3%
Wednesdays gather the most responses at 5.8%
The time between 7–11 a.m. time frame raises this number to 7.1%
Key data on length, timing, and follow-up strategies:
Emails under 100 characters demonstrate the highest reply rate of 5.4%.
2 email rounds bring the highest reply rate of 6.9%.
Emails without attachments or graphic materials have almost 2x higher reply rate (around 2%)
Compared with those with attachments (1.3%) and images, videos, or GIFs (1.1%).
Waiting 3 days before following up results in the greatest increase in reply rate.
Reaching out to 8 people from 1 company yields a reply rate of up to 8.06%.
Sending cold B2B email sequences to fewer than 100 people results in the highest reply rate of 5.5%.
Follow-Ups Can Make or Break Your Cold Email Campaign
When following up with your prospects, it’s crucial to strike a balance so that you come across as neither pushy nor indifferent. Both extremes can lead you to losing an opportunity.
Let’s dig into the details of these numbers.
Reply rates soar nearly 50% after the first follow-up.
Our research found that the first reminder can boost B2B response rates by up to 50%.
Analyzing the top 20% of our highest-performing client campaigns, we’ve discovered that 120% more people answer emails after the first follow-up.
Sending the second reminder only results in a 3% increase in reply rates.
Unlike the first follow-up, the second one (technically the third email in the sequence) brings only 3.2% more responses.
This is 45% lower than the first follow-up.
The third follow-up drops responses by 30%. The fourth email in a row starts working against you, even if you wait a few weeks before sending it.
The third B2B follow-up results in 30% fewer responses than the initial email.
Timing and Frequency in B2B Email Sequences: Maximizing Reply Rates with Optimal Follow-Up Strategies
If you had 150 replies after the first email and 300 after the second one, you’ll now have just 45 answers. Reply rate dynamics for 3 follow-ups. The best time to send the first follow-up? Our research found that waiting 3 days before following up results in the highest reply rate. Sending anything before day 3 decreases the likelihood of a response.
The optimal length of the email sequence. We also found that the highest response rate of 6.9% comes from 2 total emails in a sequence. Sequences with 3 or more follow-ups show the opposite, causing a gradual drop in responses. At the same time, the Reply research found that it takes an average of 3 emails to generate 1 qualified lead (meaning an interested reply or booked meeting).
What Experts Say About Getting Cold Email Responses
Sequence length isn’t the only factor that drives higher reply rates — without resonating content, you won’t make people answer your cold B2B emails. Our internal experts share some proven tactics that boost responses: Super-tailored niche content. “Niche approach can do magic to your reply rates. If you’ve found out that healthcare organizations face some brand-new challenge (like it was with switching to online during COVID-19) and your product or service can solve this problem — there you go. Offer this solution, and you’ll double your chances to get responses from your ICPs.” Vitaliy Zubkov, former Senior SDR at Belkins.
Humanlike, conversational style. “The best cold emails look like regular messages as if you converse or chat with someone via WhatsApp. That’s why when I send an email myself, I always read it out loud, and if it doesn’t sound like an actual person is talking, I won’t send it.” Michael Maximoff, Co-Founder of Belkins. Also, Caspian Lewke, former Associate Sales Engineer at Gong, shares a few underrated factors that affect email response rates:
Crafting Irresistible Cold Emails: Strategies for Relevance, Creativity, and Personalization
“Having a legitimate reason to reach out. Saying, ‘I wanted to reach out as you’re a {{ICP_Role}} at {{Target_industry}}’ isn’t a good reason. Thinking of it from their perspective, why should your prospect care at all about my product/service? If I can answer that, I’m on to a great start.
Concision. Save writing novels for your free time.
Creativity. People talk about personalization (which is great), but there are ways you can make emails even stronger. Can I build in a pun (when appropriate) to my email? Do it! Can I find a way to slip in a reference to their favorite movie? Or a GIF from their favorite TV show? These things help me stand out from the other 1,000 sellers I’m competing with for my prospect’s time.”
Brian Minick, COO at ZeroBounce, notes: “Another aspect worth stressing is that the relevance of the email makes the biggest difference. Using list segmentation and personalizing your message to the last detail allows me to stand out in someone’s inbox. Do your best to be the person who knows exactly what your prospect needs and wants. Aside from using the stats in this report as a guide, being relevant is key to the number of sales you close.”
When Should I Send My Cold Emails for the Best Rates?
The cold B2B email conversion rate can also depend on the month, the day of the week, and even the hour you send emails. Discover the prime time for sending your emails below.
Our study shows that people are more likely to reply to emails in the morning between 7 and 11 a.m.
With a 5.8% replay rate, Wednesday is the best day of the week to send emails, while Mondays and Fridays have the lowest chance of getting an answer.
At the same time, open rates are highest on Tuesdays (28.2%), followed by Wednesdays (27.5%).
June and July are the most favorable months for getting the highest reply rates, around 6%. Winter months are the worst in terms of response rates.
Who Is Most Likely to Answer Cold Emails?
Recipients from different industries and with different positions also have some repeated cold email response patterns.
Here are some of our observations:
Reply rate by job title
Correspondingly, employees outside the C-suite are 32% more likely to answer cold B2B emails than C-level executives — 5.6% against 4.2%.
As you can see, reply rates vary based on the recipient’s job title. Also, C-level executives can help you land qualified leads but aren’t the most reliable cold email responders.
This trend reversed compared to 2023, where C-level executives responded to 6.2% of emails, while people with other titles answered only 5.2%.
As you can see, chief information officers (CIOs) and founders have a high reply rate of 4.3% and 4.0%, along with chief operating officers (COOs), who respond to 3.8% of emails.
At the same time, chief technology officers (CTOs) and chief product officers (CPOs) show the lowest reply rates (2.1% and 1.3%).
Also, HR managers and IT personnel often reply to emails, while product managers and engineers have the lowest response rates.
What Content Works Best in Cold Emails?
In addition to timing, industries, and job titles, other (no less important) factors influence the response rates, such as:
Email size
Sentence length
Links
Attachments
Short emails perform better in terms of responses. In short, conciseness brings better results.
The shortest emails (under 100 characters) demonstrate the best reply rate at 5.4%.
The most common messages, between 400 and 500 characters, have a reply rate of 1.8%, less than half the average.
Longer emails show the lowest response rate.
When it comes to email structure:
Messages with 1 or 2 paragraphs have the highest reply rate (3.8%).
Longer emails show a decreasing trend in performance. For example, emails with 8 or more paragraphs have a meager reply rate of 1.1%—optimal sentence length to get more replies.
Emails with shorter sentences (fewer than 10 words) demonstrate the best response rates, ranging from 1.9% to 3.6%.
Emails with 7 words in a sentence bring the highest reply rate of 3.6%.
Why Are People So Reluctant to Respond to Cold Emails?
It seems that people don’t like being overloaded with questions. According to Reply, adding only 1 question to your email body results in a reply rate of around 2.2%, while emails without any questions have a slightly lower reply rate of 2.1%. But the more questions you add to your message, the lower the reply rate you’ll get. Correlation between the number of questions in emails and reply rates. The best amount of links to include.
Emails with links are less common because adding links can negatively impact your deliverability. These emails also usually have a lower reply rate of 1.4%. Conversely, people reply more eagerly to emails without links (2.3% of responses) how attachments and graphic materials influence reply rates. We don’t recommend adding attachments or graphic materials like videos, images, and GIFs to your cold emails since they increase your chances of landing in the spam folder.
Adding those results in lower response rates:
Emails with attachments show a 1.3% reply rate compared with 1.9% in emails without added files.
Graphic materials in the email nearly cut responses by 1.1% against 2.0% for those without graphics.
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How To Boost Your B2B Cold Email Response Rates In 2024
One of the best ways to improve your email response rate is only to message people who want what you sell. In other words, qualify new leads before you add them to your email list. When you receive a new lead, ask yourself, "Does this person or company match my ideal customer profile?" If the answer is yes, shoot them a message. If the answer is no, move on. (Note: This tip will help you improve your email open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, too. So if you track those metrics regularly, definitely implement this tip.)
Make It Easy to Respond to Cold Emails
If your target audience has to jump through hoops to respond to your sales emails, they won't. You need to make it as easy as possible for them to reply, so I recommend 1, 2, 3 emails like the one I shared earlier. Salespeople should ask prospects to identify their biggest challenge out of three options and then reply with the corresponding number. It's really easy to type a number into an email. If that's all prospects have to do, you'll receive replies more often.
Use (REAL) Urgency to Get More Cold Email Responses
Here's a wild idea:
Give your prospects a legitimate reason to respond to your emails. You can add a sense of urgency to your messages: "Respond in the next 24 hours to receive your free report" or "Respond for a free consultation—only ten available." Now, you need to be careful with this strategy.
False urgency will rub your prospects the wrong way. Brainstorm real reasons for your prospects to reply now, not later.
Add Social Proof to Your Cold Emails
You work hard to verify your leads, craft baller subject lines, and ensure your email copy is concise and relevant. You always include clear CTAs, too, so your prospects know what to do after reading your message. Still, you can't achieve a good email response rate.
I might know the problem: your prospects don't trust you and/or your company.
Lucky for you, I also know the solution: add social proof to your email outreach campaigns. A well-written case study or glowing testimonial will improve your email reply rate. Why wouldn't it? Your prospects will want to respond when they see that your company has helped many other people in the past—people just like them—wondering where to put social proof in your emails?
It's probably best to place it towards the end, right before your CTA, but I encourage you to experiment with different placements.
Hyper-Personalization of Cold Emails is a Must
Generic cold emails are often dismissed as sales pitches and usually get ignored. Personalizing your message increases its chances of being read and engaged with. An Experian study revealed that personalized cold emails get 41 percent more unique clicks than non-personalized ones.
Personalization shows that your sales reps have taken time to understand your recipient’s interests and care about what they do. Use and show that you’ve done your homework when you use:
The recipient’s name
Reference recent events or content they’ve shared
Show that you’ve done your homework
This can make potential customers feel seen, helping to improve their experience with your brand.
What Does A Personalized Cold Email Look Like?
Subject: Enhancing [Company Name]’s 5G Initiatives
Hi [Recipient’s Name],
I hope this email finds you well. I recently came across Borham Telecom’s 5G Readiness project and was truly impressed, especially noting your significant contribution. At [Your Company Name], we’ve partnered with similar enterprises to bolster their 5G strategies, achieving remarkable results. Given the parallels in our experiences and the dynamic shifts in the 5G space, I believe there’s potential for a beneficial collaboration. [Embedded Animated Personalized Visual – perhaps showcasing a 5G graphic with [Recipient’s Company Name]] I’d love to explore how we can support and amplify your ongoing and future projects. Would you be available for a brief call next week? Thank you for considering this, [Recipient’s Name]. I appreciate your time and look forward to potentially working together.
Warm regards,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Your Contact Information]
There are a number of different ways to make your emails more personalized, including:
Image personalization
People often auto-delete cold emails out of habit, so capturing a recipient’s attention is key. An innovative way to do this is by using animated personalized visuals. Introducing personalized animations disrupts a mundane email-reading routine, which prompts the reader to consider your offer.
Tools like Hyperise allow you to easily create and insert personalized images, GIFs, or videos that catch the recipient’s eye. Hyperise is a personalization toolkit that helps marketers get their prospects’ attention. Let’s look at how it can help boost your cold email response rates.
Boosting Cold Email Success with Dynamic Personalization: A Reply.io Case Study
Case study: Reply.io AI-powered sales and automation platform Reply.io used Hyperise in their cold email sales campaigns. The company wanted to quickly and clearly explain how its platform simplifies engaging with prospects and customers via email and social media. They created two diagrams that directly compare the complexity of the sales and marketing tech stack normally against how simple and streamlined it is with Reply.io. It included a dynamic element that automatically showed the recipient’s company logo.
The campaign’s response rate—at 21 percent—was almost 100 percent higher than that of its other outreach efforts. Reply.io then conducted additional research to determine how effective dynamic, personalized images are at each stage of email campaigns.
They found using dynamic images allowed them to land more emails in prospects’ inboxes and increase engagement:
Total contacted: +887
Emails Delivery rate: +9.8%
Open rate: +9.2
Reply rate: +8.1%
Personalize Subject Lines
The subject line often determines whether your email gets opened or ignored. A study by Superoffice revealed that a staggering 33 percent of email recipients decide whether or not to open an email based solely on its subject line.
Personalized subject lines, especially those that incorporate the recipient’s first name, can also increase open rates by 50 percent. When crafting a subject line, aim to be clear and concise.
Long subject lines can cause messaging to get lost, so try to stick to around nine words or 60 characters. Combining personalized touches with action-inducing phrases like “Urgent” or “Limited time offer” can also help capture even more attention.
Avoid overtly salesy terms that could trigger spam filters. This ensures better email deliverability and boosts the average response rate.
Pro-tip: Consider split-testing your cold email subject lines. This lets you pinpoint the most impactful phrasing, which helps optimize your campaign’s performance before a full launch.
Segment Your Audience for Better Cold Email Response Rates
Many businesses fall into the trap of mass-emailing potential customers in the sales process, often leading to underwhelming response rates. Instead, a more effective approach is to segment your audience by focusing on specific characteristics, such as:
Job title
Location
Industry
To ensure your outreach garners genuine interest, it’s important to pinpoint the right demographic and engage in intentional lead generation. HubSpot’s research indicates that emails tailored to a specific audience can achieve a click-through rate that’s 100.95 percent higher than that of generic campaigns.
Creating emails that align with your recipient’s interests and needs can boost your chances of being opened. This increases the likelihood that recipients will click through and take decisive actions, such as signing up for a trial or making a purchase.
Proofread Your Cold Email
A simple typo or grammatical mistake can undermine even the most compelling cold email. After drafting your email, pause for a moment before reviewing it. Ensure that there are no:
Grammatical slip-ups
Typos
Repetitive points
Consider having a colleague or friend proofread it for you.
Pro tip: To achieve a higher response rate, check that your email is formatted cleanly and professionally. Avoid using bold or underlined text excessively; overdoing it can make your message feel more like an advertisement than a genuine outreach.
Ensure Your Email Provides Value to a Recipient
Since a typical email user receives around 120 emails daily, capturing their attention quickly is crucial.
Here’s how to make an impact within those few crucial moments and get potential customers further along the sales funnel:
Address the recipient personally: Using their name and referencing specific aspects of their business demonstrates a genuine interest in understanding them and their needs. Identify a common pain point: Identify your recipient's potential concerns and tell them how your solution addresses these issues.
Introduce evidence of your product’s or service’s efficacy: Include testimonials, success stories, or case studies from satisfied clients to establish trust and reliability.
Propose an enticing offer: Offer your recipients a free trial or discount code so they can experience your service for themselves.
Ensure your cold email is concise: Avoid drawn-out introductions and avoid overwhelming them with information. Focus on showcasing the unique value you’re offering.
Include a Great Call to Action: In the same way that a weak subject line can reduce your email open rates, an ambiguous CTA can negatively impact your CTRs. Many marketers fall into the trap of incorporating several CTAs in their cold emails, thinking it offers more choices. Developing a precise, enticing, and straightforward CTA for your email is essential. Move away from unclear prompts and instead focus on underlining the benefits of a specific action.
For example:
“Start your free trial now.”
“Let’s schedule a call to discuss how you can grow your business.”
Optimize for Mobile
Ensuring your emails are mobile-friendly is crucial because many people primarily check their emails on smartphones. To make your emails more readable on mobile devices:
Use a slightly larger font size.
Leave ample spacing between paragraphs.
Utilize headers and subheadings so recipients can quickly skim your content on their phone or tablet screens.
Be Obsessive About Email Deliverability
Your prospects have actually to receive your emails to respond to them. I know deliverability isn't the sexiest topic in the world, but if you want your email marketing campaigns to succeed, you must take it seriously. Deliverability is pretty straightforward. Start by warming up your email. Only message-verified addresses will always give recipients a chance to unsubscribe.
Use the Right Tech to Maximize Your Efforts
Invest in a quality sales and marketing tool to increase your email marketing efforts.
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Streamlining the Technical Set Up of Cold Email
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Picture this: you spend hours crafting the perfect cold email to reach a key decision-maker at a target company. You’ve researched their business, identified a pain point you can help them with, and personalized the email to establish rapport. But what happens next? If you’re like most sellers, you probably never hear back from this important prospect. In fact, the average B2B cold email response rates is around 1%. While this shocking statistic may leave you feeling disheartened, it does not tell the whole story. In fact, there’s a lot to learn from exploring B2B cold email response rates. For instance, understanding average cold email response rates can help you set realistic expectations for your outreach. In addition, analyzing the factors that influence these rates can help you identify actionable strategies to significantly improve your own cold email deliverability results. Let's take a closer look.
Inframail's email infrastructure solution can help you build a healthy sender reputation and improve your cold email response rates so you can achieve your outreach goals faster.
Table of Contents
What is a Cold B2B Email?
A cold B2B email is an unsolicited email sent to potential business clients or leads who may not yet be familiar with the sender. The goal of a cold email is to introduce:
A product
Service
Solution
Spark interest
Initiate a conversation or relationship
Cold emails are a common tool in business prospecting.
B2B Cold Email Campaigns Generate Leads
A cold email is an outreach marketing strategy in which you send unsolicited emails to potential corporate clients. The emails are:
Personalized
Concise
Tailored to the recipient’s interests and needs
The goal is to:
Generate leads
Build relationships
Increase sales
B2B cold email campaigns aim to target specific individuals or businesses. The product or service offered may interest these particular firms or individuals. Correctly executing this approach can help companies to expand their reach. It can also enable them to connect with potential clients cost-effectively. It’s essential to avoid spamming or sending irrelevant emails that can damage a company’s reputation.
Cold Email Response Rates: How to Calculate Them
The average cold email response rate is about 1%. The kind of email you send can significantly impact the response rate. Some sales emails can achieve high response rates of up to 5%, 20%, or even over 40%. Generally, the higher the response rate, the better. A good indication of a high response rate is if it is about half of the open rate.
Open Rate: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?
Measuring your cold email response rates provides insights into your campaign’s efficacy and highlights areas where you can improve. To understand your cold email’s performance, you need to track various metrics:
The open rate is the percentage of people who open your email. It shows how well your subject line works and how much people trust you as a sender. Most CRMs have built-in features that allow you to track and analyze these response rates in real time. To determine the open rate, use this formula:
Open rate = (Number of unique opens/Total number of recipients) x 100
Plugging in the numbers:
Open rate = (250 opens/1,000 recipients) x 100
Open rate = 0.25 x 100
Open rate = 25%
Thus, the open rate for this email campaign is 25%. This means that 25% of the recipients you contacted opened and viewed your email.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): The Next Step in Cold Email Response Rates
CTR indicates the number of recipients who clicked on links in your email after viewing it. Remember, just because someone opens your email doesn’t guarantee they’ll interact with its contents. Some might skim the surface without clicking any links. Monitoring these clicks offers a clearer insight into how engaged recipients are with your material. To determine the click-through rate (CTR):
CTR = (Number of clicks/Total number of emails sent) x 100%
Say you sent an email to 1,000 potential leads. Out of those, 50 recipients clicked a link within the email. Using the formula:
CTR = (50 clicks/1,000 emails sent) x 100
CTR = 5%
The CTR for this campaign is 5%, which means 5% of the recipients clicked on a link in your email.
Insight:
What are good click-through rates for cold emails? The average click-through rate for cold emails is 3.67%. So, 5% or more can be considered a very good CTR for a successful cold email outreach campaign. If you’re wondering how to increase this number, consider that personalized emails receive 41% more clicks than generic ones. This means that including personalization in your email body or subject line may be the key to increasing your response rates.
Reply Rate: Why It’s a Key Metric for Cold Email Campaigns
Reply rate refers to the percentage of recipients who responded to your cold email campaign. This also indicates the overall success of your outreach. A study by whitecream.com showed that while 21.5% of cold emails are being opened, only 1 to 4% of recipients choose to respond or reply to the email.
Insight:
When comparing the days of the week, people who respond to cold emails receive the most on Fridays, with an average response rate of 20.98%. In contrast, Saturdays and Sundays see the fewest replies because people may not access their work emails over the weekend.
The Conversion Rate: Moving Beyond Responses
A cold email conversion rate is the percentage of recipients who engage with your message and then take a desired action—such as signing up for your service or purchasing. According to LinkedIn, the average conversion rate for cold email campaigns is 15%. To determine the cold email conversion rate:
Conversion Rate = (Number of conversions/Total number of emails sent) x 100%
Suppose you sent a cold email to 1,000 potential clients. Out of those, 30 signed up for your service. Using the formula:
Conversion Rate = (30 sign-ups/1,000 emails sent) x 100
Conversion Rate = 3%
Thus, the conversion rate for this campaign is 3%, which means that 3% of the recipients took the desired action (signing up) after reading your email.
Measuring the response rate of your cold emails involves looking at key metrics such as:
Open rate
CTR
Reply rate
Conversion rate
Each metric offers a unique insight into how recipients engage with your emails and where you could improve. While the average cold email statistics may seem low, you must understand that you can significantly increase these numbers with the right strategies.
Why Do Cold Email Response Rates Matter?
It is one of the key metrics that indicates your email campaign’s success. When you send cold emails, you want a response from potential customers or clients. A higher response rate means a greater level of interest in your offer. This, in turn, increases your chances of converting recipients into customers. Cold emails generally aim to generate interest and engagement.
Tracking the response rate helps determine if this goal is being achieved. Measuring your email campaign’s effectiveness can help you make necessary adjustments to improve your results. Analyzing data and experimenting with different strategies can optimize your cold email campaign.
Factors That Impact Your B2B Cold Email Response Rate
Before sending a cold email, there are four key factors to consider that can make a significant difference in your response rate. Neglecting any of these factors could lead to a low response rate, while optimizing them can increase your response rate from 1% to 50% or more. Making necessary adjustments before hitting the send button is essential. Paying close attention to these factors can help ensure the success of your email outreach.
Deep Personalization
Deep personalizing your email with relevant information about the recipient can increase the chances of a response. This is because it helps make a connection and encourages engagement. Use the recipient’s name in the subject line to customize your communication. To catch their attention and establish a connection, reference them or their place of employment in the email body.
It’s about incorporating anything to inform recipients that your email was created exclusively for them. Customizing your emails per individual requirements is fantastic, so the recipient feels valued.
Your Industry and Offering
The relevance of your offering to the recipient’s industry and needs can impact the response rate. It shows that you understand their specific challenges and can offer a solution. On the other hand, if your offering is irrelevant, the recipient may dismiss it as spam or a waste of time.
Researching and tailoring your message to the recipient’s industry and needs is essential. This can increase the chances of a positive response and ultimately lead to a successful business relationship.
The Intended Call-to-Action
A clear and specific call-to-action can make it easier for recipients to respond to your email. Including a clear and particular call-to-action in your B2B cold email can increase the response rate. This is because it makes it easier for recipients to know what action to take after reading your message. Without a clear call-to-action, the recipient may not know what you expect from them and may not respond.
Your call-to-action should be specific and relevant to the recipient’s needs, so they can see the value in taking the action you suggest. Call-to-action examples include:
Scheduling meetings
Requesting more information
Downloading a resource
Your Timing
The time and day you send your email can affect its visibility and response rate. Sending your email at a time when the recipient’s inbox is overflowing can cause it to get lost and go unseen. Similarly, if you send your email on a day when the recipient is likely to be busy or out of the office, they may not see it until much later or not at all. Consider the recipient’s time zone and work schedule to maximize visibility and response rate.
For example, emailing early or late in the day can increase visibility. Sending it mid-week may increase the chances of a response. Incorporating these factors into your email strategy can increase the chances of getting a response.
Related Reading
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• How to Generate B2B Leads
• How to Warm Up Email Domain
• How Many Emails Can You Send Before Considered Spam
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What Are the Average B2B Cold Email Response Rates?
The average cold email response rate is 5.1%, with the average open rate being 27.7%. Last year, these numbers were 7% and 36%, respectively.
Businesses operating in legal services:
Show the highest reply rate of above 10%.
December has the worst reply rate among all months, which is most likely due to the holiday season with the average of 4.67%
The highest reply rate was in July at 6.3%
Wednesdays gather the most responses at 5.8%
The time between 7–11 a.m. time frame raises this number to 7.1%
Key data on length, timing, and follow-up strategies:
Emails under 100 characters demonstrate the highest reply rate of 5.4%.
2 email rounds bring the highest reply rate of 6.9%.
Emails without attachments or graphic materials have almost 2x higher reply rate (around 2%)
Compared with those with attachments (1.3%) and images, videos, or GIFs (1.1%).
Waiting 3 days before following up results in the greatest increase in reply rate.
Reaching out to 8 people from 1 company yields a reply rate of up to 8.06%.
Sending cold B2B email sequences to fewer than 100 people results in the highest reply rate of 5.5%.
Follow-Ups Can Make or Break Your Cold Email Campaign
When following up with your prospects, it’s crucial to strike a balance so that you come across as neither pushy nor indifferent. Both extremes can lead you to losing an opportunity.
Let’s dig into the details of these numbers.
Reply rates soar nearly 50% after the first follow-up.
Our research found that the first reminder can boost B2B response rates by up to 50%.
Analyzing the top 20% of our highest-performing client campaigns, we’ve discovered that 120% more people answer emails after the first follow-up.
Sending the second reminder only results in a 3% increase in reply rates.
Unlike the first follow-up, the second one (technically the third email in the sequence) brings only 3.2% more responses.
This is 45% lower than the first follow-up.
The third follow-up drops responses by 30%. The fourth email in a row starts working against you, even if you wait a few weeks before sending it.
The third B2B follow-up results in 30% fewer responses than the initial email.
Timing and Frequency in B2B Email Sequences: Maximizing Reply Rates with Optimal Follow-Up Strategies
If you had 150 replies after the first email and 300 after the second one, you’ll now have just 45 answers. Reply rate dynamics for 3 follow-ups. The best time to send the first follow-up? Our research found that waiting 3 days before following up results in the highest reply rate. Sending anything before day 3 decreases the likelihood of a response.
The optimal length of the email sequence. We also found that the highest response rate of 6.9% comes from 2 total emails in a sequence. Sequences with 3 or more follow-ups show the opposite, causing a gradual drop in responses. At the same time, the Reply research found that it takes an average of 3 emails to generate 1 qualified lead (meaning an interested reply or booked meeting).
What Experts Say About Getting Cold Email Responses
Sequence length isn’t the only factor that drives higher reply rates — without resonating content, you won’t make people answer your cold B2B emails. Our internal experts share some proven tactics that boost responses: Super-tailored niche content. “Niche approach can do magic to your reply rates. If you’ve found out that healthcare organizations face some brand-new challenge (like it was with switching to online during COVID-19) and your product or service can solve this problem — there you go. Offer this solution, and you’ll double your chances to get responses from your ICPs.” Vitaliy Zubkov, former Senior SDR at Belkins.
Humanlike, conversational style. “The best cold emails look like regular messages as if you converse or chat with someone via WhatsApp. That’s why when I send an email myself, I always read it out loud, and if it doesn’t sound like an actual person is talking, I won’t send it.” Michael Maximoff, Co-Founder of Belkins. Also, Caspian Lewke, former Associate Sales Engineer at Gong, shares a few underrated factors that affect email response rates:
Crafting Irresistible Cold Emails: Strategies for Relevance, Creativity, and Personalization
“Having a legitimate reason to reach out. Saying, ‘I wanted to reach out as you’re a {{ICP_Role}} at {{Target_industry}}’ isn’t a good reason. Thinking of it from their perspective, why should your prospect care at all about my product/service? If I can answer that, I’m on to a great start.
Concision. Save writing novels for your free time.
Creativity. People talk about personalization (which is great), but there are ways you can make emails even stronger. Can I build in a pun (when appropriate) to my email? Do it! Can I find a way to slip in a reference to their favorite movie? Or a GIF from their favorite TV show? These things help me stand out from the other 1,000 sellers I’m competing with for my prospect’s time.”
Brian Minick, COO at ZeroBounce, notes: “Another aspect worth stressing is that the relevance of the email makes the biggest difference. Using list segmentation and personalizing your message to the last detail allows me to stand out in someone’s inbox. Do your best to be the person who knows exactly what your prospect needs and wants. Aside from using the stats in this report as a guide, being relevant is key to the number of sales you close.”
When Should I Send My Cold Emails for the Best Rates?
The cold B2B email conversion rate can also depend on the month, the day of the week, and even the hour you send emails. Discover the prime time for sending your emails below.
Our study shows that people are more likely to reply to emails in the morning between 7 and 11 a.m.
With a 5.8% replay rate, Wednesday is the best day of the week to send emails, while Mondays and Fridays have the lowest chance of getting an answer.
At the same time, open rates are highest on Tuesdays (28.2%), followed by Wednesdays (27.5%).
June and July are the most favorable months for getting the highest reply rates, around 6%. Winter months are the worst in terms of response rates.
Who Is Most Likely to Answer Cold Emails?
Recipients from different industries and with different positions also have some repeated cold email response patterns.
Here are some of our observations:
Reply rate by job title
Correspondingly, employees outside the C-suite are 32% more likely to answer cold B2B emails than C-level executives — 5.6% against 4.2%.
As you can see, reply rates vary based on the recipient’s job title. Also, C-level executives can help you land qualified leads but aren’t the most reliable cold email responders.
This trend reversed compared to 2023, where C-level executives responded to 6.2% of emails, while people with other titles answered only 5.2%.
As you can see, chief information officers (CIOs) and founders have a high reply rate of 4.3% and 4.0%, along with chief operating officers (COOs), who respond to 3.8% of emails.
At the same time, chief technology officers (CTOs) and chief product officers (CPOs) show the lowest reply rates (2.1% and 1.3%).
Also, HR managers and IT personnel often reply to emails, while product managers and engineers have the lowest response rates.
What Content Works Best in Cold Emails?
In addition to timing, industries, and job titles, other (no less important) factors influence the response rates, such as:
Email size
Sentence length
Links
Attachments
Short emails perform better in terms of responses. In short, conciseness brings better results.
The shortest emails (under 100 characters) demonstrate the best reply rate at 5.4%.
The most common messages, between 400 and 500 characters, have a reply rate of 1.8%, less than half the average.
Longer emails show the lowest response rate.
When it comes to email structure:
Messages with 1 or 2 paragraphs have the highest reply rate (3.8%).
Longer emails show a decreasing trend in performance. For example, emails with 8 or more paragraphs have a meager reply rate of 1.1%—optimal sentence length to get more replies.
Emails with shorter sentences (fewer than 10 words) demonstrate the best response rates, ranging from 1.9% to 3.6%.
Emails with 7 words in a sentence bring the highest reply rate of 3.6%.
Why Are People So Reluctant to Respond to Cold Emails?
It seems that people don’t like being overloaded with questions. According to Reply, adding only 1 question to your email body results in a reply rate of around 2.2%, while emails without any questions have a slightly lower reply rate of 2.1%. But the more questions you add to your message, the lower the reply rate you’ll get. Correlation between the number of questions in emails and reply rates. The best amount of links to include.
Emails with links are less common because adding links can negatively impact your deliverability. These emails also usually have a lower reply rate of 1.4%. Conversely, people reply more eagerly to emails without links (2.3% of responses) how attachments and graphic materials influence reply rates. We don’t recommend adding attachments or graphic materials like videos, images, and GIFs to your cold emails since they increase your chances of landing in the spam folder.
Adding those results in lower response rates:
Emails with attachments show a 1.3% reply rate compared with 1.9% in emails without added files.
Graphic materials in the email nearly cut responses by 1.1% against 2.0% for those without graphics.
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How To Boost Your B2B Cold Email Response Rates In 2024
One of the best ways to improve your email response rate is only to message people who want what you sell. In other words, qualify new leads before you add them to your email list. When you receive a new lead, ask yourself, "Does this person or company match my ideal customer profile?" If the answer is yes, shoot them a message. If the answer is no, move on. (Note: This tip will help you improve your email open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, too. So if you track those metrics regularly, definitely implement this tip.)
Make It Easy to Respond to Cold Emails
If your target audience has to jump through hoops to respond to your sales emails, they won't. You need to make it as easy as possible for them to reply, so I recommend 1, 2, 3 emails like the one I shared earlier. Salespeople should ask prospects to identify their biggest challenge out of three options and then reply with the corresponding number. It's really easy to type a number into an email. If that's all prospects have to do, you'll receive replies more often.
Use (REAL) Urgency to Get More Cold Email Responses
Here's a wild idea:
Give your prospects a legitimate reason to respond to your emails. You can add a sense of urgency to your messages: "Respond in the next 24 hours to receive your free report" or "Respond for a free consultation—only ten available." Now, you need to be careful with this strategy.
False urgency will rub your prospects the wrong way. Brainstorm real reasons for your prospects to reply now, not later.
Add Social Proof to Your Cold Emails
You work hard to verify your leads, craft baller subject lines, and ensure your email copy is concise and relevant. You always include clear CTAs, too, so your prospects know what to do after reading your message. Still, you can't achieve a good email response rate.
I might know the problem: your prospects don't trust you and/or your company.
Lucky for you, I also know the solution: add social proof to your email outreach campaigns. A well-written case study or glowing testimonial will improve your email reply rate. Why wouldn't it? Your prospects will want to respond when they see that your company has helped many other people in the past—people just like them—wondering where to put social proof in your emails?
It's probably best to place it towards the end, right before your CTA, but I encourage you to experiment with different placements.
Hyper-Personalization of Cold Emails is a Must
Generic cold emails are often dismissed as sales pitches and usually get ignored. Personalizing your message increases its chances of being read and engaged with. An Experian study revealed that personalized cold emails get 41 percent more unique clicks than non-personalized ones.
Personalization shows that your sales reps have taken time to understand your recipient’s interests and care about what they do. Use and show that you’ve done your homework when you use:
The recipient’s name
Reference recent events or content they’ve shared
Show that you’ve done your homework
This can make potential customers feel seen, helping to improve their experience with your brand.
What Does A Personalized Cold Email Look Like?
Subject: Enhancing [Company Name]’s 5G Initiatives
Hi [Recipient’s Name],
I hope this email finds you well. I recently came across Borham Telecom’s 5G Readiness project and was truly impressed, especially noting your significant contribution. At [Your Company Name], we’ve partnered with similar enterprises to bolster their 5G strategies, achieving remarkable results. Given the parallels in our experiences and the dynamic shifts in the 5G space, I believe there’s potential for a beneficial collaboration. [Embedded Animated Personalized Visual – perhaps showcasing a 5G graphic with [Recipient’s Company Name]] I’d love to explore how we can support and amplify your ongoing and future projects. Would you be available for a brief call next week? Thank you for considering this, [Recipient’s Name]. I appreciate your time and look forward to potentially working together.
Warm regards,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Your Contact Information]
There are a number of different ways to make your emails more personalized, including:
Image personalization
People often auto-delete cold emails out of habit, so capturing a recipient’s attention is key. An innovative way to do this is by using animated personalized visuals. Introducing personalized animations disrupts a mundane email-reading routine, which prompts the reader to consider your offer.
Tools like Hyperise allow you to easily create and insert personalized images, GIFs, or videos that catch the recipient’s eye. Hyperise is a personalization toolkit that helps marketers get their prospects’ attention. Let’s look at how it can help boost your cold email response rates.
Boosting Cold Email Success with Dynamic Personalization: A Reply.io Case Study
Case study: Reply.io AI-powered sales and automation platform Reply.io used Hyperise in their cold email sales campaigns. The company wanted to quickly and clearly explain how its platform simplifies engaging with prospects and customers via email and social media. They created two diagrams that directly compare the complexity of the sales and marketing tech stack normally against how simple and streamlined it is with Reply.io. It included a dynamic element that automatically showed the recipient’s company logo.
The campaign’s response rate—at 21 percent—was almost 100 percent higher than that of its other outreach efforts. Reply.io then conducted additional research to determine how effective dynamic, personalized images are at each stage of email campaigns.
They found using dynamic images allowed them to land more emails in prospects’ inboxes and increase engagement:
Total contacted: +887
Emails Delivery rate: +9.8%
Open rate: +9.2
Reply rate: +8.1%
Personalize Subject Lines
The subject line often determines whether your email gets opened or ignored. A study by Superoffice revealed that a staggering 33 percent of email recipients decide whether or not to open an email based solely on its subject line.
Personalized subject lines, especially those that incorporate the recipient’s first name, can also increase open rates by 50 percent. When crafting a subject line, aim to be clear and concise.
Long subject lines can cause messaging to get lost, so try to stick to around nine words or 60 characters. Combining personalized touches with action-inducing phrases like “Urgent” or “Limited time offer” can also help capture even more attention.
Avoid overtly salesy terms that could trigger spam filters. This ensures better email deliverability and boosts the average response rate.
Pro-tip: Consider split-testing your cold email subject lines. This lets you pinpoint the most impactful phrasing, which helps optimize your campaign’s performance before a full launch.
Segment Your Audience for Better Cold Email Response Rates
Many businesses fall into the trap of mass-emailing potential customers in the sales process, often leading to underwhelming response rates. Instead, a more effective approach is to segment your audience by focusing on specific characteristics, such as:
Job title
Location
Industry
To ensure your outreach garners genuine interest, it’s important to pinpoint the right demographic and engage in intentional lead generation. HubSpot’s research indicates that emails tailored to a specific audience can achieve a click-through rate that’s 100.95 percent higher than that of generic campaigns.
Creating emails that align with your recipient’s interests and needs can boost your chances of being opened. This increases the likelihood that recipients will click through and take decisive actions, such as signing up for a trial or making a purchase.
Proofread Your Cold Email
A simple typo or grammatical mistake can undermine even the most compelling cold email. After drafting your email, pause for a moment before reviewing it. Ensure that there are no:
Grammatical slip-ups
Typos
Repetitive points
Consider having a colleague or friend proofread it for you.
Pro tip: To achieve a higher response rate, check that your email is formatted cleanly and professionally. Avoid using bold or underlined text excessively; overdoing it can make your message feel more like an advertisement than a genuine outreach.
Ensure Your Email Provides Value to a Recipient
Since a typical email user receives around 120 emails daily, capturing their attention quickly is crucial.
Here’s how to make an impact within those few crucial moments and get potential customers further along the sales funnel:
Address the recipient personally: Using their name and referencing specific aspects of their business demonstrates a genuine interest in understanding them and their needs. Identify a common pain point: Identify your recipient's potential concerns and tell them how your solution addresses these issues.
Introduce evidence of your product’s or service’s efficacy: Include testimonials, success stories, or case studies from satisfied clients to establish trust and reliability.
Propose an enticing offer: Offer your recipients a free trial or discount code so they can experience your service for themselves.
Ensure your cold email is concise: Avoid drawn-out introductions and avoid overwhelming them with information. Focus on showcasing the unique value you’re offering.
Include a Great Call to Action: In the same way that a weak subject line can reduce your email open rates, an ambiguous CTA can negatively impact your CTRs. Many marketers fall into the trap of incorporating several CTAs in their cold emails, thinking it offers more choices. Developing a precise, enticing, and straightforward CTA for your email is essential. Move away from unclear prompts and instead focus on underlining the benefits of a specific action.
For example:
“Start your free trial now.”
“Let’s schedule a call to discuss how you can grow your business.”
Optimize for Mobile
Ensuring your emails are mobile-friendly is crucial because many people primarily check their emails on smartphones. To make your emails more readable on mobile devices:
Use a slightly larger font size.
Leave ample spacing between paragraphs.
Utilize headers and subheadings so recipients can quickly skim your content on their phone or tablet screens.
Be Obsessive About Email Deliverability
Your prospects have actually to receive your emails to respond to them. I know deliverability isn't the sexiest topic in the world, but if you want your email marketing campaigns to succeed, you must take it seriously. Deliverability is pretty straightforward. Start by warming up your email. Only message-verified addresses will always give recipients a chance to unsubscribe.
Use the Right Tech to Maximize Your Efforts
Invest in a quality sales and marketing tool to increase your email marketing efforts.
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Start Buying Domains Now and Setup Your Email Infrastructure Today
Inframail is a cold email infrastructure provider that scale its outreach efforts efficiently. It helps:
Agencies
Recruiters
Sales development representatives
We provide:
Microsoft-backed deliverability
Dedicated IP addresses
Automated technical setup
Streamlining the Technical Set Up of Cold Email
Some of the main benefits of using Inframail include:
Automated SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup
Dedicated email servers for each user
16-hour priority support daily
With traditional cold email providers, users wrestle with technical configurations and pay per inbox. Inframail streamlines the entire process. We handle the complex infrastructure setup while you focus on reaching more prospects.
Who Cold Email Infrastructure Helps
InfraMail provides the robust email infrastructure you need without the usual technical headaches and per-inbox costs, whether you're:
An agency looking to scale outreach
A recruiter connecting with candidates
SDR driving sales
Start buying domains now and setup your email infrastructure today with our email infrastructure tool.
Picture this: you spend hours crafting the perfect cold email to reach a key decision-maker at a target company. You’ve researched their business, identified a pain point you can help them with, and personalized the email to establish rapport. But what happens next? If you’re like most sellers, you probably never hear back from this important prospect. In fact, the average B2B cold email response rates is around 1%. While this shocking statistic may leave you feeling disheartened, it does not tell the whole story. In fact, there’s a lot to learn from exploring B2B cold email response rates. For instance, understanding average cold email response rates can help you set realistic expectations for your outreach. In addition, analyzing the factors that influence these rates can help you identify actionable strategies to significantly improve your own cold email deliverability results. Let's take a closer look.
Inframail's email infrastructure solution can help you build a healthy sender reputation and improve your cold email response rates so you can achieve your outreach goals faster.
Table of Contents
What is a Cold B2B Email?
A cold B2B email is an unsolicited email sent to potential business clients or leads who may not yet be familiar with the sender. The goal of a cold email is to introduce:
A product
Service
Solution
Spark interest
Initiate a conversation or relationship
Cold emails are a common tool in business prospecting.
B2B Cold Email Campaigns Generate Leads
A cold email is an outreach marketing strategy in which you send unsolicited emails to potential corporate clients. The emails are:
Personalized
Concise
Tailored to the recipient’s interests and needs
The goal is to:
Generate leads
Build relationships
Increase sales
B2B cold email campaigns aim to target specific individuals or businesses. The product or service offered may interest these particular firms or individuals. Correctly executing this approach can help companies to expand their reach. It can also enable them to connect with potential clients cost-effectively. It’s essential to avoid spamming or sending irrelevant emails that can damage a company’s reputation.
Cold Email Response Rates: How to Calculate Them
The average cold email response rate is about 1%. The kind of email you send can significantly impact the response rate. Some sales emails can achieve high response rates of up to 5%, 20%, or even over 40%. Generally, the higher the response rate, the better. A good indication of a high response rate is if it is about half of the open rate.
Open Rate: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?
Measuring your cold email response rates provides insights into your campaign’s efficacy and highlights areas where you can improve. To understand your cold email’s performance, you need to track various metrics:
The open rate is the percentage of people who open your email. It shows how well your subject line works and how much people trust you as a sender. Most CRMs have built-in features that allow you to track and analyze these response rates in real time. To determine the open rate, use this formula:
Open rate = (Number of unique opens/Total number of recipients) x 100
Plugging in the numbers:
Open rate = (250 opens/1,000 recipients) x 100
Open rate = 0.25 x 100
Open rate = 25%
Thus, the open rate for this email campaign is 25%. This means that 25% of the recipients you contacted opened and viewed your email.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): The Next Step in Cold Email Response Rates
CTR indicates the number of recipients who clicked on links in your email after viewing it. Remember, just because someone opens your email doesn’t guarantee they’ll interact with its contents. Some might skim the surface without clicking any links. Monitoring these clicks offers a clearer insight into how engaged recipients are with your material. To determine the click-through rate (CTR):
CTR = (Number of clicks/Total number of emails sent) x 100%
Say you sent an email to 1,000 potential leads. Out of those, 50 recipients clicked a link within the email. Using the formula:
CTR = (50 clicks/1,000 emails sent) x 100
CTR = 5%
The CTR for this campaign is 5%, which means 5% of the recipients clicked on a link in your email.
Insight:
What are good click-through rates for cold emails? The average click-through rate for cold emails is 3.67%. So, 5% or more can be considered a very good CTR for a successful cold email outreach campaign. If you’re wondering how to increase this number, consider that personalized emails receive 41% more clicks than generic ones. This means that including personalization in your email body or subject line may be the key to increasing your response rates.
Reply Rate: Why It’s a Key Metric for Cold Email Campaigns
Reply rate refers to the percentage of recipients who responded to your cold email campaign. This also indicates the overall success of your outreach. A study by whitecream.com showed that while 21.5% of cold emails are being opened, only 1 to 4% of recipients choose to respond or reply to the email.
Insight:
When comparing the days of the week, people who respond to cold emails receive the most on Fridays, with an average response rate of 20.98%. In contrast, Saturdays and Sundays see the fewest replies because people may not access their work emails over the weekend.
The Conversion Rate: Moving Beyond Responses
A cold email conversion rate is the percentage of recipients who engage with your message and then take a desired action—such as signing up for your service or purchasing. According to LinkedIn, the average conversion rate for cold email campaigns is 15%. To determine the cold email conversion rate:
Conversion Rate = (Number of conversions/Total number of emails sent) x 100%
Suppose you sent a cold email to 1,000 potential clients. Out of those, 30 signed up for your service. Using the formula:
Conversion Rate = (30 sign-ups/1,000 emails sent) x 100
Conversion Rate = 3%
Thus, the conversion rate for this campaign is 3%, which means that 3% of the recipients took the desired action (signing up) after reading your email.
Measuring the response rate of your cold emails involves looking at key metrics such as:
Open rate
CTR
Reply rate
Conversion rate
Each metric offers a unique insight into how recipients engage with your emails and where you could improve. While the average cold email statistics may seem low, you must understand that you can significantly increase these numbers with the right strategies.
Why Do Cold Email Response Rates Matter?
It is one of the key metrics that indicates your email campaign’s success. When you send cold emails, you want a response from potential customers or clients. A higher response rate means a greater level of interest in your offer. This, in turn, increases your chances of converting recipients into customers. Cold emails generally aim to generate interest and engagement.
Tracking the response rate helps determine if this goal is being achieved. Measuring your email campaign’s effectiveness can help you make necessary adjustments to improve your results. Analyzing data and experimenting with different strategies can optimize your cold email campaign.
Factors That Impact Your B2B Cold Email Response Rate
Before sending a cold email, there are four key factors to consider that can make a significant difference in your response rate. Neglecting any of these factors could lead to a low response rate, while optimizing them can increase your response rate from 1% to 50% or more. Making necessary adjustments before hitting the send button is essential. Paying close attention to these factors can help ensure the success of your email outreach.
Deep Personalization
Deep personalizing your email with relevant information about the recipient can increase the chances of a response. This is because it helps make a connection and encourages engagement. Use the recipient’s name in the subject line to customize your communication. To catch their attention and establish a connection, reference them or their place of employment in the email body.
It’s about incorporating anything to inform recipients that your email was created exclusively for them. Customizing your emails per individual requirements is fantastic, so the recipient feels valued.
Your Industry and Offering
The relevance of your offering to the recipient’s industry and needs can impact the response rate. It shows that you understand their specific challenges and can offer a solution. On the other hand, if your offering is irrelevant, the recipient may dismiss it as spam or a waste of time.
Researching and tailoring your message to the recipient’s industry and needs is essential. This can increase the chances of a positive response and ultimately lead to a successful business relationship.
The Intended Call-to-Action
A clear and specific call-to-action can make it easier for recipients to respond to your email. Including a clear and particular call-to-action in your B2B cold email can increase the response rate. This is because it makes it easier for recipients to know what action to take after reading your message. Without a clear call-to-action, the recipient may not know what you expect from them and may not respond.
Your call-to-action should be specific and relevant to the recipient’s needs, so they can see the value in taking the action you suggest. Call-to-action examples include:
Scheduling meetings
Requesting more information
Downloading a resource
Your Timing
The time and day you send your email can affect its visibility and response rate. Sending your email at a time when the recipient’s inbox is overflowing can cause it to get lost and go unseen. Similarly, if you send your email on a day when the recipient is likely to be busy or out of the office, they may not see it until much later or not at all. Consider the recipient’s time zone and work schedule to maximize visibility and response rate.
For example, emailing early or late in the day can increase visibility. Sending it mid-week may increase the chances of a response. Incorporating these factors into your email strategy can increase the chances of getting a response.
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What Are the Average B2B Cold Email Response Rates?
The average cold email response rate is 5.1%, with the average open rate being 27.7%. Last year, these numbers were 7% and 36%, respectively.
Businesses operating in legal services:
Show the highest reply rate of above 10%.
December has the worst reply rate among all months, which is most likely due to the holiday season with the average of 4.67%
The highest reply rate was in July at 6.3%
Wednesdays gather the most responses at 5.8%
The time between 7–11 a.m. time frame raises this number to 7.1%
Key data on length, timing, and follow-up strategies:
Emails under 100 characters demonstrate the highest reply rate of 5.4%.
2 email rounds bring the highest reply rate of 6.9%.
Emails without attachments or graphic materials have almost 2x higher reply rate (around 2%)
Compared with those with attachments (1.3%) and images, videos, or GIFs (1.1%).
Waiting 3 days before following up results in the greatest increase in reply rate.
Reaching out to 8 people from 1 company yields a reply rate of up to 8.06%.
Sending cold B2B email sequences to fewer than 100 people results in the highest reply rate of 5.5%.
Follow-Ups Can Make or Break Your Cold Email Campaign
When following up with your prospects, it’s crucial to strike a balance so that you come across as neither pushy nor indifferent. Both extremes can lead you to losing an opportunity.
Let’s dig into the details of these numbers.
Reply rates soar nearly 50% after the first follow-up.
Our research found that the first reminder can boost B2B response rates by up to 50%.
Analyzing the top 20% of our highest-performing client campaigns, we’ve discovered that 120% more people answer emails after the first follow-up.
Sending the second reminder only results in a 3% increase in reply rates.
Unlike the first follow-up, the second one (technically the third email in the sequence) brings only 3.2% more responses.
This is 45% lower than the first follow-up.
The third follow-up drops responses by 30%. The fourth email in a row starts working against you, even if you wait a few weeks before sending it.
The third B2B follow-up results in 30% fewer responses than the initial email.
Timing and Frequency in B2B Email Sequences: Maximizing Reply Rates with Optimal Follow-Up Strategies
If you had 150 replies after the first email and 300 after the second one, you’ll now have just 45 answers. Reply rate dynamics for 3 follow-ups. The best time to send the first follow-up? Our research found that waiting 3 days before following up results in the highest reply rate. Sending anything before day 3 decreases the likelihood of a response.
The optimal length of the email sequence. We also found that the highest response rate of 6.9% comes from 2 total emails in a sequence. Sequences with 3 or more follow-ups show the opposite, causing a gradual drop in responses. At the same time, the Reply research found that it takes an average of 3 emails to generate 1 qualified lead (meaning an interested reply or booked meeting).
What Experts Say About Getting Cold Email Responses
Sequence length isn’t the only factor that drives higher reply rates — without resonating content, you won’t make people answer your cold B2B emails. Our internal experts share some proven tactics that boost responses: Super-tailored niche content. “Niche approach can do magic to your reply rates. If you’ve found out that healthcare organizations face some brand-new challenge (like it was with switching to online during COVID-19) and your product or service can solve this problem — there you go. Offer this solution, and you’ll double your chances to get responses from your ICPs.” Vitaliy Zubkov, former Senior SDR at Belkins.
Humanlike, conversational style. “The best cold emails look like regular messages as if you converse or chat with someone via WhatsApp. That’s why when I send an email myself, I always read it out loud, and if it doesn’t sound like an actual person is talking, I won’t send it.” Michael Maximoff, Co-Founder of Belkins. Also, Caspian Lewke, former Associate Sales Engineer at Gong, shares a few underrated factors that affect email response rates:
Crafting Irresistible Cold Emails: Strategies for Relevance, Creativity, and Personalization
“Having a legitimate reason to reach out. Saying, ‘I wanted to reach out as you’re a {{ICP_Role}} at {{Target_industry}}’ isn’t a good reason. Thinking of it from their perspective, why should your prospect care at all about my product/service? If I can answer that, I’m on to a great start.
Concision. Save writing novels for your free time.
Creativity. People talk about personalization (which is great), but there are ways you can make emails even stronger. Can I build in a pun (when appropriate) to my email? Do it! Can I find a way to slip in a reference to their favorite movie? Or a GIF from their favorite TV show? These things help me stand out from the other 1,000 sellers I’m competing with for my prospect’s time.”
Brian Minick, COO at ZeroBounce, notes: “Another aspect worth stressing is that the relevance of the email makes the biggest difference. Using list segmentation and personalizing your message to the last detail allows me to stand out in someone’s inbox. Do your best to be the person who knows exactly what your prospect needs and wants. Aside from using the stats in this report as a guide, being relevant is key to the number of sales you close.”
When Should I Send My Cold Emails for the Best Rates?
The cold B2B email conversion rate can also depend on the month, the day of the week, and even the hour you send emails. Discover the prime time for sending your emails below.
Our study shows that people are more likely to reply to emails in the morning between 7 and 11 a.m.
With a 5.8% replay rate, Wednesday is the best day of the week to send emails, while Mondays and Fridays have the lowest chance of getting an answer.
At the same time, open rates are highest on Tuesdays (28.2%), followed by Wednesdays (27.5%).
June and July are the most favorable months for getting the highest reply rates, around 6%. Winter months are the worst in terms of response rates.
Who Is Most Likely to Answer Cold Emails?
Recipients from different industries and with different positions also have some repeated cold email response patterns.
Here are some of our observations:
Reply rate by job title
Correspondingly, employees outside the C-suite are 32% more likely to answer cold B2B emails than C-level executives — 5.6% against 4.2%.
As you can see, reply rates vary based on the recipient’s job title. Also, C-level executives can help you land qualified leads but aren’t the most reliable cold email responders.
This trend reversed compared to 2023, where C-level executives responded to 6.2% of emails, while people with other titles answered only 5.2%.
As you can see, chief information officers (CIOs) and founders have a high reply rate of 4.3% and 4.0%, along with chief operating officers (COOs), who respond to 3.8% of emails.
At the same time, chief technology officers (CTOs) and chief product officers (CPOs) show the lowest reply rates (2.1% and 1.3%).
Also, HR managers and IT personnel often reply to emails, while product managers and engineers have the lowest response rates.
What Content Works Best in Cold Emails?
In addition to timing, industries, and job titles, other (no less important) factors influence the response rates, such as:
Email size
Sentence length
Links
Attachments
Short emails perform better in terms of responses. In short, conciseness brings better results.
The shortest emails (under 100 characters) demonstrate the best reply rate at 5.4%.
The most common messages, between 400 and 500 characters, have a reply rate of 1.8%, less than half the average.
Longer emails show the lowest response rate.
When it comes to email structure:
Messages with 1 or 2 paragraphs have the highest reply rate (3.8%).
Longer emails show a decreasing trend in performance. For example, emails with 8 or more paragraphs have a meager reply rate of 1.1%—optimal sentence length to get more replies.
Emails with shorter sentences (fewer than 10 words) demonstrate the best response rates, ranging from 1.9% to 3.6%.
Emails with 7 words in a sentence bring the highest reply rate of 3.6%.
Why Are People So Reluctant to Respond to Cold Emails?
It seems that people don’t like being overloaded with questions. According to Reply, adding only 1 question to your email body results in a reply rate of around 2.2%, while emails without any questions have a slightly lower reply rate of 2.1%. But the more questions you add to your message, the lower the reply rate you’ll get. Correlation between the number of questions in emails and reply rates. The best amount of links to include.
Emails with links are less common because adding links can negatively impact your deliverability. These emails also usually have a lower reply rate of 1.4%. Conversely, people reply more eagerly to emails without links (2.3% of responses) how attachments and graphic materials influence reply rates. We don’t recommend adding attachments or graphic materials like videos, images, and GIFs to your cold emails since they increase your chances of landing in the spam folder.
Adding those results in lower response rates:
Emails with attachments show a 1.3% reply rate compared with 1.9% in emails without added files.
Graphic materials in the email nearly cut responses by 1.1% against 2.0% for those without graphics.
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How To Boost Your B2B Cold Email Response Rates In 2024
One of the best ways to improve your email response rate is only to message people who want what you sell. In other words, qualify new leads before you add them to your email list. When you receive a new lead, ask yourself, "Does this person or company match my ideal customer profile?" If the answer is yes, shoot them a message. If the answer is no, move on. (Note: This tip will help you improve your email open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, too. So if you track those metrics regularly, definitely implement this tip.)
Make It Easy to Respond to Cold Emails
If your target audience has to jump through hoops to respond to your sales emails, they won't. You need to make it as easy as possible for them to reply, so I recommend 1, 2, 3 emails like the one I shared earlier. Salespeople should ask prospects to identify their biggest challenge out of three options and then reply with the corresponding number. It's really easy to type a number into an email. If that's all prospects have to do, you'll receive replies more often.
Use (REAL) Urgency to Get More Cold Email Responses
Here's a wild idea:
Give your prospects a legitimate reason to respond to your emails. You can add a sense of urgency to your messages: "Respond in the next 24 hours to receive your free report" or "Respond for a free consultation—only ten available." Now, you need to be careful with this strategy.
False urgency will rub your prospects the wrong way. Brainstorm real reasons for your prospects to reply now, not later.
Add Social Proof to Your Cold Emails
You work hard to verify your leads, craft baller subject lines, and ensure your email copy is concise and relevant. You always include clear CTAs, too, so your prospects know what to do after reading your message. Still, you can't achieve a good email response rate.
I might know the problem: your prospects don't trust you and/or your company.
Lucky for you, I also know the solution: add social proof to your email outreach campaigns. A well-written case study or glowing testimonial will improve your email reply rate. Why wouldn't it? Your prospects will want to respond when they see that your company has helped many other people in the past—people just like them—wondering where to put social proof in your emails?
It's probably best to place it towards the end, right before your CTA, but I encourage you to experiment with different placements.
Hyper-Personalization of Cold Emails is a Must
Generic cold emails are often dismissed as sales pitches and usually get ignored. Personalizing your message increases its chances of being read and engaged with. An Experian study revealed that personalized cold emails get 41 percent more unique clicks than non-personalized ones.
Personalization shows that your sales reps have taken time to understand your recipient’s interests and care about what they do. Use and show that you’ve done your homework when you use:
The recipient’s name
Reference recent events or content they’ve shared
Show that you’ve done your homework
This can make potential customers feel seen, helping to improve their experience with your brand.
What Does A Personalized Cold Email Look Like?
Subject: Enhancing [Company Name]’s 5G Initiatives
Hi [Recipient’s Name],
I hope this email finds you well. I recently came across Borham Telecom’s 5G Readiness project and was truly impressed, especially noting your significant contribution. At [Your Company Name], we’ve partnered with similar enterprises to bolster their 5G strategies, achieving remarkable results. Given the parallels in our experiences and the dynamic shifts in the 5G space, I believe there’s potential for a beneficial collaboration. [Embedded Animated Personalized Visual – perhaps showcasing a 5G graphic with [Recipient’s Company Name]] I’d love to explore how we can support and amplify your ongoing and future projects. Would you be available for a brief call next week? Thank you for considering this, [Recipient’s Name]. I appreciate your time and look forward to potentially working together.
Warm regards,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Your Contact Information]
There are a number of different ways to make your emails more personalized, including:
Image personalization
People often auto-delete cold emails out of habit, so capturing a recipient’s attention is key. An innovative way to do this is by using animated personalized visuals. Introducing personalized animations disrupts a mundane email-reading routine, which prompts the reader to consider your offer.
Tools like Hyperise allow you to easily create and insert personalized images, GIFs, or videos that catch the recipient’s eye. Hyperise is a personalization toolkit that helps marketers get their prospects’ attention. Let’s look at how it can help boost your cold email response rates.
Boosting Cold Email Success with Dynamic Personalization: A Reply.io Case Study
Case study: Reply.io AI-powered sales and automation platform Reply.io used Hyperise in their cold email sales campaigns. The company wanted to quickly and clearly explain how its platform simplifies engaging with prospects and customers via email and social media. They created two diagrams that directly compare the complexity of the sales and marketing tech stack normally against how simple and streamlined it is with Reply.io. It included a dynamic element that automatically showed the recipient’s company logo.
The campaign’s response rate—at 21 percent—was almost 100 percent higher than that of its other outreach efforts. Reply.io then conducted additional research to determine how effective dynamic, personalized images are at each stage of email campaigns.
They found using dynamic images allowed them to land more emails in prospects’ inboxes and increase engagement:
Total contacted: +887
Emails Delivery rate: +9.8%
Open rate: +9.2
Reply rate: +8.1%
Personalize Subject Lines
The subject line often determines whether your email gets opened or ignored. A study by Superoffice revealed that a staggering 33 percent of email recipients decide whether or not to open an email based solely on its subject line.
Personalized subject lines, especially those that incorporate the recipient’s first name, can also increase open rates by 50 percent. When crafting a subject line, aim to be clear and concise.
Long subject lines can cause messaging to get lost, so try to stick to around nine words or 60 characters. Combining personalized touches with action-inducing phrases like “Urgent” or “Limited time offer” can also help capture even more attention.
Avoid overtly salesy terms that could trigger spam filters. This ensures better email deliverability and boosts the average response rate.
Pro-tip: Consider split-testing your cold email subject lines. This lets you pinpoint the most impactful phrasing, which helps optimize your campaign’s performance before a full launch.
Segment Your Audience for Better Cold Email Response Rates
Many businesses fall into the trap of mass-emailing potential customers in the sales process, often leading to underwhelming response rates. Instead, a more effective approach is to segment your audience by focusing on specific characteristics, such as:
Job title
Location
Industry
To ensure your outreach garners genuine interest, it’s important to pinpoint the right demographic and engage in intentional lead generation. HubSpot’s research indicates that emails tailored to a specific audience can achieve a click-through rate that’s 100.95 percent higher than that of generic campaigns.
Creating emails that align with your recipient’s interests and needs can boost your chances of being opened. This increases the likelihood that recipients will click through and take decisive actions, such as signing up for a trial or making a purchase.
Proofread Your Cold Email
A simple typo or grammatical mistake can undermine even the most compelling cold email. After drafting your email, pause for a moment before reviewing it. Ensure that there are no:
Grammatical slip-ups
Typos
Repetitive points
Consider having a colleague or friend proofread it for you.
Pro tip: To achieve a higher response rate, check that your email is formatted cleanly and professionally. Avoid using bold or underlined text excessively; overdoing it can make your message feel more like an advertisement than a genuine outreach.
Ensure Your Email Provides Value to a Recipient
Since a typical email user receives around 120 emails daily, capturing their attention quickly is crucial.
Here’s how to make an impact within those few crucial moments and get potential customers further along the sales funnel:
Address the recipient personally: Using their name and referencing specific aspects of their business demonstrates a genuine interest in understanding them and their needs. Identify a common pain point: Identify your recipient's potential concerns and tell them how your solution addresses these issues.
Introduce evidence of your product’s or service’s efficacy: Include testimonials, success stories, or case studies from satisfied clients to establish trust and reliability.
Propose an enticing offer: Offer your recipients a free trial or discount code so they can experience your service for themselves.
Ensure your cold email is concise: Avoid drawn-out introductions and avoid overwhelming them with information. Focus on showcasing the unique value you’re offering.
Include a Great Call to Action: In the same way that a weak subject line can reduce your email open rates, an ambiguous CTA can negatively impact your CTRs. Many marketers fall into the trap of incorporating several CTAs in their cold emails, thinking it offers more choices. Developing a precise, enticing, and straightforward CTA for your email is essential. Move away from unclear prompts and instead focus on underlining the benefits of a specific action.
For example:
“Start your free trial now.”
“Let’s schedule a call to discuss how you can grow your business.”
Optimize for Mobile
Ensuring your emails are mobile-friendly is crucial because many people primarily check their emails on smartphones. To make your emails more readable on mobile devices:
Use a slightly larger font size.
Leave ample spacing between paragraphs.
Utilize headers and subheadings so recipients can quickly skim your content on their phone or tablet screens.
Be Obsessive About Email Deliverability
Your prospects have actually to receive your emails to respond to them. I know deliverability isn't the sexiest topic in the world, but if you want your email marketing campaigns to succeed, you must take it seriously. Deliverability is pretty straightforward. Start by warming up your email. Only message-verified addresses will always give recipients a chance to unsubscribe.
Use the Right Tech to Maximize Your Efforts
Invest in a quality sales and marketing tool to increase your email marketing efforts.
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Start Buying Domains Now and Setup Your Email Infrastructure Today
Inframail is a cold email infrastructure provider that scale its outreach efforts efficiently. It helps:
Agencies
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We provide:
Microsoft-backed deliverability
Dedicated IP addresses
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Streamlining the Technical Set Up of Cold Email
Some of the main benefits of using Inframail include:
Automated SPF, DKIM, and DMARC setup
Dedicated email servers for each user
16-hour priority support daily
With traditional cold email providers, users wrestle with technical configurations and pay per inbox. Inframail streamlines the entire process. We handle the complex infrastructure setup while you focus on reaching more prospects.
Who Cold Email Infrastructure Helps
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Start buying domains now and setup your email infrastructure today with our email infrastructure tool.
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