Email has always been and remains one of the most effective tools in any digital marketers’ arsenal. Particularly when it comes to well-tailored, segmented email campaigns and automated flows, marketers can enjoy high engagement and enviable email marketing conversion rates.
However, with cold emails, it’s a slightly different story. Unfortunately, you’re far less likely to get consumers on board if you attempt to initiate contact in their inbox when you’ve never done business with them before.
That’s not to say that cold emails can’t bring anything to the table. In fact, there are several ways you can boost your cold email conversion rate by implementing simple but effective tweaks to your strategy. Just bear in mind that you’ve got some unfavorable averages to contend with.
What Is the Average Cold Email Conversion Rate?
Maximizing your cold email conversion rate is important. Really, the whole reason a marketing team will decide to send out an email campaign in the first place is to:
- Encourage consumers to make a purchase
- Encourage consumers to sign up for future emails
- Or carry out a similar action.
But, the average cold email conversion rate tends to be far lower than that of other email marketing conversion rates.
While, say, the conversion rate for an abandoned cart email from an eCommerce company could be up to 20%, the average cold email conversion rate is just 1%.
This means that, no matter how many hundreds or even thousands of cold emails you send out, it is likely you’ll only ever get through to a small handful of them.
How to Calculate Your Cold Email Conversion Rate
To work out if your conversion rates are quite as low as that or whether your strategy is performing better than most, you’ll need to know how to calculate your cold email conversion rate.
The calculation itself is simple. Then, once you have it down, you can use your results as a springboard to see which campaigns need work.
All you have to do is divide the total number of conversions by the total number of emails that you sent out as part of a campaign or flow. Then, to get a percentage, just multiply that number by 100.
Say, for example, you sent out a cold email to 1,000 people and 10 of those resulted in a conversion, the calculation would be as follows:
10 / 1,000 = 10
10 x 100 = 1%
Here, then, you can see that the email in question resulted in a cold email conversion rate of just 1%.
If your rates tend to be as low as that, it’s time to start thinking about making some essential changes to your strategy.
How to Improve Your Cold Email Conversion Rate
There are several ways you can boost your cold email conversion rate. And, the good news is that each of these approaches can reap impressive rewards, all while being relatively easy to introduce.
Experiment With the Subject Line
Did you know that 33% of email recipients choose to open an email based solely on the subject line, acccording to SuperOffice?
So, cold emails that grab a lead’s attention before they even click through have far more of a chance of converting that lead.
If your conversion rates are low, try playing around with your subject lines, always making sure that they are eye-catching, relevant, and a maximum of 60 characters.
Introduce Personalization
Another way of engaging readers in their inboxes is to introduce personalization.
Try including the names of your recipients or the company that they work for in the subject line and the body of the email. In doing so, you’ll show them that it does not belong in the spam folder.
Start Targeting Your Emails
A similarly effective method for increasing your cold email conversion rate is to target your campaigns and flows.
By developing a targeted list of recipients, you can be sure that the content will be relevant and interesting to each person.
They’ll be far more likely to act on your email if they can see from the outset that it is genuinely significant to them.
Keep an Eye on Your Stats
It will be far harder to figure out what’s working and what’s going well if you don’t regularly measure your cold email conversion rate.
By keeping an eye on the numbers, you’ll get a far better sense of which tweaks are making a difference, what you should be doing more of, and what approaches need to be scrapped.
Further Reading
Improve Your eCommerce Email Conversion Rates
eCommerce Conversion: Definition and Advice
14 eCommerce Conversion Hacks For Better Profit
How to Increase the Conversion Rate of Your eCommerce
How to Increase Your Mobile Ecommerce Conversion Rate
Understanding Average Upsell Conversion Rates and Tips
How to Improve Your Abandoned Cart Email Conversion Rate
