Warming Up in the New Year with Cold Emails

New Year – Better Emails

A new year has started.   A fresh start – the road ahead is nothing but promising and your email campaigns to all those new prospects that you received under the tree should be promising too.  

After the holidays is a prime time to warm up conversations of new business with prospective clients.  Even the title of the final holiday itself, ironically, says it: a NEW year = NEW Business.   But what are some best approaches for emailing new prospective clients?

First off, the holidays are over, and you can leave your holiday well wishes by the wayside.  There is always a debate over how long to wish someone a Happy New Year – a week, 2 weeks, a month?  Best practices for holiday greetings within a business email should only be that first week of the year and be limited to prospects that you have already had contacted and started to build a relationship with.  

For new prospects, cold emails need to start with a creative tagline.   This will set you apart from the pack of hungry sales people that are vying for the same business. “Santa has one more gift for you” is probably not the best way to go.  Also, the call to action should not be the subject line but rather something that is different, relevant, and can circle back to the sales pitch.  

A new year is a fresh start and many companies have already set in motion an action plan for the year, but that does not mean you have to only focus on the now.  What are they going to be doing next year?  Hopefully, they’re considering adding your product or service to their line-up, and it is your duty as a sales professional to have that foresight.   Put that knowledge into play, do the research, and speak to directly to the prospect on what you can to help them.  

When constructing a cold email, it is important to interject a personal tone.  How can you make it personal when sending the same message to a large group?  Speak directly to the largest pain points that these buyers are experiencing by making it real.  Ask questions that make them think about these pains.  If one company is reeling from something specific you can bet others are too.  Your mission here is to start a conversation with the prospect, not to highlight the monolog skills you learned in freshman year theater class.  Nobody is a fan of the “show up and throw up” sales person and they still aren’t a fan if “showing up” is simply getting to their inbox.  

When your personal and enriching email does get the attention of your prospects, close with a solid call to action.  “Can I have 20 minutes of your time” is not going to cut it anymore. Try: “Let’s carve out 20 minutes of time to discuss <insert benefit> that have helped <insert high-level customers>”.  End with a final benefit blast that will bring a winter chill to your prospect with your solution as the only source of heat.  

Now that the easy part is over, take the time to cut out any unnecessary or wordy phrases.   Every line needs to move the reader to the next point while offering new information.  Viola!  Ready to send.