How to Create a Cold Email Sequence That Converts

William Cannon
Last updated on November 23, 2023
Table of Contents

Nowadays, it’s more important than ever to have a strong online presence, and one of the best ways to build that presence is through outreach and email marketing. You must first understand how cold emailing works to create a cold email sequence that converts in 2024. By understanding the principles of effective emailing by sales reps, you can then focus on creating a sequence that will work for your business.

This article discusses some of the best practices for cold emailing and tips on creating a successful sequence.

📌 Reminder: At times, the lack of replies to your cold emails is not because of your copy. Your list matters too. Target only prospects with verified emails. Try UpLead and get 5 free validated B2B emails!

Why You Need a Cold Email Sequence

If you’re looking to build relationships and increase conversions, then a cold email campaign may be just what your business needs. Effective email sequences are crucial to guiding marketing strategies across various industries. In fact, 64% of marketing teams believe their email marketing strategy is critical to their success. Creating an automated email sequence tailored to your target audience ensures that your message reaches the right people at the right time. Here are three key benefits of using a cold email sequence in your business. 

Persistence Counts

For most businesses, it takes multiple interactions before someone is ready to purchase. Reaching out with one-off emails won’t cut it; you must persist to find and convert leads into customers. That’s where a cold email sequence comes in handy. By sending mass emails regularly, you create an ongoing dialogue with potential customers and allow them more time to become familiar with your product or service before purchasing. This way, they are more likely to remember your brand and become more comfortable engaging with you long-term. 

Creating a Buyer Journey

When using cold emails as part of your overall marketing strategy, creating a buyer journey that will engage the reader from start to finish is essential. A good buyer journey should consider the customer’s needs and interests and their level of understanding about the product or service offered. By creating a compelling buyer journey, businesses can provide valuable content to help move prospects through each stage of the sales process. 

Drive Conversions

Any cold email sequence aims to drive conversions by nurturing leads until they become customers. To do this effectively, businesses must focus on providing relevant and valuable content to keep readers engaged throughout their buyer journey and compel them to take action when the time is right. This could include offering discounts or promotions on specific products or services, providing helpful advice related to the industry, or simply encouraging readers to reach out if they have any questions or concerns about the product or service. 

Types of Cold Email Sequences

By utilizing a well-crafted cold email sequence, businesses can increase the effectiveness of their email marketing efforts and maximize their return on investment. Let’s look at some of the many types of cold email campaigns. 

Nurturing Cold Email Sequence

A nurturing cold email sequence builds trust and rapport with potential leads by providing helpful information such as industry trends, product updates, and educational materials. This type of sequence should educate your prospects about what you offer and grow their interest while establishing yourself as an expert in the industry. It can also help create relationships with potential customers that could lead to success for your sales reps down the line. 

Engagement Cold Email Sequence

Engagement cold emails gauge how interested someone is in your product or service by asking questions or offering a free trial or demo. You should use this sequence when you want to know how open someone is to learn more about what you offer and potentially make a purchase in the future. Engagement emails are great for identifying warm leads that can become paying customers later. 

Conversion Email Sequence

Conversion email sequences convert leads into paying customers by providing personalized offers based on their interests and needs. This type of sequence should be used when you have identified warm leads that are likely ready for a sale but need an extra nudge before committing fully. Conversion emails should contain targeted offers that tie directly into what someone has expressed interest in prior so that they feel comfortable investing in your product or service. 

Follow-Up Email Sequence

Follow-up emails are sent after someone has already made an initial purchase from your company or interacted with your content in some way (i.e., watched a webinar). This sequence should keep people engaged after they’ve already taken action so they stay interested in your company’s services. Follow-up emails can include thank you messages, additional offers related to their current purchase, reminders about upcoming events/promotions, and more. 

Re-Engagement Email Sequence

Re-engagement emails are sent out periodically (usually every six months) when someone has yet to interact with any content from your company for some time (i.e., no purchases or website visits). This type of sequence should be used when you want to reinvigorate old contacts who might have forgotten about your brand over time so they return as active customers/leads. Re-engagement emails may include special offers tailored towards past customers or updated information about products/services they may have been interested in previously.

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How to Create a Cold Email Sequence That Converts

Creating an effective cold email sequence is essential to any successful email marketing campaign. It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to ramp up sales, increase your lead count, or even build name recognition; for your email sequence to be successful, it needs to convert. But how do you create a cold email sequence that will convert? Here are a few steps to consider when crafting a killer cold email sequence. 

Step 1. Define a Goal for Your Cold Email Sequence

Before creating your cold email sequence, you must define the email’s goal. Are you looking to generate leads? Increase sales? Build brand awareness? Knowing precisely what the objective of the emails is will help ensure that the cold emails focus on achieving that goal and nothing else. This step is critical because it allows you to measure success and track progress throughout your campaign. 

Step 2. Determine a Target Audience

Once you identify your goal, it’s time to determine who your target audience is going to be. Segmenting your list by demographics, such as age, gender, and location, can help ensure that everyone on your list receives relevant content tailored to them. Another effective way of prospecting for cold emails is using UpLead. UpLead enables you to find your ideal prospects based on job title, industry, and other criteria so you can send highly targeted emails with more chances of conversion.

Step 3. Specify a Trigger for the Sequence

A trigger could be anything from someone signing up for something on your website or downloading an ebook from one of your offers; this triggers the start of the chain of emails sent out over time which provide further information about what you offer and encourage people to take action (e.g., sign up or purchase). Some other examples of triggers include: 

  • Subscribing to an email list
  • Visiting certain pages on a website multiple times in one session
  • Clicking on specific links within an email itself

Step 4. Lay Out a Time Frame

Before you write your emails, you must decide how often you will send them out and over what period. This decision will help ensure that your customers are engaged throughout the campaign and allow you to measure how well each message was received. As a general rule of thumb, space out your emails over several weeks or months so they don’t overwhelm your customers. 

Step 5. Write Email Copy That Provides Value

The key to successful cold calling and emailing is providing value with every message you send. Your emails should be focused on educating your customers about the product or service you offer engagingly. Ensure that each message contains useful information that resonates with your target audiences, such as case studies, industry insights, or tips on getting the most out of your offering. 

Step 6. Automate Your Cold Email Sequence

Once you’ve created your cold email sequence, it’s essential to automate it so that messages are sent regularly without any manual intervention required from you or anyone else in your organization. Automation saves time and effort while ensuring consistency in delivery across all messages in the sequence. Effective email marketing software can help automate this process by tracking customer responses and optimizing delivery times based on how they interact with each message in the sequence. 

Step 7. Monitor Results

It’s essential to monitor the results of your cold email sequence and make necessary changes for it to succeed over time. Track metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates to determine which elements of your campaign are working well and which need improvement. Regularly review these metrics and adjust your strategy as needed based on what you find; this way, you can keep improving the effectiveness of your cold email sequence over time. 

Use Uplead to Find Prospects for Your Cold Email Sequence

Cold emailing can be an effective way to reach potential customers and partners, but it can also be time-consuming. Crawling through lists of leads and trying to verify their contact information can take up valuable time that could be spent developing relationships with those prospects. 

UpLead can help save time by quickly finding accurate contact information for your leads. With UpLead, you can get information like email addresses, phone numbers, and more, so you can customize your cold email sequence and make it more engaging to your target audience. Additionally, Uplead’s verification process ensures that the information you’re getting is up-to-date and accurate. Therefore, you can focus on developing relationships with your leads instead of worrying about finding their contact information.

Cold Email Sequence Template for 2024

To increase your chances of success with cold emails, you need a well-crafted cold email sequence to grab the attention of potential customers and get them to take action. The following steps outline a sample cold email sequence template you can use as a campaign starting point. 

1. Initial Email

Your first contact with a potential customer should always be brief and to the point. Introduce yourself and your business, explain why you’re reaching out (i.e., what value you can offer them), and include a call to action that encourages them to take the next step. 

For example: 

“Hi [Name], my name is [Name], and I’m the founder of [Business Name].  We provide [Products/Services], which could be a great fit for your business needs. I’d love to discuss how our [product/service] could help you succeed in 2024—would you like to set up a quick call? Let me know!”

2. First Follow-Up

If your initial email doesn’t get a response, don’t fret; many potential customers may have needed more time to read it or may not have been ready to commit. That’s why following up with another message that provides even more value to encourage engagement is important. Offering a gift or coupon often incentivizes people to respond (or at least open the message). 

For instance: 

“Hi [Name], I just wanted to check in on my previous message about our [Product/Service]. To demonstrate our commitment to providing excellent customer service, we’d like to offer you a free gift when you sign up—enter this code at checkout! Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.” 

3. Still Hoping to Connect

If your recipient still needs to respond after two emails, it might be time for one last attempt before giving up hope altogether. Try sending an email that expresses some emotion—shows that you understand their hesitation but also expresses your eagerness and enthusiasm about connecting with them soon. This will let them know they’re important without being too pushy or aggressive in your approach. Something along these lines should do the trick: 

For example:

“Hi [Name], I realize I haven’t heard back from you yet and wanted to check if everything was ok. We’re looking forward to connecting with you soon and showing how our [product/service] can benefit your business in 2021—we’re confident it’ll be worth it! Please let me know if there’s anything else we can do.” 

4. Irresistible Offer

After several follow-ups, it’s vital to offer something that makes it almost impossible for prospects not to take action. This could be providing discounts or free trials on products or services, incentivizing opportunities to take action now rather than waiting for later. 

For example:

“Hi again, [Name]; I hope this message finds you well! We have been discussing the opportunity our company presents, but we want to give one last push before we part ways. We would love nothing more than to work together to improve your business’s customer experience! To sweeten the deal even more, an exclusive offer is available until midnight tomorrow: [Insert Offer Here]!”

5. Final Try

In this final sequence step, it is important to induce FOMO (fear of missing out) by adding urgency or making one last offer before ending communication with the prospect altogether. This could be adding discount codes for limited-time-only offers or suggesting another product or service as an alternative solution if the first didn’t resonate with them initially. 

For example:

Hi again, [Name], Our team has been eager to work together to improve the customer experience but hasn’t heard anything back. If there isn’t any interest or hesitation after seeing the exclusive offer presented earlier, please let me know so that I don’t bother following up any further. Otherwise, please reach out so we can engage with your customers immediately!

More Tips for Creating Cold Email Sequences

When it comes to email marketing, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. You need to tailor your emails to fit the specific needs of your customers and prospects. That’s why crafting effective email sequences from cold email templates is essential. 

Personalization is Key

The key to writing effective emails is personalization. Your emails should address the recipient’s needs and wants directly. Personalizing your emails will set you apart from other companies and make the recipient feel special and appreciated—increasing the likelihood that they will continue engaging with your content. 

Ensure It’s Well-Structured 

In addition to personalization, you want to make sure that the overall structure of your cold email sequence makes sense. The timing should be just right, with each successive email building on the previous one so that it will be clear to the prospect. Having organized and well-structured cold email templates will help ensure that you get maximum engagement from your recipients. 

Craft Catchy Subject Lines

Your subject lines are one of the most critical elements of an effective cold email sequence—they catch people’s attention and entice them to open the email in the first place. Crafting catchy subject lines can be tricky, but some proven strategies for success exist. A good subject line should grab attention while still being relevant and honest about what you are offering—it should give readers a clear idea of what they can expect when they open the message without any confusion or ambiguity. 

Include Supporting Evidence

Adding social proof and other supporting evidence will significantly increase the chances of someone responding positively to your cold emails. Include reviews from happy customers or case studies of how others have benefited from using your product/service — anything that will make people feel more confident in taking action after reading through what you have written in the body of the message.

Doing this will show prospects that there’s already an established user base they can rely on for feedback when considering whether or not to buy what you’re offering them. 

How to Create a Cold Email Sequence That Converts

FAQs

There are a few frequently asked questions about cold email sequences.

What is a cold email sequence?

A cold email sequence is a set of messages sent to a potential customer to start a relationship. Typically, the first email in a series introduces the sender, and their business, with subsequent emails providing additional information about the product or service, offered or fun ways to engage your leads. 

How many emails do you get in a cold email sequence?

The number of emails you send in a cold email sequence will depend on your goals and the response rate you’re getting from your target audience. If you’re trying to generate awareness or increase brand visibility, you may only need to send a handful of emails. However, if you want to generate leads or enhance your funnel, you’ll likely need to send more emails. 

How do you make a cold email sequence?

A cold email sequence is a sales and marketing tool to cultivate relationships with potential customers who have yet to express interest in your product or service. A few key elements must be included to create an effective cold email sequence. First, you need to establish a clear goal for the campaign. What are you hoping to achieve? Next, you need to compile a list of potential customers. This can be done through market research or purchasing a list from a reputable source. Once you have your list, it’s time to start crafting your emails. 

Write cold email sequences that get results

Conducting cold email outreach can be a great way to connect with potential customers or business partners. However, it’s important to remember that these emails should be part of a larger sequence to be effective. It’s vital to keep the conversation going by sending multiple emails over some time. In addition, using cold email templates can help maximize your sales process.

When done correctly, cold email campaigns can be a robust tool for growing your business. Keep them relevant and exciting for your cold leads; you’ll soon see the desired results.

Results from cold emails depend on many factors, too; the most important one is the quality of your list.

When you know exactly who your prospects are, you don’t have to be salesy or pushy. If you have products that add value to their lives, they will naturally be drawn to you. It all starts with targeting the right accounts.

With UpLead, you can hyper-target prospects by narrowing the search down to their industry, role, company size, and buying needs using intent data, and 50+ other filters. You’ll also get their emails and all the necessary information to personalize your meeting requests.

Try UpLead for free today and get prospecting data on 5 leads today.

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