Email marketing remains one of the most potent marketing methods when weighing the ease of use, cost and overall effectiveness. All successful brands use email marketing in a variety of capacities to drum up interest for new products, services, events and plans. Most email marketing techniques of today revolve around utilizing subscriber and customer lists that contain people who have already demonstrated prior interest. Some brands, however, appeal to a variety of individuals and influencers with the notorious cold email. If you are not producing the results you’d like through this approach, then continue reading to find out about some ways in which to improve your technique.

When People Get Mad

There are plenty of times – when in the process of sending cold emails – when you will receive a less-than-flattering response in return. This type of dialogue can often be discouraging, but those who have mastered the art of communication understand that there is opportunity to be had here. Some may feel their sense of privacy has been violated, while others may simply be put off by the approach. A quick apology, explanation of how you acquired their contact information, or even just a verification that you won’t email them in the future can sometimes generate the most unlikely of leads. When these people respond, they’ll often give you curt but honest critiques about your pitch as well: use this as a learning opportunity.

Use Multimedia to Inspire

The standard, canned text-only pitch via email to someone with whom you’ve never chatted can feel all too familiar and pathetic to many. When reaching out to individuals for the first time, you want to make as good of an impression as possible. Pinging your website with a standard pitch just won’t cut it. If you have the knack for such elements or can afford to enlist the services of someone else, then consider outlining your broader pitch in a video message, podcast or infographic – anything that can be embedded via email or easily accessed by the recipient. This will allow you to reach the potentially interested in a variety of ways. Not everybody is receptive through the same medium or through the same style of pitch: including a media-rich alternative in your cold email pitches can increase positive response rates.

Promote Recipient-Specific Benefits

Even cold email campaigns should have some basic and underlying information about the recipients. Most brands break down these emails by niche or by category. When you are able to focus on this limited form of targeting, it becomes much easier to create better cold email techniques. Every recipient wants to know how a particular product or service will benefit them. If you have done your homework, then you should be able to put together a cold email campaign that takes these desires into account. No campaign will be absolutely perfect, but determining the basic characteristics of an individual or business before sending any email is just good practice – it helps you know which landing page to send the recipient, which specific benefits should be touted in the email, and so forth. This will help your dramatically increase the number of people pinging your website and responding positively to your emails.

What are some of your cold email marketing horror stories? Let us know below what happened.