You can't generate high quality leads with cold email if your potential customers don't read your emails.
Cold emails do not work if your prospects do not open them. Here are some quick tips for writing effective cold email subject lines.
Hacked BD is an email marketing b2b lead generation agency that helps businesses get in front of more prospects. Each year, we send millions of emails for our clients.
We have a lot of data on how to get your emails opened.
We have worked with companies in software, mergers and acquisitions, consumer products, and agencies. We have a lot of data on how to send emails that get high open rates.
Write in all lowercase letters. You might be thinking that this will appear less professional. This is a valid concern, but lowercase subject lines get better open rates. Who cares how professional your email is if nobody reads it.
You need to understand how executives (the people you're targeting) communicate with their team and people they know. You know they are going to read your message no matter what. You focus on the content, not creating a "catchy" subject line to pique their interest.
B2B marketers need to take this approach with their email marketing campaigns. Being slightly informal is not a bad thing if it increases conversion rates. The aim of your email marketing strategy is to generate leads, never forget that. Your subject line won't matter if you have a strong value proposition that solves a problem they have.
Including your value proposition in your subject line is a good way to get your email ignored. You are letting your prospect know, without context, that you are trying to sell them something.
People are naturally resistant to sales messaging. Even if they have a pain point that you can solve, they might not want to speak to you. Prospects only have so much time to spend with salespeople. Show them you're selling something right away and they won't even open the email.
Personalization is the best way to cut through the noise. Showing someone that you truly understand them and their business. Showing them that you know they have a challenge you can solve.
It takes slightly more text to deliver an effective value proposition, make sure you get the chance to deliver it.
The only goal of the subject line is to get an email opened. People don't make purchasing decisions based on a good email subject line. Only include what's necessary to get the email opened and read.
Good and bad ways to personalize cold email subject lines exist.
Good ways: using first names, shortened company names, KPI's specific to your prospects, or research specific to your prospects
Bad ways: using full length company names (e.g. Hacked BD Inc.), full names (John Smith), your entire value proposition
People that know each other rarely use personalizations in their email subject lines when emailing each other. Keep that in mind. You might think that personalizing your subject line will get you results, but it could be making you stick out in the wrong way.
I regularly receive cold emails from people that are doing something misleading to get my attention. It gets me to open the message, but immediately makes me dislike the person that sent it. Most prospects are the same, so don't risk it.
Don't use re: in the first email to make it seem like you are following up on a prior conversation. Don't use phrases like "urgent", "needs attention", or "important". These subject lines will get your email opened, but they will not generate responses.
Recipients of these emails are more likely to report your messaging as spam. Once you start going to spam folders it is hard to get out and improve your deliverability rates.
These prospects did not ask to hear from you. Be respectful and don't be overly pushy with misleading messaging. B2B sales is hard, but you make it harder if you try to trick people. They will be less receptive.
Litmus talks more about this in a blog post they wrote about misleading subject lines.
You are probably reading this article because you want to improve your email open rates. Subject lines are the natural place to start, but they are not the only factor.
Your prospects can see the first two lines of your email before they open it. This has an affect on whether they will open your email or not. Be aware of whether or not your preview text is going to resonate with your target prospects.
Email service providers are getting better at spam filtering. They have started analyzing content to understand if one person might be sending across multiple domains. This means that email marketers need to change up their content before it gets stale.
You should strive to make each email look personalized. Frequently changing subject lines can make your email sending habits look more human. Spintax is a good way to make emails from the same campaign look different.
We have used the following subject lines in our own campaigns. They have all gotten great conversion and open rates.
"strategic acquisition discussion", "acquisition opportunity", "strategic interest"
We have used these subject lines for lead generation campaigns for our M&A clients. These subject lines look emails that CEO's send to each other. CEO's will rarely put effort into the subject lines they use. They know their recipients will open their message regardless of what the subject line says.
"email interested rates", "conversion rates", "reply rates"
Hacked BD has used these subject lines when we target prospects for lead generation services. They work because we know that a company that runs cold email will be looking at these metrics. The email content focuses on the KPI we allude to in the subject line.
"shopping cart abandonment rate"
We used this subject line for an ecommerce client. It follows the same trend as above. Their prospects regularly monitor this KPI and track it regularly. The rest of the email is also focused on shopping cart abandonment rate.
"average basket size"
This is an email subject line we used for a consumer products brand targeting retailers. They sell a higher ticket item that will have a positive impact on a major retail KPI - average basket size.
"samples", "samples for {{company}}"
We used these subject lines for a client that is selling products into retailers. Samples are a great way to get attention, and retailers are always receiving emails about them. This topic is always top of mind.
This subject line tells me nothing other than you want to sell me something. "Potential breakthrough" is jargon that doesn't mean anything to prospects.
This sender is trying to create a sense of urgency. They are making it seem like I am supposed to receive something from them. The problem is I don't know what a LinkedIn email append is. Most prospects will ignore an email like this.
This subject line is misleading. The sender and I have never exchanged emails. The "re:" at the start of the email is trying to make it look like they are following up on a conversation. This messaging is vague and we have no projects to brainstorm.
I don't like this subject line because it tells me everything that I need to know before I open the email. This person wants to sell me app development. Elevate your business is not a strong value proposition. This is jargon and means nothing to the recipient.
The "fw:" is trying to make it look like someone on my team sent me this. This is misleading behaviour that you should avoid.
TLDR: Use short, lowercase subject lines that are relevant to your prospects. Do not be misleading. Setting up email addresses for cold email can be expensive and time consuming. Don't burn your email accounts by sending cold email with less than optimal subject lines.
B2B email lead generation is challenging. Companies that do it the right way can get long term results. Reach out to Hacked BD if you'd like help improving your email conversion rates. We can completely take over your b2b lead generation if you're ready to scale.
