For many new businesses, email outreach is the most economical and scalable method to obtain new clients, partners, and investors. Unlike paid advertising, which produces results only for as long as money is being spent, properly executed email outreach has the potential to generate sustainable long-term payoffs for the company.
In the beginning stages of a startup's growth, many will utilize a type of service such as ExtractMails to gather contact information, but the real determining factors in the success of email outreach will lie in how strategically relevant and consistently followed up upon the contacts are over time, and not so much how many people have been contacted.
This guide presents some of the most effective email outreach practices for new businesses as well as a straightforward approach to designing and executing an effective outreach program.
Why Email Outreach Is Still Powerful for Startups
Email is private, direct, and measurable. For startups with limited resources, it gives them a chance to contact decision-makers without the need for large advertising budgets or large sales teams. This is in contrast to social media algorithms which limit organic reach and prevent you from controlling your message as well as you're timing.
The flexibility of email outreach makes it an effective tool for startups to use for their business. A startup can quickly test a variety of subject lines, messaging styles, and audiences using the same emails.
By creating a well-designed email campaign, even a small startup can have similar success as larger, well-established companies by utilizing personalized and value-based emails.
Understanding Your Target Audience
It's important for startups to right the ship with outreach before even sending their first email. Most successful candidates for startups fail due to messages being misdirected or sent out amiss.
Before launching your outreach campaign, it’s important to identify the characteristics of your ideal customer. Things to consider: In what type of business do they operate? What is the size of their company? What position do they hold in that company? At this moment in time, what are the challenges and requirements that they need to address?
Once you have defined your potential customer(s), your email will be formatted so that it appeals to them and ultimately increases your email relevance to them by increasing the likelihood of them interacting with your email.
Finally, you should also separate your intended message into three principal segments; founders, marketing managers, and technical leads. By doing this, you can generate tailored emails for each segment, resulting in much improved response rates.
Building a High-Quality Email List
For your outreach efforts to be successful, you need to start with a well-maintained email list that matches what you're targeting. Quality is significantly more important than quantity; sending an email to tens of thousands of contacts who aren't interested will damage your reputation as a sender.
At the same time, it's critical to collect emails from credible sources so that they are specific to the niche marketplace you are serving. Where you can verify email addresses, do so to help keep below bounce rates. An engaged prospect gained from a small email list will always create a higher return on investment than a large group of random contacts.
Crafting Subject Lines That Get Opened
If the subject line doesn’t evoke interest or convey a sense of value, the email will not be opened.
An effective subject line should be concise and specific, focusing on a problem that is relevant to the person receiving the email, and/or hinting at some sort of value to them in opening the email. Do not use clickbait or ambiguous statements because this will diminish the trust of the recipient.
Personalizing subject lines to make them relevant to the recipient is also very important. By including the name, company, and/or industry of the recipient naturally within the subject line, you can vastly improve open rates.
Writing Email Copy That Feels Human
The first thing to keep in mind when composing outreach emails for your start-up company is that the reader must be interested in the content of the email, once they open it. The goal of startup outreaching emails is to create a feeling of conversation instead of a feeling of being sold to.
People tend to react more positively to an email that sounds like it has been written by someone other than an automated marketing machine.
Begin your email with a personalized greeting or salutation and show that you have taken the time to research the person you are contacting. You should also be able to explain why you are reaching out, and how it is related to the recipient. Keep paragraphs short and language basic, so that the email is easy to read.
In the email, you should focus first on the recipient's problem. After discussing their problem, briefly explain to them how your solution will provide a solution to their problem. Do not include excessive detail or too many features about your solution. Your goal with the first email is to initiate a conversation, not to close a sale.
The Importance of Personalization at Scale
Personalization versus Scalability can often be a challenge for many small businesses. A lot of the time we feel more connected through a manual email. However, this is not the best option for long-term growth because of the sheer volume of email you will need to send.
The current method for generating outreach is through smart personalized outreach tools such as Dynamic Fields and Customized Opening Lines that are tailored by user segments.
Once you start creating advanced outreach processes using AI-Powered Data Integration, you will quickly realize how easy it is to connect your CRM data and behavior insights to your campaign results, thus providing highly relevant emails without needing to put in any extra work on your part.
If done properly, personalization through data will leave a recipient feeling that they are understood and that they were not just targeted, creating trust and resulting in higher response rates.
Timing and Frequency That Work
The timing of your emails is nearly as significant as the content of your emails when conducting B2B outreach. Research shows that the most effective time to reach your target audience is during business hours, Monday through Friday, but there is no single "perfect" time.
Thus, businesses should determine what works best for them by trying out various days/times to see what yields the best response. In terms of staying consistent with sending emails consistently, there is no such thing as a "perfect" frequency of sending emails; simply being consistent is most critical.
Also, it is crucial to understand the importance of following up with individuals after sending your initial email. Most of the replies received come from follow-up emails vs. the original email sent. By sending a polite and value-added follow-up, you can improve reply to rates significantly without coming off as overly aggressive.
Follow-Up Strategies That Increase Replies
Utilizing an effective follow up strategy will increase your response rates by 100%. Most prospective clients either miss the first email or just don’t respond.
Follow-ups must be concise and respectful. Follow-up communications should provide some level of new value, rather than just rehashing previous content. Examples of new value added may be new insight, resources or simply sending a gentle reminder.
Avoid using aggressive or guilt-laden language in follow-up communications. Your objective in all follow-ups is to be helpful, professional, and to provide an opportunity for continuing the discussion.
Compliance and Deliverability Best Practices
Depending on the target market location for Startups, E-mail Rules including CAN-SPAM and GDPR are regulatory requirements, meaning that companies must comply with those regulations. Compliance includes:
- using agenuine sender's name;
- providingan easy-to-locate unsubscribe feature
- notusing misleading subject lines.
To achieve a high degree of e-mail deliverability, Startups should:
- usea professionale-mail domain name;
- gradually 'warm-up'newly createde-mail accounts instead of rapidly sending bulk e-mails;
- use nospam-trigger words;
Tracking bounce rates and other engagement measures will help Startups maintain a positive Sender Reputation, enable follow-up communications to be successful, and allow Startups to build long-lasting client relationships.
Common Email Outreach Mistakes to Avoid
Many small businesses or startups fall into the same trap of failure and are often using common practices to reach your ideal customer. Many of these practices include sending out generic email templates, not personalizing your outreach efforts, focusing heavily on sales, etc.
One of the reasons why so many small businesses do not succeed is that most will stop trying after making two or three tries to reach out to someone and look at outreach as just a one-time activity rather than maintaining a consistent level of effort over time to test and to learn how to do better.
If you want to have a successful brand, you must maintain a good reputation. One part of maintaining a good reputation is to make sure that the emails you send are well-written and have a high probability of being received by your target audience. It is important to maintain a good level of relevance (to the person who is being contacted) and to be respectful (of the person’s time) and offer value.
Building Long-Term Relationships Through Outreach
Email outreach strategies should be focused on establishing a relationship instead of simply trying to make quick wins. Startups that use outreach as a means for developing conversation often benefit from continued success because of the relationships built through outreach.
By creating an avenue for sharing information, benefit to others and presenting themselves as a resource for trustworthy information, startups that build relationships through outreach have a greater opportunity for creating a stronger level of influence and opportunity beyond a single initiative.
Conclusion
Email outreach is not about sending a greater number of emails; it is about sending a higher quality email. Startup email outreach that invests energy to understand its audience and takes the time to create high quality email communications can produce excellent results despite limited budgets.