How to Master Cold Email Outreach: Avoiding Common Mistakes and Adding Value

Transform your cold email outreach from ignored clutter into valuable communication that grabs attention and builds relationships.

There are a number of challenges with cold email. First, far too many salespeople send emails as their first, second, and third communication attempts. If one salesperson sends three emails, there is little harm to anyone but them. If tens of thousands of salespeople send multiple emails to large numbers of clients, their contacts begin to ignore all emails from salespeople.

Worse, tens or even hundreds of emails flood into these contacts’ inboxes faster than they can delete them, which they will in the end because few of these messages offer any value. Imagine that you sent an email to introduce yourself (naturally), your company (best in class), and the solution you have been gaslighted into believing that no other solution can possibly match.

A few minutes later, your main competitor sends an email that is nearly identical, except for the name of the company and the signature at the bottom. These unwanted missives create anti-value.

What Is Anti-Value in Email Outreach?

Anti-value is any communication that creates no value for the person who receives it. Anti-value means you are wasting your contact’s time. The more salespeople fail to create value in their communication, the more your clients and mine will delete emails without even reading them.

How to Avoid Anti-Value Emails

What if you could avoid the anti-value that causes your prospective clients to ignore your written communications? What if you could provide your contacts with something they would find helpful? There are ways to communicate that will capture your clients’ attention and increase mindshare.

To change your completely commoditized cold outreach into something valuable enough to be read, you first must stop trying to promote your company and talking about your biggest clients. And, for God’s sake, stop talking about the solution you believe is enough to win the client.

Now that we have removed many anti-value topics, we can replace them with content that creates value for your contact. To do this, we will need to rely on the most important B2B sales strategy: information disparity. This strategy will have you organizing the information you have that your contact is not likely to know.

When we talk about creating value, we mean that we are providing an education about our clients’ problems and potential opportunities, including the trends that create headwinds, tailwinds, or both. We also talk about creating value as it pertains to the change the client needs to improve their results, or information that will help them to make a well-informed decision that they need to get right on the first attempt.

Leveraging Trends and Surveys in Cold Emails

The following trends and topics can help you organize your communication.

Current Industry Trends in Sales Emails

You may believe that your contacts know what you know. You may also think your contact reads what you are reading, but this is unlikely. Your clients are mostly head down, executing and getting things done.

Here is an example: Both win rates and quota attainment have reached all-time lows. We have found that there are two primary reasons for this. The first is prioritizing pipeline coverage, which causes reps to spend too much time creating opportunities and too little time capturing them.

Utilizing Internal Surveys for Client Insights

An internal survey is one your company does. You may share information about changes in what your clients believe is important. You may also query your clients on their challenges.

I have done an internal survey on the preferences of people pursuing new jobs, which is highly relevant in the staffing industry. The number-one requirement is pay, followed by shift hours, distance, and finally, the type of work. This survey was completed by 1,500 people, which is a decent sample size.

Incorporating External Surveys in Email Strategy

If you don’t have internal surveys, you can find reliable external survey data on the internet. In my time in staffing, I always used external surveys from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other trusted sources that could create value for my clients.

Unemployment is currently 4.1 percent. That is up 0.2 percent from two months ago. However, most economists believe 5 percent is full employment, which is important context to consider.

Identifying Common Mistakes and Solutions in Outreach

If you notice that your prospective clients seem to repeat a mistake, it can be valuable to you and them to send an email that describes the mistake, what it costs, and how it harms their results. Sales leaders tend to believe that B2B sales training doesn’t work. The mistake they make is that they don’t train the sales managers on how to hold their sales teams accountable for the necessary behavioral changes.

Maximizing Email Effectiveness

Email was exciting a couple of decades ago. But today, everyone has more emails than they could process in two long lifetimes. When a stranger slips an email into your inbox, it has a high probability of being deleted. You and I need to ensure that our emails get opened, which means you need an attention-grabbing subject line. But once your contact opens the email, you want them to recognize themselves in what you share.

If you are a salesperson, pretend you are trying to give your contact something that will help them improve their future results. Anything less will come across as anti-value. If you are a sales leader or sales manager, you may want to sit down with your team to ensure their emails create value.

Do good work, and I’ll see you tomorrow.