Email to Cold Audience

[RBrown15]

Hey Guys, I am working with a digital agency; they have an email list. But mostly, they use the email list to update on what is happening in the company, such as receiving awards and events they were a part of.
However, Now they want to sell to that audience, which would be the cold audience. How should I approach this? I would like to send two weekly emails to warm them up before we start pitching our services.
Any suggestions?

[RishabMandot]

Thank you!

[jolle · Accepted solution]

Hey @RBrown15, thanks for reaching out! This is a great question.

I'm going to assume that these contacts, while cold now, at one point opted into communication from you. But if you've never gotten consent to contact them/they didn't fill out a subscribe form, proceed with caution and expect unsubscribes/spam reports.

First, make sure that your list has been scrubbed for email deliverability (I usually use NeverBounce). It's never a perfect science, but it will help you weed out invalid email addresses so that you don't get a bunch of bounced emails.

Next, consider the interests and preferences of your target audience. What would be valuable to them? What do they seem to engage with the most right now? Do any of them seem interested in buying? What would be relevant to them ot buy? You need to make sure that you're approaching them appropriately since it sounds like they've mainly been receiving general company updates.

Segment your lists based on the info you have for more targted communication. Any of the following datapoints could be segmentable depending on what all you've been capturing:

1. Product/service of interest
2. Company size
3. Company industry
4. Location (city, state, region)
5. Contextual marketing info (i.e., page views, eBook downloads, form submissions)

If you're able to narrow down to at least some contacts who seem engaged with a particular product/service, develop emails specific to them vs sending the same one-size-fits-all email to the entire list. That will allow you to test multiple approaches and, most importantly, create more value for the reader by giving them more of what they've already been consuming. 

If you're not able to narrow down the list and don't have much lead data in HubSpot, make this initial outreach more about uncovering your audience's interests than trying to sell to them. Focus on providing value for the reader and giving them the power to choose what they continue receiving. Your email can outright ask them if they're interested in receiving additional emails and, if so, what they'd like to receive (these can even just be buttons that you ask the reader to click since you can track that in HubSpot). If you have any content offers, you could also present those and collect a couple more fields of information in the process. 

Lastly, proceed with caution and don't come on too strong. I would send one weekly email since you're just getting started and don't want to overwhelm or annoy the audience. Try to gather a better sense for where they're at in their journey and how you can help them, then you can decide the best sending cadence moving forward.

Hope everything goes smoothly with this launch! Just always put yourself in the shoes of your leads. Would they find your email helpful? Is it easy and clear for them to do what you're asking them to do? How does your email stand out from all of the other cold emails in their inbox? If providing value is your number one priority, the rest will follow!