Sending cold emails is an effective and inexpensive way to reach out to new prospects, especially in the B2B space. It is adaptable across multiple industries and can help you reach highly targeted segments.

When done right, a cold email campaign can help you grow your network, generate high-quality leads and boost revenue for your business. You can also A/B test your emails and scale your approach as your business grows, allowing you to iterate and pivot easily.

It’s a tactic used by 36% of sales professionals in 2024 and one that generates more leads than any other cold marketing strategy.

That said, sending emails to new prospects with no prior relationship can be tough, especially since so many other companies are doing the same thing.

So how do you make your emails stand out? How can you increase open rates and get people interested in your offering?

Experts say there are three pillars of an effective cold email campaign. In this article, we’ll explain these three pillars in detail and share some of the best practices for emailing in 2024 and beyond.

So if you’re wondering about the best time to send emails, how to re-engage a prospect via email or you’re looking for tips on closing out a cold networking message, keep reading to fully optimize your cold email campaigns.

Pillar 1: Timing

What Is The Best Time to Send Emails in 2024?

The best time to send emails varies between industries and time zones, so it’s important to research the current timing trends in your particular location and market.

That said Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually best for B2B outreach, based on typical corporate workflows. Emails tend to see better open rates between 8:00 and 10:00 am and 1:00-3:00 pm.

Regardless of where you’re based and what kind of audience you’re targeting, you should experiment with sending emails at different times to see if this affects your open and engagement rates.

Most popular email tools like HubSpot, Mailchimp and Active Campaign facilitate A/B testing, so you can check how well your campaigns are working while collecting important metrics like click-through rates, open rates, bounces and overall engagement.

Once you have a few months of data to learn from, you might consider personalizing your emails based on reader patterns.

For instance, you might find that CEOs in the tech space typically open their emails first thing in the morning, while retail suppliers engage with emails later in the day. Using this information, you can segment your audience and send emails at different times, or with slightly different content.

Pillar 2: Re-Engagement

How to Re-Engage a Prospect Via Email

If certain prospects aren’t opening or engaging with your emails, you need to change your approach. Luckily, there are plenty of things you can do to re-engage those readers – they’re not lost forever!

First, you’ll want to set up a re-engagement campaign that kicks in when a prospect stops opening your emails. You might decide to do this after 2-3 unopened emails in a row, or more. Most email tools will automate this sequence and produce reports on engagement, so you can closely monitor your strategy.

For even more intelligent automation, an AI sales tool like Topo can make contextually relevant and genuinely helpful suggestions for better engagement. We’ll touch on this later in the article, but you can learn more now if we’ve piqued your interest!

A re-engagement campaign should consist of three emails:

• An initial email to gauge interest

• A follow-up after three days to check in

• A second follow-up a week later to let them know you’re there if they need you

Be Persistent, But Not Too Persistent

In this email sequence, it’s important to strike the balance between persistence and respect. You don’t want to put people off your brand or make them block you.

Personalize Your Emails

You should also personalize outreach emails to foster a relationship with the prospect. Using most automated email tools, you can set up a function that adds the reader’s first name or company name, but you may also want to leverage past interactions unique to your lead.

Emphasize Benefits

Now is the time to sell the benefits of your offering. You should identify the key pain points in your target customers’ day-to-day lives that your product helps to solve.

You might also consider a special offer or free trial to re-engage disinterested prospects and get them back into your lead generation pipeline. You could also offer value-add resources like a free download or informational ebook.

Pillar 3: Closing

Closing Out a Cold Networking Message Effectively

Depending on the scenario and a prospect’s past engagement, you might want to take a softer approach to closing a deal than you would in a typical sales email.

Keep your tone friendly and approachable, and be mindful about using urgency in the first instance – this should be reserved for leads who have previously engaged a lot with your outreach efforts. You can also test different language approaches to see what drives particular audience segments back to you.

Indirect CTAs

An indirect call-to-action is softer than a direct CTA. You could try closing with a line that offers value, such as ‘Get a free audit of your acquisition funnel’ – this is a great option when you’re targeting a broad audience or inviting prospects to explore without commitment.

Direct CTAs

A direct call-to-action is a stronger sales message. You can invite a prospect to ‘Set up a meeting’ or ‘Call our team’ as a next step. This approach is best reserved for prospects that have shown buying intent, especially in lower-mid market clients who have demonstrated clear interest.

You don’t want your readers to feel trapped or badgered into making a purchase or signing up for something. It’s far better to leave the door open for future engagement and keep your expectations low. Something like ‘We’re here if you need us’ ‘Find out more’ or ‘We’d love to hear your thoughts’ can be effective at hesitant prospects back on board.

It’s a good idea to include social proof or testimonials in your CTAs to instill trust in key decision makers, as they could be considering multiple providers.

Topo: The Best Way to Manage Your B2B Cold Outbound Campaign in 2024

Topo is a holistic and scaleable AI-powered sales solution, capable of taking over the entire cold outreach process for your business.

With email domain rotation, spam testing, data enrichment and custom training, we can handle all the technical aspects of cold emailing at a fraction of the cost of a traditional Sales Development Representative.

Sales processes can be complex and time-consuming, particularly for startups and SMEs. That’s why we built Topo to streamline the entire cold emailing process, handling the best time to send emails, re-engagement processes and CTAs to maximize engagement.

Topo sales agents can even be customized to your specific industry and target audience, so they can help you work towards business-specific KPIs and goals.

You don’t even need technical skills to use Topo – our interface is incredibly user-friendly. So if you’re looking to automate and enhance your cold email processes without spending a fortune or losing valuable team hours, Topo is the perfect solution.

Explore Topo today, and optimize your email campaigns with a seamless, AI-driven approach to B2B outreach.