Cold Email Academy

Where Do You Find Emails?

There are many ways to locate email addresses and turn them into lists to leverage in email campaigns, but some are more effective than others.

The best outreach lists are small and highly-qualified. They’re typically built using a mix of manual prospecting and scraping tools like Voila Norbert. You can even further streamline the process by using an integration tool like Zapier.

So where should you go to find prospects? Google is the obvious choice, but it’s far from your only (or best) option. Our go-to platform is LinkedIn. Invest in a premium account so your searches aren’t limited, and then send (personalized) connection requests to a narrow group of highly-targeted prospects.

With the right targeting and a persuasive message, 20-60% of your connection requests should be accepted (and you’ll automatically get each of their email addresses, too).

Want to learn more about how to find emails and create lists? Hear outreach expert Nate Wright’s thoughts on building better email lists, faster, in the video above.

 

Scrubbing Your Email List

Email programs have never been better at stopping spam. You obviously want your emails to evade spam filters for deliverability, but there’s another concern: If the emails you send bounce regularly, your email service provider may “fire” you, and eventually, blacklist your domain.

This means regularly scrubbing your email lists of “dead” addresses is essential – no ifs, ands, or buts. It will preserve your domain and up the effectiveness of your campaigns.

Thankfully, scrubbing is easy – simply verify your lists en-masse using tools like Bulk Email Checker or Voila Norbert. Alternatively, Mailshake now offers a new List Cleaner feature.

For more on how to scrub email lists (and why failing to do so is not an option), view our video with outreach expert Nate Wright above.

 

Prepping for Personalization

This is where you’re going to make money, or lose it. Effective personalization (or lack thereof) can make or break your campaign. In fact, poor personalization is the number-one reason cold email campaigns fail – period.

Personalization is even more important than the copy itself. But how can you do it effectively, without spending hours writing a custom email to every contact? Merge tags.

Merge tags are the fastest and most efficient way to personalize emails – you just have to know how to use them, and use them right.

Should you use a contact’s first name? Can you add social proof or name-drop with merge tags? Have you implemented a backup that will account for blank spaces in your email list? This video can help you answer all these questions, and more.

Get expert advice on leveraging merge tags for email personalization in the video above.

 

Customizing Your Approach

The key to getting responses to your emails is tailoring them to your individual customers. While sending out the same copy-and-pasted email to hundreds of people might help you cover a lot of ground quickly, it’s not going to get you the results you’re looking for.

If you want to write emails that engage, it’s best to spend some extra time to personalize each one you send out. You can start with merge tags for the receiver’s first name and industry, but it’s even better to go the extra mile and comment on a specific part of their work. For example, if you liked one of their recent blog posts, mention your favorite part in your email. That way, they’ll know that email was meant specifically for them.

While there’s no shortcut to finding out that information, Mailshake can help you drastically speed up the actual writing process by adding merge tags for your custom text. Then, all you need to do is input your custom info into an importable spreadsheet, and Mailshake will do the heavy lifting for you.

Learn how to speed up your personalization workflow and get some expert tips in the video above.