Cold Email Reporting
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      Cold Email FAQ

      Our most frequently asked questions for Cold Emails

      Updated: December 02, 2024

      What is cold email outreach?


      Cold email outreach is an effective outbound sales prospecting technique for generating leads. In this approach, you use a cold, personalized email sequence with typically three drips (email messages), i.e. a personalized email message you send to initiate a conversation and kickstart a relationship with prospective customers whom you have no previous contact with. 

      Once you’ve initiated this relationship, it’s a lot easier to nurture the prospects who respond to your cold emails, and gradually convert them into customers over time. That’s what cold email campaigns are meant to do!

       

      Why is cold email different from other marketing emails? 

      Cold emails are plain-text based (no design, attachments or excessive links) and meant to be a one-to-one communication. This means your goal is to start a conversation. Cold emails are sent to non-opted-in contacts as a means of introduction. 

      An HTML-based marketing email, like a Mailchimp newsletter blast, is not the same as cold email. Marketing emails are sent to an opted-in list to nurture previous customers or people who are already interested in your brand and they typically do contain animated graphics, links, etc. 

       

      Why should I use Vintory’s managed cold email service and not send them myself through the Vintory CRM? 

      • Cold email requires a highly strategic method of techniques to ensure a successful campaign. Vintory’s managed cold email service handles all the technical details of cold outreach to increase deliverability and open rates. 
      • In the Vintory CRM, there is only one sending domain. You wouldn’t want to risk your cold email campaign ruining the deliverability of your warm lead nurture campaigns and conversations with prospective leads. 
      • Using Vintory’s managed service allows you to take advantage of proven best-practice templates. 

       

      What is Vintory’s cold email copy strategy?

      Tested and adjusted based on data from thousands of cold emails, Vintory’s copy strategy emphasizes what’s called a pattern interrupt. This means making your cold emails — both your subject line and the email itself — stand out and catch your prospect’s eye as quickly as possible.

      The idea here is that shorter, more informal, more conversational emails will interrupt the pattern of feeling as if you’re being sold or marketed to. Which is what tends to happen in traditional marketing when you go for the hard sell right away. This can scare off your prospect, especially considering that at this point in the sales funnel, they don’t know who you are.

      By comparison, our emails intentionally don’t look and sound like traditional marketing. Instead, they look and sound as if you didn’t just send them to hundreds of other people. 

      And this concept of an email’s “look” is key. We don’t want emails to be pretty, nicely structured, or well organized. Because after being bombarded with pretty ads and emails a dozen times every day, your prospects — using their eyes alone — can detect in an instant whether or not they’re being sold to.

      If we can interrupt this usual pattern with personalized emails that are genuine, we’ll stand out from the crowd, and make prospects lower their guard. This gets the conversational ball rolling in the way that we want.

       

      In all, our copy strategy includes:

      • Keeping subject lines between one and three words so that they stand out in your prospect’s cluttered inbox and arouse curiosity
      • Keeping emails to three sentences at most so that we can hold even the busiest prospect’s attention
      • Keeping the tone more relaxed and the language more personalized so that it doesn’t come across salesy or presumptuous
      • Keeping the copy horizontal (or in paragraph form) and not vertical so that we avoid the emails looking like typical marketing

      Including a question so that we provoke a response and make follow-ups more natural and even expected

       

      Can I write my own cold emails? 

      We highly recommend using our templates for the best results. However, if you do write your own email copy, keep our strategy in mind. Remember that the goal is simply to start a conversation, so keep it short and sweet with no more than three sentences per email.

       

      What are the default settings for a Vintory cold email campaign? 

      • 50 emails sent per day. This is based on the average email list size of 1,000 (aka 1 email seat).
      • Sending window of 9AM-5PM Monday - Friday 
      • Each email campaign is intended to run for a quarter
      • Stop on response 
      • 7 days between messages 

       

      Who is my cold email campaign being sent to?

      • For new partners coming out of onboarding, they will be sent to the email addresses we append from the data purchase. The match rate for the email addresses is typically between 40-60% of the total data purchase.
      • For all other partners, we’ll be consistently using your cold email smart list located under the contacts tab in the CRM - unless otherwise noted in your strategy deck.

      When the email list is exported for each new cold email campaign the list is tagged with the campaign/month/year. Example: partner’s email list being exported for their August owner email campaign will be tagged OEMC 8/24.

       

      Can the sender or signature name on the campaign be changed after launching?

      Yes. Please contact support and it will get assigned to the Campaign Management team.

       

      Can I change my copy? I don’t think it’s working.

      It is not recommended. Campaigns take time to build rapport, so keeping the same, consistent messaging is important. Unless absolutely necessary, try to avoid updating the copy before the campaign has run its course. If you would like to move ahead with changing the copy, your Campaign Manager can assist you with this.

       

      Is it legal to send cold emails?

      Yes, it is legal to send cold emails. Although it may be technically considered unsolicited, cold email is not spam as long as it is:

      • Personalized and has an appropriate subject line
      • Contains the sender’s real name and valid contact details
      • Includes a clearly stated specific request accompanied by customized content which offers real value to the recipient
      • Crafted to start a conversation and build trust rather than push someone into direct sales aggressively

       

      What is a good open rate for cold email?

      Around 15%-23% is an average open rate for your cold email outreach campaign and if you exceed that, you may consider it a success. 

      Your email open rates can help you set more precise and realistic goals for your future cold email outreach campaigns based on your particular industry average stats. A positive response rate is another metric worth noting.

       

      What is a good cold email response rate?

      Since the average response rate for cold emails is around 1%, good cold email response rates can vary greatly but any positive response rate above 1% means you are gaining more brand awareness.

      In short, there’s no single universal answer to what is a good response rate for cold emails. It primarily depends on your cold email outreach-specific goals, audience, industry/market, and your skills and experience.

      In today's competitive landscape, it typically takes 6-8 well-placed touchpoints for individuals to start recognizing a brand and 39% of consumers are extremely likely to respond when they see your promotion across various platforms.

       

      Four Marketing Best Practices Tips to keep in mind:

      1. Diversify Marketing Channels: Utilize a mix of marketing channels, including email, direct mail, social media, and pay-per-click advertising, to ensure 6-8 touchpoints. This diversity maximizes exposure. It takes time.
      2. Consistent Branding: Maintain consistency in brand messaging, visuals, and tone across all marketing touchpoints to reinforce brand recognition.
      3. Engage with Content: Offer valuable and engaging content at every touchpoint to leave a lasting impression. Share unique selling points of your vacation rentals and offer risk-reversals to make the switch easier
      4. Follow Up: Implement a follow-up strategy to nurture leads. Send follow-up emails, targeted offers, and direct mail to reinforce your brand after the initial contact on leads, especially those that have gone cold.

       

      What email do you use to send? 

      Vintory uses white-labeled domains to send your cold emails. Instead of coming from your email domain (john@yourdomain.com), we use a generic domain name like (outreach@listproperty.net). The reason for this is manyfold. 

      • No matter how good a contact list or your messaging is, you will get spam complaints doing cold email outreach. Sending from a different domain than your main domain will protect the deliverability of your normal emails from your main domain. This is very important.
      • Using a white labeled domain will allow us to launch your campaign quickly, no setup or domain warming is needed. 
      • The white labeled domain will redirect to your supplied page. For instance, using the example from above, if a lead was curious about listproperty.net, and input that into their address bar, it would redirect to yourdomain.com. 

       

      Can I request a custom sending domain? 

      Yes, you can. However, keep in mind that it takes 30+ days for your custom sending domain to be ready to use and there will be a cost involved. Do not go and purchase the custom domain yourself. In order to keep things moving along, we have a white-label domain ready to use and launch campaigns within 24 hours. Also, note that we have conducted extensive A/B tests with white labeled versus custom sending domains and have seen no difference in open or response rates.

       

      What does a cold email send on my behalf look like? 

      The email will come from the sender name that you specify and also include a signature name. When the recipient clicks into the email they will be able to see the white-labeled email domain, however, the domain will redirect to the landing page you specify. The sender name tends to be more prominent and can be whatever you wish.

       

      What are the technical aspects of cold email that Vintory handles? 

      • Write and test high-converting copy templates 
      • Buy domains 
      • Buy emails 
      • Setup DNS (DKIM, SPF, DMARC)
      • Clean Email list 
      • Warm up Emails 
      • Organize leads 
      • Sentiment Tracking 

       

      What do you do to “warm up” a domain? 

      Domain warming is a technical process specific to cold email outreach that takes place when a new domain is purchased. The goal of domain warming is to increase deliverability, and make sure emails end up in the inbox, not in spam or “promotions” folders. 

      When a new domain is purchased, you can’t just go out and send thousands of emails and expect them to have a high deliverability, you must slowly work your way up to a higher number of sends. Vintory does a ramp up period where the number of emails sent from a domain is increased on a daily basis for the first month. 

      During the ramp up, there is also an automated warmup service occurring. This service automatically responds to emails sent out and simulates conversational emails taking place. This will help with deliverability down the line. Email server companies like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo can tell if an email account is spammy based on the response and complaint rate. 

       

      Why are DNS records important? 

      DNS records are important for cold email because they can affect the deliverability of your emails. DNS records are used by email servers to verify the identity and reputation of the sender.

      The following DNS records are especially important for cold email:

      1. SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record: This record specifies which IP addresses and domains are allowed to send emails on behalf of your domain. It helps prevent email spoofing and can improve email deliverability.
      2. DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) record: This record adds a digital signature to your emails to prove that they were sent by your domain and have not been tampered with. It helps prevent email forgery and can improve email deliverability.
      3. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) record: This record provides an extra layer of email authentication by specifying how SPF and DKIM should be handled. It can help prevent email spoofing and improve email deliverability.

      If your DNS records are not properly configured, your emails may be marked as spam or rejected by email servers. This can hurt your sender reputation and make it more difficult to deliver emails in the future. Therefore, it is important to ensure that your DNS records are set up correctly before sending cold emails.

       

      What goes into cleaning an email list? 

      Cleaning an email list for cold email involves similar steps as cleaning any other email list, but with some additional considerations specific to cold emailing. Here are some steps that go into cleaning an email list for cold email:

      1. Verify the email addresses: It is important to verify the email addresses before sending cold emails to them. Vintory uses email verification tools to
      2. ensure that the email addresses are valid, active, and don't have a high risk of bouncing or being marked as spam.
      3. Remove spam traps: Spam traps are email addresses that are created to catch spammers. If you have any spam traps on your email list, your emails may be marked as spam or your email service provider may suspend your account. Vintory uses email verification tools to identify and remove spam traps from your email list.

      Cleaning the email list is imperative to reach your intended audience and increases the chances of engagement and conversions. It also helps maintain a good domain reputation and avoids being marked as spam.

      I cannot see my email responses 

      Vintory has integrated our system to automatically filters out negative responses and will only alert you for the positive ones. You can however toggle the "show negative responses" button on the view the negative responses.  Here you can consider adding those contacts to your sales pipeline or long-term nurture pipeline to foster further engagement.

      Leads VS Contacts in the cold email report

      Example: Your smart list has 1000 contacts, but your new leads in your cold email report show as 600? Why?

      Some email contacts come off throughout the course of the campaign due to bounces, unsubscribes, etc. So, the total number of leads is how many emails ended up completing the sequence of 3 drips.  A lead and a contact are the same thing, but there may be a discrepancy between the number of contacts we started with and how many we ended the campaign with.