3 Expert Insights About Email Outreach (May 2024)

This year, there have been many declarations and statements about the death of cold outreach.

Low deliverability. Lower response rates. Domains burning…

Naysayers would have you believe that email outreach is dead as a growth channel.

The truth is that email outreach is still alive and well.

It just looks different.

Gone are the days when one-size-fits-all mass emails built your pipeline. Nowadays, you have to be smart and well-thought-out in your approach if you want your inbound and outbound to succeed. 

If you’re not sure where to start, here are some expert insights about email outreach that you can use to head in the right direction.

Create a framework for your emails

Email frameworks help you structure your message and craft a narrative that improves your chances of engagement and conversion. 

While many different frameworks exist, Yurii Veremchuk outlines one possible 6-part framework:

1. Start with research or an intent-driven use case
2. Highlight how your solution solves their problem
3. Highlight the cost of inaction
4. Add social proof that shows how another company solved the same problem
5. Try to start a discussion without pushing for a meeting
6. Include personalization in the postscript

Emails using this framework should see better email performance with higher open rates, click rates, and replies.

How you can apply this

Here are some things you’ll want to keep in mind if you try to apply this insight to your email outreach:

• Social proof – Numbers are an easier and more effective way of laying out a compelling case than general statements (i.e. “Company booked 10 more meetings in May” than “Company has booked more meetings”). That’s why you should add as many relevant numbers as possible into your social proof. Also, in a perfect world, your customer will give you permission to drop their name and how they used your solution to address their problem. This establishes credibility.
• Soft call to action – Good soft CTAs typically ask a question, or they might start with a personal stance before ending with a question. For example, cold emails that use “I’d love to hear your thoughts. Are you open for a chat?” seem more inviting and likely to get a response than a hard “Book a time to talk here: [link]”.
• Inaction – There’s no hard rule about where and when to highlight the cost of inaction. Rather, you should mention this cost wherever makes most sense in the email. This works even better if you can create a sense of urgency and FOMO that compels the reader to reply.

Design emails so they focus on one activity at a time

Chances are that when you first started learning how to write a paragraph, your teacher passionately declared “One idea, one paragraph!”

The same principle holds true for emails – “One idea, one email!”

As Robert Kaminski explains, marketing materials have to answer the questions “What are we selling?” and “What is the value we provide?”

However, trying to answer both questions simultaneously carries the risk of confusing leads. To keep this from happening, emails should do one or the other. Never both.

How you can apply this

Here’s what you should keep in mind when applying this insight to your email outreach:

• Know what you are selling or offering. Before you can create a message that sells your solution, you need a solid understanding of the solution itself, including who it’s for and what problems it solves.
• A good value proposition should:
  • Identify your customer’s main problem.
  • Specify the benefits your product offers.
  • Explain in no uncertain terms why these benefits are valuable.
  • Connect the benefits to the customer’s problem.
  • Differentiate yourself from your competitors.
• You can use a template to help structure your value proposition:
  • Steve Blank method – We help (X) do (Y) by doing (Z) 
  • Geoff Moore method – For [target customer] who [needs X], our solution is [category of industry] that [benefits]
  • Harvard Business School method – What is my offer? What job does the customer hire my brand to do? What companies and products compete with me? What sets my brand apart?

Stay on top of email provider policy changes

If you’re using email outreach as a primary sales and marketing channel, you’ll want to stay on top of any changes that your email service provider makes to their email policy.

This has never been more true than now as major email providers are actively working to combat spam.

As Vaibhav Namburi shares, Outlook has seen a surge in activity lately. Consequently, Outlook users have seen higher bounce rates than normal, if not outright sending failures due to a low sender reputation.

How you can apply this

Here are some steps you can take to apply this insight to your email outreach:

• Limit yourself to 40 emails per day. This gives you a little “wiggle room” since you should definitely not send more than 50.
• Spread your outreach across Outlook and Gmail. This minimizes your risk and keeps outreach running in case one provider makes a sudden policy change.
• Send plain-text emails. Providers have gradually started to block emails that track opens or that include a link in the first-touch email. Instead, save links for when a lead responds back.
• Pause outreach from any mailboxes or domains with low reputation. Continuing outreach from such mailboxes will only get them blocked. You can work on “rehabbing” the reputation with the help of a warm-up tool.

Simplify email outreach automation with AiSDR

AiSDR comes with the sales tactics and success scripts of 50+ sales leaders built in. This ensures that emails stay short, crisp, and to the point while sounding like you wrote them.

Not only does our AI make sure that all messages are value-driven and customer-centric, but AiSDR automatically manages outgoing volume to keep your sender reputation high. You can also connect as many Gmail and Outlook accounts as you need to AiSDR to reach your target outgoing volume.

Book a demo to see AiSDR in action.