Cold Email Frequently Asked Questions

Freelance Writers, Get Answers to All Your Cold Email Questions

Interested in landing that dream client? Know they probably aren’t going to come knocking on your door any time soon? That’s when cold pitching becomes a really valuable tactic for securing new clients.

If you’ve thought about adding this strategy to your client acquisition efforts, it’s a good bet you’ve bumped up against a question or two. Here are some cold email frequently asked questions and the answers you need to move forward with this strategy.

8 of Your Most Pressing Cold Emailing Questions Answered

There isn’t anything inherently obvious or easy about cold pitching. Whether this is your first cold outreach or your hundredth, here are some answers to smooth the ride.

1. What is cold pitching?

Cold pitching is contacting a potential client you don’t know and offering your services in the hopes of working together. The “cold” refers to the fact you don’t know the prospect personally or professionally.

Cold outreach can happen through a number of platforms:

• Email

• Direct message on social media

• Text message or WhatsApp message

• Phone call

2. Does cold emailing work?

Yes, cold email can work! The success rate tends to be low, though. So, it’s usually best if this technique is just one part of your client acquisition strategy—not the entirety of your plan.

Couple cold emailing with other methods for landing clients.

Think:

• Referrals from existing or past clients

• Increased scope with existing clients

• Good ol’ fashioned networking (in person or virtual)

• Job boards

• Inbound leads bolstered by an SEO strategy

• Brand building via social media

3. What’s the success rate of cold outreach?

Look at ten different studies, and you’ll get ten different answers about the success rate of cold pitching.

This method is used across many different industries and for so many different purposes. This makes it difficult to put a definitive number on the average success rate of cold outreach.

So, before we dive into any numbers, let’s look at a few common metrics people like to track:

• Open rate. This is the number of people who actually open your email.

• Response rate. This is the number of people who opened the email and then actually reached out and contacted you.

• Close rate. This is the number of people who ended up converting into customers as a result of your cold outreach.

Speaking in really broad, generalized terms, a decent open rate will come in around 17 percent to 28 percent.

From there, expect the average response rate to fall somewhere between 1 percent and 5 percent.

Once they’ve reached out to get more information, your close rate is going to depend on many factors.

Your:

• Pricing

• Service offering

• Contract terms

• Culture fit

• Timing (Is what you’re offering right for the company at this exact moment?)

4. Is cold emailing legal?

Yes, cold emailing is perfectly legal in the United States. You just have to ensure you’re in full compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act.

This includes many factors, such as:

• Not using false or misleading information

• Providing a valid postal address for your business within your email

• Giving people a way to unsubscribe from your email list

• Honoring their request to no longer be contacted

5. How long should you wait before you follow up on a cold email?

While there is no hard-and-fast rule about how long you should wait before following up on a cold email, two to four days makes sense.

This is enough time that the prospect has likely seen the email but not so much time that they forget who you are.

Following up too quickly runs the risk of seeming pushy or overly aggressive. Waiting too long might mean you’ve lost the prospect’s attention or any momentum you gained with the first email.

6. How many times should you cold email somebody?

There are no definitive rules about how many times you should follow up with a cold email, but three to five is reasonable.

The sequence of emails you send is known as your follow-up cadence. However many emails you choose to send, the most important thing is having this follow-up sequence.

Some prospects, particularly cold prospects, won’t open or respond to the first email. (Remember, they don’t know you and have no reason at this point to invest any time in you.) Your follow-ups are often where you can catch their attention and get them to engage with your sequence.

The last email should make it clear you won’t be following up anymore. This lets the prospect know they need to make the next move if they’re interested.

7. What are the best days and times to send cold emails?

The best days of the week to send cold emails tend to be Thursday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The worst are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

The best times to send cold emails are (based on the recipient’s time zone) 10:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m., and 8:00 a.m. The worst times are between 7:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m.

As with follow-up cadences and many cold pitching best practices, these findings are not definitive. From one study to the next, you’ll find slightly different data. Use this information to generally guide your cold pitching strategy.

8. What makes a cold email successful?

Numerous factors contribute to the success or failure of a cold pitch. Here are some key cold emailing tips to maximize your luck:

• Shift the focus to the prospect. If you’re talking about you, you, you, that’s a problem. Make your pitch about them. Give them a reason to care.

• Personalize every pitch. If you’re sending blanket pitches to hundreds of people at a time, that lack of effort shows. Do your research. (Yes, beyond their first name and company name!)

• Make it timely. In cold emailing, not enough people give timing its due. If you come across somebody’s inbox at the exact moment they need a freelance writer, that’s going to play a huge role in how inclined that prospect is to say yes.

• Try. Putting in effort seems like a no-brainer, but check your inbox. How many cold pitches have you received lately that truly seem like the person put in some real time and effort? Not many. If you put in even a little bit of genuine effort, it will show. It will help you stand out.

• Be judicious with your samples. Writing samples are a big part of your cold pitch. If the person is interested in learning more about you, those samples are the first place they’ll look. If you have samples relevant to their niche, prioritize those. That specialized experience is powerful. Never send a link to a messy, jumbled, disorganized portfolio. Anticipate this prospect will spend about 6 nanoseconds on you before moving on with their day. Don’t make them work for anything—particularly your writing samples.

• Have a follow-up plan. One email from a complete stranger is easy to miss. Or ignore. Or mean to respond to but then get distracted. A lot of engagement happens in that follow-up cadence. Don’t ignore this step.

• Test. You can guess all day about what’s going to work wonders with your ideal prospect. You can theorize and research, but until you actually send real-world pitches, you won’t know for sure. Don’t be afraid to try different strategies and techniques. Then test and track results to see what you should repeat and what you should drop.

Check this out for a more detailed breakdown of how to cold pitch successfully.

Can’t Get Enough Cold Emailing Tips and Tricks?

Ready to get serious about your cold outreach efforts? Want to take a deep dive into cold pitching? Then check out Cold Pitch Like a Boss.

This on-demand video course includes nearly three hours of instruction and covers topics like…

• Clarifying your cold pitching goals

• Choosing your target prospects

• Staying out of the spam folder

Have any questions? Don’t hesitate to reach out!