15 Ways To Improve Your Cold Email Response Rate

There are changes that you can make today to improve your response rate.

In this article, I will share 15 ways to get more responses from your cold emails:

1. Improve your deliverability
2. Fix your credibility problem
3. Improve your offer
4. Write better copy
5. Follow up more
6. Send at the correct time
7. Stop adding unsubscribe links to your cold emails
8. Target more relevant leads
9. Make sure that your subject lines aren’t misleading
10. Use plain text
11. Test more
12. Increase your sending volume
13. Don’t use email warm up tools
14. Don’t use Zoho
15. Choose the right domain extension

1. Improve your deliverability

If you improve your deliverability, then your cold emails will receive more responses.

If you have good deliverability, then your emails will land in the primary inbox (not spam).

There are too many factors affecting deliverability for me to mention here, but you can learn more in my article How To Improve Your Cold Email Deliverability.

Just got a cold email pitching me "email deliverability consulting".

It was in my spam box.

Yikes.

— Michael Gardiner (@mgentrepreneur) November 19, 2022

2. Fix your credibility problem

If you send cold emails, and you don’t provide evidence that you can achieve the results that you claim, then no one will respond.

By default, no one will believe you. It is your responsibility to tell your leads why they should trust you; you can do this by giving case studies of previous success.

Relevance matters when using case studies for cold email (or any marketing).

Your "I helped a dentist" case study matters close to 0 when targeting an eCommerce store.

In fact, if you're going to use a irrelevant case study, you're better off NOT describing the business.

— Michael Gardiner (@mgentrepreneur) July 20, 2023

3. Improve your offer

You can improve your cold email response rate by improving your offer.

You could email everyone in the world, but if you are selling something that no one wants, you will still receive no responses.

Solve a real problem (not a fake problem).

Biggest problem I see with dudes not getting clients is they’re such a pussy about client results

“We help you increase revenue 10% and reduce costs by 15%”

NOBODY CARES

YOU NEED A BIG DICK OFFER

— Cold Email Wizard 📩 (@blackhatwizardd) October 17, 2023

4. Write better copy

You can get more responses by improving your copywriting.

In general, you should keep your cold emails as short as possible (under 100 words).

I recommend that you follow the framework that I share in my article How To Write A Cold Email (4-Step Process).

If you sound like someone in India using ChatGPT to send automated emails, then you won’t receive responses.

5. Follow up more

You need to follow up with each lead at least two or three times.

Doing so will increase your response rate.

The majority of leads are busy, and won’t respond to your first email, even if you are selling something that they want.

You can learn how to create a follow-up sequence in my article How To Write A Follow-Up Email (+13 Templates & Examples).

I recommend that you use Emailchaser to send your cold emails, as it allows you to easily schedule automatic follow-up emails.

6. Send at the correct time

You can increase your response rate by emailing leads during their working hours.

Most people will only respond if they receive your email during working hours (Monday to Friday - 9am to 5pm).

If you have leads that are located on different time zones, then you should segment your lead list into multiple sublists for each time zone. Then, using Emailchaser, you can control when your emails are sent (based on time of day, day of the week, time zone etc).

7. Stop adding unsubscribe links to your cold emails

You can improve your cold email response rate by not including an unsubscribe link.

The entire point of cold email is to be personalized one to one communication. If you add an unsubscribe link to your emails, then it makes your emails look non-personalized and automated, causing your leads to not respond.

Most people think that you have to add an unsubscribe link to comply with anti-spam laws. This is not true. The only thing that you need to do is to provide a way for your leads to opt-out of receiving future emails from you.

You can learn how to allow your leads to opt-out without using an unsubscribe link in my article Should You Add An Unsubscribe Link To Your Cold Emails?

8. Target more relevant leads

If you send cold emails to people that aren’t your ideal customer type, then you won’t receive responses.

You need to create highly targeted lists of leads.

The best way to do this is to use Emailchaser’s LinkedIn Email Finder Chrome extension. Using this extension, you can export lead lists from LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the best source of leads for most sales campaigns. Other lead database sources are typically worse versions of LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

9. Make sure that your subject lines aren’t misleading

If your subject lines are misleading, then you will annoy your prospects, and they won’t respond.

It is also illegal to use misleading subject lines. Your subject line must be relevant to the content of your email.

You can learn more about the legality of subject lines in my article Cold Email vs Spam: Is It Legal To Send Unsolicited Email?

10. Use plain text

If you use plain text when sending cold emails, then you will receive more responses.

Plain text has better deliverability (compared to HTML), meaning that your emails are more likely to go to the primary inbox (not spam).

If your emails land in the primary inbox, then your response rate will improve dramatically.

I recommend that you check out my article Plain Text vs HTML: Which Is Better For Email Deliverability?

Emailchaser sends your cold emails as plain text by default.

11. Test more

You can improve your cold email response rate by testing more.

You should be testing different campaigns, angles, copy, lead types etc.

It is very unlikely that you will create the perfect campaign on your first try. There are so many variables affecting the success of your campaign, that it is essential to test each variable until you find what works best.

If you send your cold emails with Emailchaser, then you can see your campaign analytics, allowing you to make decisions based on real data.

12. Increase your sending volume

You can improve your response rate by increasing your sending volume.

If you send more cold emails, then you will receive more responses.

Volume is not the only important factor, but it is one of the most important factors. If you only send 10 emails per day, then you won’t receive many responses.

Emailchaser allows you to scale your sending volume infinitely by adding an unlimited number of sender email accounts to a single campaign.

You can learn more about this in my article How To Safely Scale Up Your Cold Email Outreach With Inbox Rotation.

13. Don’t use email warm-up tools

Many people in the cold email community claim that you need to use warm-up tools before sending cold emails.

Usually it is people selling warm-up tools that say this.

The reality is that email warm-up tools are ineffective and could actually hurt your deliverability.

You can learn more about this topic in my article Does Email Warm Up Work & Is It Safe?

14. Don’t use Zoho

You can improve your cold email response rate by avoiding Zoho as your email service provider.

Zoho has bad deliverability, and is often blocked by larger email service providers such as Microsoft. Instead, you should create your email accounts with Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.

Learn more in my article Is Zoho Good For Cold Emailing?

15. Choose the right domain extension

If you send cold emails from email accounts that are set up with domains using the wrong domain extension, then your emails will go to spam.

I recommend that you only use the .com TLD.

You can learn more about this topic in my article What Is The Best Domain Extension For Cold Email?

guys please stop sending email from .xyz tld's

you’re going to have a bad time

send from a .com and redirect to your .xyz primary domain

— Chris Frantz (@frantzfries) August 31, 2023

Frequently asked questions

Final thoughts

There are many ways to improve your cold email response rate.

The most important factors are your deliverability and offer.

On a related topic, you may enjoy my article 12 Reasons Why Your Cold Emails Are Not Getting Replies.

I also recommend that you read my article How To Set Up A Domain & Mailbox For Cold Email.