The 3 Most Common Mistakes When it Comes to Outreach Emailing

You definitely want to make your cold emails perfect. You probably pay attention to the tiniest details, like the exact sending time, catchy subjects, colourful templates with images, attachments with your sales decks, etc. Some of these things can truly make the difference however, are you sure you aren’t missing more important things?

Here are the most common mistakes that we see people make when creating their cold email. No worries, you can easily fix them.

Mistake #1: Thinking that the sending time of your emails matters

We all want to know when our prospects will open our emails. It would be nice to know for sure when we should send in order to get the highest opening rate. Let us not be deceived, no one has a secret recipe about when to send emails out.

Experts often look at statistics for when prospects open their emails. A lot of articles (like this one) relate facts and stats about opening rates.

Let’s say prospects open most of their emails between 10AM and noon. Does it mean that they have received the email at the same hour? Absolutely not. If you receive an email at 2AM with a subject line that is attractive, you will still open the email the next day. You will not care that it has been sent at 2AM.

In conclusion, instead of focusing on sending times, we invite you to focus on your subject line and content of your emails. No matter what time you send, your subject line is the key!

Mistake #2: Overestimating the unsubscribe links

An unsubscribe link will help you to know which prospects want to unsubscribe from your email list and which don’t. However, does it help your outreach strategy? Probably not. Using an unsubscribe link shows your prospects that you use an automation tool - and we don’t want that to happen :).

This kind of link can have a big impact on the reply rate. What is the point of making a personal email if you add an unsubscribe link?

At Overloop, we recommend adding a quick note at the bottom of your emails saying that if they don’t want to receive your emails anymore, they can just let you know. It is a friendly way to add an “opt-out” option.

However, no worries for customers that don’t want to store their “unsubscribe” replies, you can still add an unsubscribe link. Overloop offers the option!

Mistake #3: Writing a long introduction

It’s completely normal that you want to start your email with an intro. However, don’t make it too long. At Overloop, we often see long intros such as “I found you on Linkedin. I was thinking to add you on Linkedin but in the end, I thought it would be easier to send you an email…”

Even though it’s really nice to share your thoughts, prospects don’t have time to read them. So let’s make it short and straight to the point. The first sentence of your email is the most important. It has been proven that prospects read only the first sentence and if they are not interested, they will not go further in your email.

So let’s get their attention from the beginning. This sentence is the “catch-up” sentence. Make sure to use it to share something important. For example “I heard that “YOUR COMPANY” is struggling to find lead’s email addresses. Overloop is your solution.” In one sentence, we get it. The prospect knows why we are contacting them.