In 2020, the number of email accounts amounted to 4.03 billion – nearly as many as the total number of Internet users (4.32 bn) worldwide. This means, unless the company’s leads are cut off from civilization, they have at least one mailbox that one can “knock” at.
Email is the widest communication channel and no social media or messengers can compete with it as to chances for reaching out. But a dilemma is – how to keep being noticeable in an avalanche of nearly 320 bn emails sent and received daily? Particularly, when the company performs the very first outreach via cold emails.
A cold email is an unsolicited message, so you should count a lot on a stroke of luck to get a reply. You expect that the recipient will highlight your message among hundreds of others. But the reality is – even 2 opened emails per every 10 sent are already a great victory.
So, if the open ratio is low, why bother about cold emails at all? The answer lies in simple math. If you send 10 emails, 20% out of them are worth nothing. But if you send hundreds or thousands of emails, the 20% of opened are worth fighting for, agree.
Criteria for choosing the ideal email tool
You should focus on the following points when choosing an email automation tool:
- advanced customization options
Personalization is when you revamp the message for every single recipient or mailing goal. This isn’t just about using 2 or 3 canonical templates and automatically replacing gender pronouns, names, or companies’ titles in thousands of copies at once. You should be able to modify email content comprehensively. For example – create custom audiences, upload and keep various-purpose content, design sequences of messages, tailor copies with information from CRM.
- advanced scheduling
To launch on-time email delivery one doesn’t need to have a distinct software. Simple scheduling can be done easily via Gmail or Outlook. But what you really need is a constructor for building an email drip campaign. These are when the subsequent email that a recipient receives is determined from his or her past actions. For example, if a person subscribes to receive newsletters, the software will automatically respond to the action with verification and welcome messages.
- email validation
Most mailing instruments include parsers that collect prospects’ email addresses from websites or social profiles. Take Octoparse as an example. It is a no-code web scraping tool for online data collection. Email scraping from social media platforms and niche market portals is one of the top uses. It eliminates the costs to hire a troop of developers, and you can still turn the sites into valuable data. If you download the software and search “email scraper”, you will find the pre-built template for users to gather email and social profile information from websites (a list of URLs).
But obtaining information is half of a deal, and another part is – to verify findings. Pay attention to whether the tool offers auto-verification of scraped contacts. Hence, the probability of being blocked by anti-spam filters reduces to almost zero.
- integrations
If the email automation tool is aligned with databases and digital marketing software, it’ll bring even better results. Consider what CRMs, CMS’s, analytics instruments, social and marketing platforms you’ll be able to combine the mailing program with. Another good point is integration via API. Thus, if one day you need to develop custom software, you can make data transfer effortlessly.
- free trial
In addition to all of the above, consider if there’s a free trial plan so you can test the email software before purchasing a subscription.
10 Best Cold Email Tools To Generate More Leads
Crunchbase
This is the foremost tool for B2B prospecting and lead generation. Crunchbase is good to fill in both TOFU and MOFU.
Search result pages display a list of companies’ names, their brief descriptions, industries, headquarters, and a Crunchbase Rank. You can then sort and filter findings, or add custom columns and get even more information about prospects.
All these “data pearls” can be used to create contact databases and relevant messages for cold emails. You can also connect Crunchbase with a CRM, so that information about leads will be automatically transferred to it.
Advantages:
- a database of companies from all over the world
- convenient search option – users can apply up to 25 search filters at once
- a Crunchbase Rank that helps to compare different companies’ growth trends
- recommended templates that users can tailor to their needs
- an Enrichment option – users can enhance CRM information with new insights.
Disadvantages:
- doesn’t have a built-in automation tool
- there may not be enough details about privately-owned companies.
Price: the “Basic” plan is free, while paid subscriptions vary from $29 (“Starter”) to $49 (“Pro”) per user per month.
EngageBay
This is a universal solution to handle sales and marketing campaigns. EngageBay allows users to work out the full process of converting leads into buyers – from the first cold email to the ultimate deal. With its email tool, users can pick up and edit templates, create mailing lists, launch and track campaigns.
EngageBay offers a built-in CRM, where users can categorize contacts and track deals. Moreover, they can create 360-degree leads’ profiles, query the actions of any client, and enrich the information with data from social media.
Advantages:
- a number of customizable email templates
- free CRM
- a tool to design landing pages
- life chats software
- web forms builder.
Disadvantages:
- has a limited number of landing pages templates
- dashboards could have been more adjustable.
Price: you can sign up for free and work with up to 500 contacts and 1,000 branded emails. Paid subscriptions start from $8.99 per user per month.
Snov.io
An ultimate tool to automate email search and outreach. Snov.io is purposeful for those who form contact databases from scratch or want to improve existing ones. A user may start with “Finder” and search email addresses by domains, prospects’ or companies’ names. Scraped or uploaded contacts will be cleaned from catch-all, temporary, misspelled, and broken emails. With a neat database, you can then launch a drip campaign or scheduled sequence and track their performance.
Advantages:
- email finding tool
- convenient campaigns’ constructor
- vast integration options, including via API
- unlimited email tracker
- free Chrome extension
- informative dashboards.
Disadvantages:
- lacks pre-designed templates
- doesn’t have a built-in CRM.
Price: Snov.io has a free plan, but to access more functions, one may purchase a subscription, starting from $33 per month.
Prospect.io
Prospect.io has everything you may expect from an email scraper: search, verification, recipients’ segmentation, and campaigns’ builder.
Advantages:
- allows performing single and bulk searches
- many pre-designed templates
- an extension for Chrome
- broad analytics
- supports integration with G Suite and MS 365.
Disadvantages:
- doesn’t offer many options for email design.
Price: a user can start with a free plan and then upgrade to a “Base” for $19 per month. Professional add-ons, e.g. Email Finder, start from $39 per month.
Woodpecker
This software was developed precisely to send cold emails. Woodpecker allows customization of email copies via adding snippets. These are variables that replace certain text. You can insert standard snippets, e.g. {Full Name}, {www}, {Company}, or create custom.
For every cold outreach sequence, a user may add up to 7 follow-ups per trigger. Follow-ups can be customized and scheduled the same as the initial email.
Advantages:
- allows to safely reach out to 100 prospects daily
- good customization options
- exhaustive success metrics, including “clicked”, “auto-responded”, “bounced”, “invalid”, etc.
- has an App for Android.
Disadvantages:
- sends emails from your provider’s IPs
- doesn’t have a built-in verifier.
Price: offers a 14-days trial; after, the user will have to upgrade the subscription and pay from $59 per email slot per month.
Mailshake
Mailshake is another instrument for automated cold outreach via emails, messages in social networks, and phone calls. A user can customize email sequences, build follow-ups, and choose from many templates for any type of promotion.
Advantages:
- effortless integration with major CRMs, including Salesforce and Pipedrive
- a wizard that helps to create campaigns
- scheduling tool
- more than 1,000 integrations via Zapier
- a number of email templates.
Disadvantages:
- there’s no automated warm-up feature
- reports can be improved.
Price: monthly subscriptions start from $59 per 1 user.
Yesware
This is an add-on that one may install and use in Outlook and Gmail. Yesware is simple and good for rather small sales teams that perform outbound marketing and collect client feedback.
Advantages:
- email open tracking tool
- shows how many times the attachment was viewed
- email analytics
- messages’ templates
- integrations with Salesforce, LinkedIn, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and others.
Disadvantages:
- doesn’t include an email finder
- doesn’t specify which recipient opened the email in the case with several recipients.
Price: annual plans start with $15 monthly per user.
Reply.io
The software will be useful primarily for Sales and HR teams. It can be applied to scrape contacts from LinkedIn and reach them via multiple channels. For example, by combining cold emails with calls, SMS, and WhatsApp messages.
Advantages:
- omnichannel outreach
- text quality scoring system
- convenient to A/B test messages
- a lot of integrations.
Disadvantages:
- may not be that easy to set up campaigns.
Price: users can find up to 200 emails for free every month. Paid subscription plans vary from $70 to $120 per user per month.
Quickmail
The tool serves to handle cold outreach campaigns: it tracks email delivery and automatically follows up when there’s no response. Quickmail includes an auto-warmer feature, helps to recover bad sender reputation, and “unspam” emails.
Advantages:
- generates replies for emails that landed in “Spam”
- an auto-archive option
- automated engagement emails.
Disadvantages:
- is not intended to launch complex campaigns, e.g. regular newsletters.
Price: Quickmail allows working with up to 50 inboxes per account for free. Paid plans start from $49 per month.
Mixmax
Mixmax is an enhancement for Gmail. This isn’t an automation tool, instead, it includes features to manage daily mailings more handily. Users can track and schedule emails, share calendars, and embed surveys.
Advantages:
- easy meetings’ scheduler
- integration with CMS, Slack, etc
- trigger-based automated follow-ups.
Disadvantages:
- many useful features, e.g. integrations, admin controls, automating, aren’t available in lower subscription plans.
Price: there’s a “Free Plan” offered, but for major functions, you’ll have to purchase a subscription, starting from $9 per user per month.
Ones who want to put lead generation on scales shouldn’t neglect cold emails. With thorough preparations and handy outreach automation tools, these will become an effective and relatively cheap source of new clients.
