5 effective types of CTA in Cold Mail lead generation

How often did it happen that the messages you wrote to potential customers remained unanswered? There is no need to fool yourself, you will not get a response to all the messages. Instead, you can significantly increase the response rate if you create your message appropriately.

A Cold Mail message has its own specific construction. It is significantly different from typical marketing e-mails you usually get from companies. We focus on the needs of the recipient of our message and it is in this context that we present our solution.

The structure of a Cold Mail can be divided into 5 elements:

1. The subject of the message.
2. A short greeting.
3. Appreciation of the recipient.
4. Reason for which you write.
5. CTA (call-to-action) indicating the next step to a potential customer.

We describe how to write such messages in our blog article – Effective Cold Email – A guide for beginners. Here, I will focus on the last of the points mentioned in the article and present several types of CTAs that will increase the response rate of the Cold Mailing campaign.

 

1. A proposal to meet or talk

One of the most frequently used CTA types in Cold Mailing messages. It works very well with services and products where the entry threshold is relatively low. In the messages to our potential customers, we suggest a conversation or meeting.

That is how it looks in practice:

Most often such CTAs are used in the following industries:

• manufacturing,
• transport,
• training,
• HR,
• financial,
• marketing.

If you don’t know what CTA to use in your messages, it is best to start with this. The results from a campaign conducted in this way can serve as a base result for comparing the effectiveness of other calls to action.

2. Invitation to a free webinar

By using such a CTA you lower the entry threshold for a potential customer. Participation in a webinar is not as much of a commitment as a conversation or meeting. When it turns out that we one is not interested in a given product, one does not have to refuse anyone. Companies that use such a CTA appreciate the less sales oriented nature of their messages. Such a method will work if you offer a solution whose advantages and differences between competitors are difficult to describe in 2-3 sentences.

That is how it looks in practice:

Most often such CTAs are used in the following industries:

• IT Outsourcing,
• marketing,
• SaaS,
• startup,
• IT,
• training.

Webinar enables a potential client to get to know our company better and to realize the problem. It is also an additional value for the participant.

While conducting a webinar, we cannot forget to create an appropriate path for the conversion of a participant to a client. We need to have a detailed plan of what will happen when we finish running the webinar – what messages the participant will receive, how we will contact him in the nearest future, and how often. Such CTA is also great for companies that already have experience in conducting online training.

3. Free audit

Offering a free audit or a demo version of your solution is a so-called lead magnet. With it, a potential client receives added value before making any commitment. However, before you decide to offer dozens of leads a free audit, you have to be sure that such action will not ruin your company. Ideally, the offered free audit should be an automatic action, performed by the software and be but a first stage of a service that is already paid for.

That is how such CTA may look in practice:

Most often such CTAs are used in the following industries:

• website positioning,
• website speed optimization,
• IT,
• SaaS,
• marketing,
• consulting.

The aim of such an audit is to make the potential customers aware of the problem and to show you as an expert capable of solving it.

 

4. Redirection to another person

This kind of CTA is used when you are sure that you are not writing to the decision-maker on a given issue. In practice, this means that we have had difficulty in finding the right contact person on the Internet and we have to settle for another. Most often a problem of finding the right decision-maker appears in traditional industries such as manufacturing and transport companies, but also in large companies, where various persons are responsible for various issues.

Such CTA is quite simple:

Most often such CTAs are used in the following industries:

• transport,
• IT,
• production,
• R&D,
• startup, new technologies.

This CTA is often used in the last one of the follow-up messages. If you did not get an answer to the first 2-3 emails, then in the last one it is worth asking if you have been writing to the right person at all.

 

5. Downloading an ebook, a report, etc.

By offering a potential customer to download a useful ebook or report, you can pave the way for further discussions. This CTA is most commonly used by companies when the customer may not be aware of the problem. It also allows you to stand out from other companies because it provides additional value to the potential customer

That is how such CTA may look in practice:

Most often such CTAs are used in the following industries:

• financial,
• IT,
• new technologies,
• consulting

 

Skillful use of these types of CTAs allows you to increase the response rate or, to put it differently, the number of leads you generate in a Cold Mailing campaign.