What Is Cold Emailing?
Cold emailing means sending a one-to-one style email to someone who doesn't know you or your business yet. It is used to introduce a product or service to a carefully chosen group of people, start a conversation and book meetings or sales.
Cold email vs warm email vs email marketing
| Cold email | Warm email | Email marketing (newsletters) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recipient knows you? | No | Usually, or you have a connection | Yes, they signed up |
| Volume | Tens to hundreds per day, per sender | A few, written by hand | Thousands at once |
| Content | A template with merge tags (name, company, city) | Fully written for one person | The same content for everyone |
| Sent from | Ordinary inboxes on separate domains | Your normal inbox | An email marketing platform on your main domain |
For example, a cold email uses a template with details from a lead database such as Apollo (the person's first name, company and city). A warm email is written by hand, using details you found on the person's website or LinkedIn profile.
Is cold emailing legal?
Business-to-business cold email is legal in most countries, as long as you follow a few rules. In general you should:
- Use your real name, company and a working reply address
- Include a physical business address
- Only email people where your offer is relevant to their job
- Give people an easy way to opt out, and honor it quickly
- Never use misleading subject lines
The rules differ by country. In the US, cold email is covered by the CAN-SPAM Act. In the UK and EU, GDPR and (in the UK) PECR apply, and emailing individuals or sole traders is stricter than emailing corporate addresses. This isn't legal advice, so check the rules for the countries you are emailing.
Why personalization matters
When people don't know your brand, they decide in seconds whether your email is relevant, safe and worth reading. Most people delete an email within a few seconds unless it catches their interest.
To give your email the best chance of being opened, read and acted on, it needs:
- A subject line that feels personal (their name, company or city) and asks a clear question or makes a relevant point
- Content that is short, clear and useful to them, such as a problem you can solve
- One clear call to action, such as booking a call or replying
Personalization does more than raise open rates. Varied, relevant emails also look less like bulk mail to spam filters, which helps your deliverability. Later in this guide you'll learn how to personalize text and add personalized images with OKZest.