2021 email outreach tips

12 Email Outreach Tips: How to Get Replies During Quarantine

How has email outreach changed during the lockdowns? Sergey Aliokhin, Community Outreach Manager at Visme, explores the topic and offers 12 tips to help you be more successful.

In the past year, we have seen many businesses completely shut down, while others have been forced to make a switch online.

Either way, the digital marketing landscape has drastically changed, with each day bringing a new set of challenges. 

This only begs the question – how does one stay afloat during these times?

As our sales teams explore how they can make the most out of email outreach during these stressful circumstances, let me explain 12 essential steps to elevate your email outreach campaigns

But first, let’s review the challenges businesses are currently facing.

What new challenges quarantine has brought to businesses

Quarantine has brought not only strict restrictions to business owners but challenges as well. Let’s review the most common ones.

Low budgets

Due to the pandemic, many companies have had budget cuts with a sharp decrease in purchasing power and the absence of new customers. 

Now they need to figure out how to do more with less.

Customers are distracted

Depending on where your customers are located, it’s highly probable they’re currently in quarantine. 

Maybe they lost their fixed income. 

You need to be considerate about this when you reach out to them regarding your product or service. 

Customers’ inboxes are full

Your customers get a lot of emails. 

I mean, it’s a standard go-to strategy to reach out to your customers personally. But this also means that the probability that the prospects will review your messages is incredibly low. 

So you need to stand out amongst the crowd to get noticed. 

That’s why we’re here. This post will cover the ideas that will help you improve email outreach efforts effectively. 

Here are 12 email outreach tips to make you more successful.

how to conduct email outreach tips 2021

#1. Don’t shy away from letting your prospects “freeze” their replies

Give your prospects some space. 

They probably need some time before getting back to your email pitch. Don’t bombard them with endless follow-up emails.

Also, people don’t have too much time to read long-form email messages. Keep your messages friendly, sweet, and short. 

The first element of the email pitch – your subject line – is the most important one. It should be straight to the point and explain why you’re reaching out. Consider adding emojis in subject lines.  

Other than that, be patient and wait for the prospects’ reply.

Related: What to check for before you hit Send on your email

#2. Avoid using “COVID” themes in your messages

There is usually no need to mention the pandemic in your email outreach pitch. People want to talk business. And how they can generate revenue.

We’re all tired of COVID in general. So, it’s best to avoid this topic.

#3. Focus on building relationships 

Do not send automated sales pitches.

Forget about the “cold” type of email outreach involving email marketing tools that make the outreach process 100% automated. 

While there is nothing bad about automating your email outreach, “cold” outreach can lack a human factor in the pitch.

That makes it harder to build communication and relationships. 

So, how should you build relationships in your email outreach?

With consistency. 

Even if your prospects aren’t interested in buying from you now, they might be interested in the future. So the key is to stick around for when they are.

Maintain your communication with them.

Sooner or later, you’ll get a reward for your kind attitude. 

how to write emails during quarantine

#4. Send more personalized emails

Unfortunately, email template personalization can look fake rather than personalized. Just take a look at this personalized email template:

Subject line: In quarantine. Got an idea

Hey James,

I hope quarantine is not driving you crazy.

James, let’s connect. I’d love to do this for 2 reasons: (1) I have an idea for positioning your value offer at Security Research Labs within the Information Technology and Services industry that may be new for you + worth exploring. And (2), it’s more interactive (read: fun) than Netflix.

Thanks, 

Do you think this email template uses personalization the right way?

Let’s analyze it briefly. 

The subject line doesn’t explain what this email is all about. It doesn’t compel the recipient to open up the email. 

What is the purpose of this subject line? It’s important to make sure that your subject line has a meaningful purpose and expresses a benefit.

The body of the email is all about trying to make sales. In other words, the goal of this email template is not to build relationships. 

Avoid this approach and be more generous instead.

So, how should you personalize email templates during quarantine? 

  • If your prospect is suffering from some business issues due to quarantine, extend sympathy and kindness regarding this problem.
  • Clarify what your message is about in the subject.
  • Write an informative email that gives the person some resources to begin with.
  • Don’t talk too much about your business pitch in your first email. Instead, focus on their needs.
  • Offer some help.

Keep in mind that, during the pandemic, your email template personalization should be on a high level. 

Don’t shy away from adding some interactive element to your pitch. It could be visually appealing content in the form of infographics, images, GIFs, or even video. 

You can use different tools to diversify your emails, such as an infographic maker, tools for creating GIFs, and a free video maker tool

Bonus tip: If you add any rich media to your email, test it before sending it to see if it lands in the inbox with popular providers. ZeroBounce has an effective inbox placement tester that you can try at no cost.

Want to see how the inbox placement tester works? Give it a try!

#5. Don’t bother your prospects without a reason

You can imagine that your prospect’s inbox is full of messages.

If you start sending follow-up emails without a good reason, you may end up annoying people instead. 

These “checking in” follow-up emails don’t bring much value to your prospects. 

However, if you follow up with some additional useful information, it makes sense. That’s why you need to make your follow-up emails helpful so you can build more trustful relationships with the prospects. 

sales tips 2021

#6. Avoid writing long-form emails 

Most prospects don’t have time to read long-form emails. You should take this into account and not write excessively long messages. The email size of your pitch should be short. 

Short-form emails are easy to read and people get the point of your message right away.

#7. Be like a personal assistant for your prospects

Do you know what the similarity between marketers and doctors is?

They both aim to ask the right questions to get to the root of the problem. Then, they give expert advice on how to solve the client’s issue.

You can use this mindset to craft your email outreach pitch. Consider the following approach, like in this email pitch:

Hi, {first name},

{first name}, I know that in our current environment it’s hard to consider new purchases/vendors today, and we certainly aren’t expecting you to, but I wanted to reach out to see if you’d be open to having a discussion when this all calms down.

In the meantime, is there anything I can do to help you out?

Looking forward to your reply.

Thanks, 

Here’s what we all need to do: Care about the people we’re reaching out to. 

Put yourself in their shoes: figure out their challenges, problems, and what they want to achieve. 

Doing so will help you develop meaningful relationships with potential prospects.

#8. Track the current business situation of the prospects before emailing

The current situation with the pandemic changes. Every day. You just don’t know what to expect!

Your task is to analyze the current position of your prospects. How is their business performing?

You can do this by tracking their social media activity, and monitoring content they publish on their blogs. You can even analyze how much traffic they drive to their websites by using SEO tools.

Based on this, conclude your outreach pitch. If you think that you can help them solve their issues and your service/product is exactly what they need, don’t hesitate to send your pitch!

However, if you see that it is not the right time to connect with them, you should wait for a better day. 

When you offer valuable advice in your email outreach, you think you have more chances to build strong relationships with your prospects. More often than not, all these resources are tied to your brand.

This approach doesn’t guarantee the result you’re expecting to achieve. 

Instead, offer a random act of kindness. During quarantine, you can share free yoga courses, a photo of a cute cat, free meditation, as well as apps to make work-from-home life more pleasant.

Be generous with your prospects and they will reward you in the future. 

Building backlinks matters so much to how your website ranks on Google, and email is a great tool.

You can arm yourself with one of the backlink checker tools and choose an email marketing software to start your link-building outreach. 

Be careful not to ask for the link directly in your very first pitch. Start a discussion and try to build a mutual partnership which would be a benefit for both sides.

Once you get a positive reply, you can move on and see how you can acquire a backlink. 

Quarantine is a good opportunity for webmasters to take care of their websites. They can fix bugs, make updates, and fix broken links. 

You can help them with this activity from your end.

How?

Explore broken backlinks they might have on their sites. Then, reach out to the webmasters and suggest they replace those links with resources you created.

Thus, you help people with issues on their website and offer high-quality resources to consider. 

#12. Don’t reach out to businesses that stopped their activity

If you happened to research potential prospects across different websites, you might notice that some of the websites have an announcement such as “Closed due to Coronavirus.”

Screenshot shows website with red sign letting customers know the business is temporarily closed.

This announcement gives you a clear understanding that there is no point to send your pitch to this company. However, lots of websites continue to work with their clients and would be open to hearing from you. 

Try to deal with active businesses during lockdowns. Thankfully, you have plenty options!

Let’s sum up these email outreach tips

The quarantine will end someday and people will get back to work one way or another. You just need to be patient. 

Meanwhile, do your best to keep your own business afloat.

By using these 12 email outreach tips you will have more chances to treat your prospects genuinely. In return, your response rate will be high and you’ll be able to grow your business while supporting others.

P.S. Have you validated your email list lately? To avoid bounces and spam complaints, make sure your contacts are genuine before you reach out to your prospects!

Start a ZeroBounce account today. It’s free!

Author: Sergey Aliokhin is a Community Outreach Manager at Visme. When not at work, he likes to spend his time with family, read books (especially science fiction), play the bass, and work out at the gym.