6 Cold Email Call-to-Actions To Get More Positive Replies

As an email marketer, you may wish you had a magic wand like Harry Potter to put a spell on your prospects, so that they would respond to your emails. After trying A/B testing, making your email concise,  and trying different subject lines, perhaps you are running out of ways to engage your prospects and elicit a response. 

If you are sending a cold email, you are probably using outbound marketing or direct marketing. Iit is a hard fact to swallow but people do not like being sold to, especially if they are not interested in the product at that point. 

Therefore, perhaps telling them to Buy Now in your first email may be a little annoying or a bit too soon in the buyer journey.

So what should your cold email call-to-action (CTA) be? Here are a few examples of the best email CTAs! 

1. Are you available to talk on Wednesday, 8:00 pm EST? 

 Let’s say you are ready to make a cold-call and would like to send a cold call introduction email. Simply asking your prospect if they would be interested in talking about buying your software, water cooler, life insurance plan, (or anything you are selling) may not be effective. 

Even if your prospect is interested, it doesn’t instill a sense of urgency and it is too much work and back and forth to decide a time to talk. Be specific in your cold email call-to-action. 

Say something like, “ Would you be available to talk on Wednesday, 8:00 pm EST?” This would automatically make your prospect check their calendar and give you a response that you can work around to get to the next step in the buyer journey. 

You can also include a link to your calendar so they can choose an alternate day and time. 

2. Can we get on a quick call to discuss Company A’s/your needs? 

It’s no secret that only 1% of cold emails are responded to, but if you have a long email list, you don’t have a big problem. However, if you really want to ensure you get maximum responses, do not ask for a huge chunk of time to explain your offer, straight out. 

For example, do not say “Can we get on a 30-minute call to explain the benefits of this software?” Thirty-minutes may sound like too much for someone who isn’t a warm lead yet. 

You can say, “Can we jump on a quick call to discuss your needs and how our product can help meet them?” The word “quick” just makes it sound so much easier for a person to give you their time. 

3. Please let me know if you would like to explore this offer for Company A/You. 

Let’s face it- time is of the essence. It isn’t a good idea to try to reach into the wallets and purses of people who may not be completely interested in your product/service. 

It’ll most likely be a wasted effort. However, you can explain your offer and then ask them if they find it interesting for their company and think it would be worthwhile. 

It would be beneficial to do a little research on their company and reach out if you think your product/service is a good fit. 

You don’t want to waste time on a prospect who may not be interested in your product at all or may not be considering it at that point. 

4. Start Getting Hired Today! (or a similar CTA according to your product or service)

Let’s say you are selling a course or a subscription to a job board. Instead of writing Click here or Get Started, it’s a better idea to write a benefits-focused CTA. Tell your prospect what they will get if they click on that button. 

In the example mentioned, they will get more job offers, and more leads on which companies are hiring. You can change the CTA to whatever you please according to your offer. However, make sure you highlight your benefit so it isn’t a generic CTA. This will remind prospects why they should click and result in more clicks than if you had a generic statement. 

5. Are you considering…..?

Imagine proposing to someone who is already married/engaged and has no plan whatsoever of changing that. Big no-no, right? It’s the wrong time or situation to contact them and you would best stay away and look for another candidate.

The same rule applies to cold emails. You don’t want to waste your time on someone who isn’t even thinking about opting for your product/service or may not be interested in choosing it in the near future. 

Ask them a simple yes/no question if they are considering going for something like your product/service or need the benefits that your product/service provides. Gauge their interest. 

David Gong from Gong Labs found that this was the CTA that was most responded to in cold emails. According to him, you must sell the conversation, not the product/service at this stage. 

That way you will get a response, which helps your email domain reputation improve as people are responding to your email. 

On the other hand, if your email domain reputation has already taken a hit or if you are new to email marketing and would like to warm up your domain, Pribox can help! 

6. Click here to download the report/document

Jeffrey Gitometer says that people don’t like to be sold to but they love to buy! That is more evident than global warming. Nobody really likes a salesperson lurking around them urging them to buy or somebody calling them up with an irrelevant pitch - but they do love the information! 

That is why many email and digital marketers opt for inbound marketing versus outbound marketing and provide content to their prospects which gives them more information regarding the product/service indirectly. 

This can be in the form of a report/blog/video/podcast/seminar. 

Include a CTA that directly allows your prospect to download the content after creating a free account on your website. Later on, you can start moving them towards a paid plan. 

These CTAs actually work and will make your cold email drip campaigns more effective. If you want more on cold emails, read A FoolProof Cold Email Marketing Strategy. We hope your cold leads begin to warm up!