How to personalize automated prospecting emails

Cold emailing doesn’t have to be so cold. With a wealth of data at our fingertips, marketers and sales reps can personalize prospecting emails at scale, increasing their chances of getting that all-important first reply. 

In this blog, we’ll share three ways you can personalize cold emails using data from your CDP. 

1. Personalize the entry point or email trigger 

Personalization is about more than just the contents of the email, it’s about landing in the inbox at the right time. When there’s a reason behind the timing of the email (for example, a prospect’s behavior or company news), the receiver is far more likely to open and respond.  

When automating prospecting emails, behavioral or demographic data can be used as entry criteria. For example, below we’ve outlined some common reasons prospecting emails are sent, and the data point you could use as entry criteria: 

• Following up with a prospect who watches a demo video

  • Custom activity: Watched demo video

• Reaching out when a new product feature is released

  • Form complete/widget response: Interested in x feature

• Reaching out to a prospect after they engage with content on your site

  • Custom activities including eBook downloads, attended webinar, or whitepaper download 

• Reaching out after an industry event

  • Custom activities including Typeform completion (for example, entering a competition at your brand’s booth) or enters audience where an audience of event attendees is created 

• Discount or offer on your product 

  • Custom field where ‘closed lost’ reason is too expensive 

You’ll also want to consider using a Delivery optimization feature to ensure the email is delivered within the recipient’s timezone (if available). This can go a long way to increasing overall open rates. 

Once you have identified an appropriate data point as an entry criteria, you’ll have a starting point for the contents of your email, making it simpler to compose and personalize a prospecting email with a high open, click through and response rate.

2. Personalize subject line and from fields

Before you get to the body of your email, look at your email set up fields including subject line and from fields to personalize your communication and increase open rates. 

We'll start with the subject line. Addressing the prospect by name or mentioning their organization is a great place to start. In fact, data from our AI subject line writer shows that these two fields can greatly increase the open rate of your email. But you don’t have to stop there.

Let’s say you’re sending a prospecting email to people who attended your brand’s booth at an industry event. You have created a custom audience of event attendees who completed a form at your booth and used this as the entry point or trigger for the email. 

If you want to keep it simple, you can just use a first name tag and reference the name of the event in the subject line. You could further personalize the email by adding a reference to a discount or other offer in the Preview text field. 

If you asked your event attendees to respond to a Typeform survey to enter a sweepstakes, you could use their responses in your email subject line to create a more personal experience. For example, if you asked what their goal was for the year ahead, you could use this in the subject line:

• Hi {first-name}, we want to help you {typeform-submission-goal} 

• Achieving your goal to {typeform-submission-goal} before Q3 ends is possible. Here’s how. 

From fields, both name and email address are also opportunities for personalization. Continuing with the event example, if you had multiple sales reps at the booth and each rep added themselves as an owner to form completes, you could ensure emails come from the rep the prospect spoke to, without needing to set up individual emails for each rep. To do this, simply add merge tags using Salesforce fields like ‘Lead owner name’ or custom fields in your CDP. 

If you do take advantage of this feature, make sure the signature in the body of the email uses the same merge tags and therefore references the same rep. 

3. Personalize the body of the email

Now that you have entry criteria or audience and you’ve completed the setup stage, it’s time to turn to the body of the email. Personalization options in the contents of your email are endless, thanks to dynamic content fields and merge tags. 

Again, you will want to consider the entry point for the email and personalize communications with related data. Here is an example of how this could work when following up with a prospect who watches a demo video. 

Perhaps you have several demo videos set up in widgets, each covering a different topic. When you set up your prospecting email, you could use the Widget name in a merge tag to reference the exact video they watched (just ensure the name is something the receiver will understand!) or even reference the page they were visiting when the widget appeared.

For example, let’s say your prospect was visiting your site's social media scheduling feature page, and they watched a video that appeared in a widget about scheduling Reels on Instagram. You could create a personalized message that references both of these things. 

If you are building a journey or playbook, you can continue to personalize communications by referencing the specific actions your prospects take with the email or using them as entry/exit criteria. This includes activity attributes like opens, clicks, and reactions. 

Similar attributes can be applied to things like eBook or whitepaper downloads, feature or pricing pages viewed, responses to ad campaigns, or any other tracked action your prospect takes.

Best practice checklist for prospecting emails 

Whether you’re setting up personalized, automated prospecting emails like in the example above or you’re writing them from scratch, there are some best practices to keep in mind. 

1. Reference the reason for getting in touch

2. Write a compelling subject line (use Ortto’s AI subject line writer to predict the open rate of your email and get suggestions on alternatives) 

3. Keep it snappy and to-the-point

4. Use merge tags and dynamic content to personalize your email

5. Be clear on the intended call to action (for example, a response to the sales person or clicking through to book a demo)

6. Include a signature from a REAL person 

7. Ensure the from fields (name and email) match this signature

8. Plan your follow up 

9. Set KPIs around opens, responses and click throughs

10. Monitor performance and continuously optimize based on the metrics above and email Reactions

Final word

Personalization can take a cold email to a friendly, warm and, most importantly, helpful place. When your prospect feels as though they are being listened to and you are reaching out to meet their specific needs or help them achieve their goal, they are more likely to respond — now or down the track. 

Start building your prospecting journeys and playbooks by signing in or signing up to Ortto today.