When a digital marketing agency client of ours found a list of the Top 100 Health Technology Companies of 2021 published by The Healthcare Technology Report, it wanted to take action. Healthcare is one of the top industries for which the agency manages digital marketing campaigns and saw this list as perfect for a lead generation opportunity.
The agency enlisted Acceler8now to set up, implement and run its five-step cold email outreach campaign — which was a huge success:
- 62.05% open rate
- 45.03% click rate
- 8.72% response rate
The agency agreed to let us share their success story as an excellent example of an ideal cold email campaign, so you can see how to run your own — from the first email to the last.
Behind the Scenes of One Agency’s Cold Email Marketing Campaign
The First Cold Email
We featured the agency’s first cold email of this campaign here. As we detailed in that post, the first email was a perfect example of reaching out to new prospects in a way that gets their attention, resonates with them and entices them to take action.
See our breakdown of a cold email that get results here.
The Second Cold Email — Sent 3 Days After 1st
The second email was a follow-up message sent three days after the first to prospects who had not yet responded to that email. Its purpose was to simply bring the first email back to the top of the target audience’s inbox.
Hi [prospect.first_name],
I reached out a couple of days ago, and I would still love to touch base to talk through how we have helped other companies on the Top 100 Healthcare Technology list with their digital marketing efforts.
If this is not your focus, may I ask if you could introduce me to someone more appropriate? And please let me know so I can stop emailing you!
I truly appreciate your help!
Brianne
The Third Cold Email — Sent 5 Days After 1st
The third email in the series was sent to prospects who had not yet responded to the first or second emails in the campaign. It reinforced the prospect’s opportunity to gain measurable ROI through a smart digital marketing campaign.
It may interest you to know that our primary focus is to help marketing executives like you create measurable ROI, which can be shared with other members of the C-suite. For this reason, we work shoulder-to-shoulder with our clients, helping them carefully consider each spend and desired outcomes.
As a Top 100 Health Tech Company in 2021, you are poised for growth. Our experience helping others on the list makes us the perfect partner to help you amplify that growth.
As mentioned in previous emails, we are a team of innovators that empower companies to achieve transformative growth through digital marketing and sales.
Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing is a fast-paced, ever-changing environment that requires an entire team of specialists to keep clients at the fore of emerging trends and platforms.
[prospect.first_name], if you’re interested in a brief conversation, you can reply to this email with a couple of dates/times that work for you, or click here (meeting link here) and schedule some time with me at your convenience.
Toward your success,
Brianne
The Fourth Cold Email — Sent 10 Days After 1st
The fourth email speaks to the challenge each company faces staying fully up-to-date on the latest digital marketing technologies. That’s a smart approach when addressing technology firms that tend to understand this concept!
But that’s not all: the agency reinforced its own message with short testimonials from its clientbase. Testimonials are always a great way to get a decision maker's attention. For example, here are two of the short customer soundbites included in the fourth email:
Hi [prospect.first_name],
One thing we’ve learned over the years is that staying current with the latest technology is both time-consuming and difficult to achieve without investment in skilled resources and/or education.
We stay on top of digital technologies so you don’t have to. We save you time and money, delivering you a strategy that will deliver results. We proactively implement strategies across all digital channels to create the best growth possible which is imperative today. We see companies looking to make changes to digital more than ever following the uncertainty of the past years.
The following statements were made by some of our recent clients. If one of these scenarios describes your current situation…we'd love to chat.
“I believe we have a solid grasp of all the nuances of digital marketing, but might be interested in having your group perform an unbiased assessment.”
“We’ve been talking about making a more focused shift away from trade shows and more traditional types of marketing, and would be most interested in learning how others have successfully done so.”
“We’re quite interested in doing a deeper dive into digital/inbound marketing, but lack the internal resources to execute.”
[prospect.first_name], when we speak, we will know pretty quickly if we’ve found a strong fit for each other. Please feel free to respond with a few times that work for you or use this meeting link to schedule time at your convenience.
I look forward to our conversation,
Kind regards,
Brianne
P.S.: Testimonial
Amazing Company, Amazing People!
“Your team has really been a fantastic partner for us! We're a biomedical device company with some fairly technical medical products, multiple applications and difficult buyer personas and your team waded right in and have become an invaluable extension of our marketing team. They have taken the time to learn about our audiences and some of the more technical aspects about what we do in order to create great content for our users. They bring fresh ideas to the table about how we can create brand awareness, generate leads and nurture the through the buying cycle and I can't say enough about their attentiveness and skill with Inbound Marketing. Highly recommend engaging with them; they're definitely worth it.”
The Fifth Cold Email — Final Email
Prospects who didn’t respond to any of the emails in the series up to now receive a final email letting them know the sender respects their time and will not be reaching out again. Also, it invites the contact to reach out anytime.
Hi [prospect.first_name],
I’ve tried several times to initiate a quick conversation with you regarding digital marketing. Would you mind letting me know if my message didn't resonate or was unclear in any way?
I assume by now that you have your digital strategy capably handled, but I would ask that you keep my contact information on hand just in case the day comes when you’re not realizing the ROI you expect.
Out of respect to your time, I will not be reaching back out to you. Please know that my door is always open and I’d be delighted to hear from you at any time down the line!
And just in case, if anyone in your network is looking to explore digital marketing solutions, we make a great sounding board and would be happy to help them. Most of our clients come from referrals!
Respectfully yours,
Brianne
Building Your Next Great Email Campaign
Now it’s your turn. Take the above emails and tailor them for your targeted campaigns. But if that task seems overwhelming, or your campaigns are not garnering the same results we’ve seen with the messaging above, it might be time to work with a team of experts. We can partner with you to achieve and exceed your results with a well-planned email campaign.
