Best practices: How to get more replies

In this guide, we’ll share practical tips to boost the reply rate in your cold email campaigns.

A high reply rate, ideally between 5-10%, not only improves your conversions but also serves as a positive signal for your sender reputation. This indicates to Email Service Providers (ESPs) that your emails are wanted.

If your reply rate drops below 2%, it’s a sign that you should review certain aspects of your campaign and make necessary improvements.

 

To get more replies and engagement, send campaigns following these best practices:

1. Reach out to the targeted audience.
2. Create lead segments/groups.
3. Personalize emails.
4. Schedule campaigns appropriately.
5. Add value with each follow-up.
6. Add reply-focused calls to action (CTAs).
7. Optimize email copy.
8. Conclude communications the right way.

Targeting

Effective campaigns begin by knowing your audience and identifying those most likely to be interested in your offer.

How to do targeting:

Research your ideal customers, know their problems/goals → create a few customer profiles → collect prospects who fit the criteria → offer them your solution. 

Your ideal customers are the people facing the problem your service can solve.

Ask yourself these main questions:

Question #1: Who can benefit from using your service? What is their job title?

Question #2: What are their pain points/needs? What problem do they have that you can solve?

1. Review your prospect list to make sure it is targeted – all the leads match your ideal customer profile.
2. Create lists that are easy to handle, with 50-100-200 leads.
3. Include decision makers to your lists (who makes buying decisions in the company, usually CEO or department lead) or ‘gatekeepers’, such as assistants or advisors.

Segmentation

In addition to creating customer profiles, divide your lists into smaller lead groups/segments. 

Group your recipients based on what you know about them — with this information, you can create relevant emails specific to each segment.

For example, use these characteristics to create lead segments.

Company segments:

• Company size (e.g., small businesses, middle size, enterprises)
• Specialty or niche
• Revenue and growth stage

Lead segments:

• Software or tools in use
• Skills
• Position/Seniority

Demographic segments:

• Age
• Gender
• Income level
  

Geographic segments:

• Location (city, state, country)

1. Identify common needs/issues in each group. This helps you adjust your value offer to match the specific needs and interests of those people.
2. Form lead groups based on distinct characteristics and personalize your offer as much as possible.
3. Don’t add leads from different groups or locations to the same campaign. Target one customer profile or lead segment with each campaign.

Personalization

Email personalization is a must-have for good engagement and reply rates.

Avoid writing about yourself much – your email should be focused on the lead and their needs.

They will be more responsive when they hear about what you can do for them, not just what you can do in general.

Personalization method #1: Targeted value

The best personalization is offering your leads targeted value.

To provide value to them, know the issues they have and what metrics are important for them. 

The more value your offer carries for the specific person – the higher the chance of getting a response.

Here’s how to create a targeted value:

1. Identify your value proposition, or how you help prospects solve their problems.

2. Identify common problems or pain points within a particular lead group.

3. When making an offer, connect the dots – ensure that your value proposition aligns with the needs of the leads.

This way, even if you send the same offer to 100 leads, your email will be targeted.

Personalization method #2: Unique personalized lines

Here’s another good method: begin your emails with a unique lead-focused sentence.

Research the lead: visit their LinkedIn or website and try to find anything personal or relevant to them or their company.

Try to open with personalized lines such as, “Heard about your recent promotion …” or “ Your company’s latest launch is a success…”

1. The minimum you should always do is personalize your emails with {{first_name}} or {{company_name}} variables.
2. Make your offer appealing to the specific people you’re contacting.
3. To create even more personal emails, research your leads and use personalized one-liners.

Scheduling emails

Your emails will get more replies if they are read at the right time.

Use scheduling in campaigns to send emails at optimal times and automatically pause during inactive hours. 

Align the sending window with when prospects are likely to notice and respond—during their working hours.

Choose the appropriate time zone for their location (e.g., (GMT+8) for leads in Singapore).

1. Review your campaign schedule.
2. Adjust sending hours and time zone accordingly.
3. Experiment with various timings, including morning, afternoon, evening, and different weekdays (Mon-Fri or Tue-Thu).

Adding value with a follow-up email

Every email campaign should include a follow-up because there’s a chance the initial email will be ignored.

To improve your chances, ensure that your follow-up emails aren’t just reminders—they should offer additional value.

1. With each follow-up, try to add more value or share something relevant that might interest them.
2. Emphasize benefits and elaborate on the potential that your offer brings.
3. Maintain the level of personalization in each follow-up email, keep it consistent with the opening email.
4. Spread out your follow-ups by adding delays of 2-3 days between each email.

Using call to action

Don’t anticipate prospects clicking links (such as a calendar invite or website link) as the next step after reading your email.
A more effective strategy is to end your emails with a question that encourages a response.

Ask open-ended questions to start a conversation and confirm their interest, rather than inserting links as your primary call-to-action.

Even if the answer is “No,” it’s better for your sender reputation than receiving no response at all.

1. Can I provide additional information?
2. Would you like me to share a Loom video for more details?
3. Please reply with “Yes” for more info or “No” if it’s not the right time.
4. Can I share a link that explains how it all works?
5. Let me know if this sounds like something you’re interested in?

Optimizing and testing your email copy

How you write your emails affects reply rates – short and “to the point” emails tend to get more responses.

Optimal email length is around 80-100 words. If you need a longer, more detailed email, limit it to no more than 300 words.

Don’t add many links and images, – only when they serve a purpose.

1. Write emails using a conversational tone and follow best practices.
2. Make sure that the email’s text and content clearly convey your offer.
3. Create email copy variations where you change one email component.
4. Do A/B tests to see what makes a difference and resonates better with your audience.

Read more email content related tips here → 

Ending communication

In cold emails, the goal is to make the most of every situation, even if the prospect isn’t interested in your offer.

1. Make sure to include an easy unsubscribe option—this is a must-have to reduce spam complaints.
2. Ask prospects to respond and let you know if they are not interested. Even a “No” response is a plus for your sender reputation. Don’t send emails again to the contacts who unsubscribed or who showed no interest.
3. If a prospect unsubscribes via the link, Snov.io will never send campaigns to them again.
4. If they asked you to opt out in writing or there was no engagement after a few follow-ups, add such contacts to the Do-not- email list.

If you have a question that we haven’t covered, feel free to reach out to our Customer Care team. You can contact us at help@snov.io or through live chat. We’re here to assist you!