How do you make a success of your prospecting email (with free prospecting email examples)?

In an ever-changing and increasingly connected world, companies need to keep up with these changes in order to remain competitive. While contacting prospects by telephone was the norm just a few years ago, email has now become the preferred channel. According to a study by Rain Group, 8 out of 10 buyers prefer to be contacted by email, compared with one in two by telephone.

Despite strong interest in email, email prospecting can be very complicated. After analyzing 12 million outreach emails, Backlinko and Pitchbox found that more than 90% are ignored. As a marketer, you need to write an email that stands out from the many others in your prospect's inbox.

Email prospecting works, provided it's used appropriately. Let's take a look at what email prospecting is, what tips you need to write the perfect email, and how to offer email prospecting examples.

Introduction to email prospecting

What is a prospecting email?

Email prospecting is a marketing strategy that involves sending an email to a potential customer or client with the aim of generating leads, nurturing relationships, and ultimately converting prospects into customers.

In concrete terms, the main objective of email prospecting is to obtain a response from the prospect to start a conversation that will lead to conversion.

Today, there are two approaches to email prospecting in B2B: cold outreach and warm outreach. 

Cold outreach

Cold outreach involves contacting customers for whom there is no current relationship with the company. As a means of mass communication, the emails sent will have a generic approach, often relying on templates, an impersonal tone, and a vast, unsegmented database. This technique saves a lot of time, but on the other hand, the open and response rates are much lower. Some customers may even consider this method as intrusive or spam.

A much-used means of communication in the 2000s, it is now recognized that e-mail personalization and segmentation deliver far better results, leading marketing experts to move away from this method.

Warm outreach

Warm outreach is the process of sending emails to potential customers who have already established some form of relationship and shown some interest in the company. For example, they may have signed up for a newsletter, or downloaded a specific brochure.

With the information previously gathered by the company, it is possible to send more targeted and personalized emails. Unlike cold outreach, this approach favors quality over quantity, and delivers far superior results.