It's time to level up your cold email game. In this blog post, we'll dive into the art of crafting the perfect cold email as a recruiter. From finding the right prospects to writing irresistible subject lines, we'll cover everything you need to know to boost your response rates and land top clients for your recruitment agency. 

So, let's get started and turn those cold emails into warm leads!

What is cold emailing?

Cold emailing is the practice of sending an unsolicited email to someone you’ve never interacted with before. 

The email is considered "cold" because there’s no prior connection or warm introduction. The recipient isn’t familiar with you, your content, or your brand, and has likely never engaged with you in any capacity. 

It’s an outreach method used to initiate contact and start a conversation, typically for business or recruitment purposes and studies show that it’s one of the most effective ways of getting your offer in front of the right people.

Benefits of cold emails in recruitment

Recruiters often rely on job boards, LinkedIn, and referrals to find candidates. But cold email outreach is a powerful strategy as: 

It’s extremely cost-effective

Cold emailing is a much more affordable and scalable option than sending clients and candidates LinkedIn InMails. A single InMail these days costs a whopping $10, while emails are completely free. Sure, you'll need to set up a system first, but you can reach out to potential candidates and clients without breaking the bank.

It’s the best way to get in front of prospects

While the average worker receives an average of 121 emails daily, cold emails have a 23.9% open rate. This means there's a good chance your message will be seen by the right hiring managers if you have a solid strategy and are persistent.

7 steps to setting up a cold email strategy

1. Buy a new domain

You’ll need a fresh email domain to start cold emailing at scale. Email providers have a reputation system that determines if emails land in inboxes or spam folders.

Using your company domain is way too risky. If something goes wrong, like your emails getting flagged for spam, it can damage your business' reputation.

Buy a new company domain similar to your existing one to avoid any confusion. Instead of using your main company domain (like recruitingrockstars.com), buy similar domains with a different ending (.io, .co) or add a few words (startrecruitingrockstars.com).

Once you have the new domain, simply set up your email address there just like you did with your main one.

You can buy a new domain on sites like:

• Godaddy

• Namecheap

• Squarespace

2. Warm up your emails

It's easy to get excited and start sending cold emails right away. But if your email address suddenly goes from a few emails a day to a couple hundred, email providers will flag it as spam – especially if you're using a new email address or domain. 

To avoid this, it's best to warm up your email address 2 months before you start sending cold emails. I know that sounds like an eternity but you want to get it right so you don’t have to start the process all over again

You could warm up your email manually by sending 10-20 emails per day to trusted email domains or personal addresses or, you can summon the help of AI and automation tools to do this for you (cause which recruiter has time to do anything manually anymore, right?)

Some particularly helpful tools to warm up your email domains are:  

• Mailwarm

• Warmupinbox

• Mailivery

3. Build your prospect list

The key to a successful cold emailing campaign is sourcing the right data. While your email list is getting warmed up, make sure you’re consistently adding relevant contacts to your CRM.

To get the best data, use Juicebox AI, a powerful AI-powered talent-sourcing platform designed to help recruiters find top talent as well as their dream clients. It uses advanced algorithms to search through massive amounts of data, including professional profiles, technical websites, and published papers, to identify ideal candidates for specific roles and prospects to contact.   

Think of Juicebox as a supercharged search engine specifically built for recruiting. It can help you find passive candidates, build diverse pipelines, and source the email addresses of nearly any prospective hiring manager on the web.

4. Check your sender reputation 

Before sending emails, it's crucial to assess your sender reputation. You can use one of the warm-up tools we mentioned above to check how well email providers are receiving your domain.

If your reputation is neutral, that's a good sign. However, you should probably monitor it every couple of months to ensure it remains positive.

5. Know your limits

Knowing your email provider's limits is crucial for effective cold emailing. Different providers have different restrictions on daily sending volumes, bounce rates, and other factors. If you exceed certain limits, your emails can be flagged as spam or your account can be suspended.

Here are the sending limits of some popular email providers

A Google Workspace email: 2000 emails per day.

A personal Gmail account: 500 emails per day

Outlook: Daily recipients: 5000, maximum recipients per message: 500

6. Test for spam

Ready for a dry run? Try one of these tools that will test your email for spam:

• Mail-Tester

• Mail Genius

• Mailercheck

In there, you'll find a unique email address specifically for testing. Simply send your draft cold email to that address using the same email address you plan to use for your actual outreach.

7. Craft your cold email

Okay, so you've got your target audience, your email address is all warmed up, and you're ready to hit send. But before you dive in, let's make sure your message is something a hiring manager would open and respond to. 

Here are a few tips:

Do your homework

Before reaching out, dig deep into the hiring manager's background. Learn about their company, recent projects, and the challenges they might be facing. 

Focus on your subject line

You only have one chance to make a good first impression – 64% of recipients decide to open or delete emails based on subject lines. So make sure you give it some thought. 

Here are a few proven subject lines: 

Highlighting a specific benefit: 'Increase your dev headcount by 20% from our database’

Personalizing the message: 'I noticed you're hiring for [Job Title]. We’ve just placed a candidate at {Competitor}’

Piquing curiosity: 'We have the perfect candidate for [Job Title]. Have a look at their resume'

Also, make sure the subject line is no more than 90 characters.

Keep it short

Hiring managers are as busy as recruiters. They don’t have time to read long emails. Aim to keep your cold emails between 100-150 words. Use bullet points or short paragraphs to make the content easy to scan.

Highlight your value prop

Set yourself apart by highlighting your unique strengths, such as your specific industry knowledge or innovative sourcing techniques. Always back up your claims with solid data. For example, quantify your value by sharing your average time-to-fill or placement success rate. 

Use Social Proof

Mentioning well-known clients, successful placements, or your company’s industry reputation builds trust. For example, “We’ve helped place top Machine Learning Engineers at [notable companies] and would love to achieve the same success with you.”

Timing matters

Send your cold emails at times when hiring managers are more likely to be on their laptops checking emails. According to a 2022 report by Litmus, these are the best times to send cold emails: 

USA: 11 am

Canada: 10 am

Germany: 10 am

UK: 10 am 

Australia: 11 am

Spain: 10 am

Personalize as much as possible

Personalized emails are 6 times more likely to be opened than generic non-personalized ones. Go beyond just using the client’s name. 

Reference specific details about the company, the roles they’re hiring for, and recent achievements. Prove to them that you’ve done your research. 

Always add a CTA at the bottom of the email

Make it easy for the recipient to take the next step. End your email with a direct and actionable call to action.

Use automation

Leverage automation for efficiency, but don't let it compromise personalization. CRMs can automate follow-ups and track metrics, freeing up your time. Using Juicebox’s Email Outreach feature, you can personalize your messages at scale using AI commands, eliminating the tradeoff between large reach and personalization.

Create follow-up sequences

Don’t rely on just one email. It now takes as many as 8 points of contact to make a sale. Develop a thoughtful follow-up strategy, sending a few reminders if you don’t get a response within a few days. A sequence of a few follow-up emails works well:

• Follow-up 1: A “Did you see my email” type of follow-up. 

• Follow-up 2-3: Reinforce the value and remind them about the opportunity.

• Follow-up 4-5: Add a different angle, such as highlighting an achievement of yours and how you’d like to do the same with them

• Follow-up 6-7: Create a sense of FOMO if they were to use another recruiter or agency.

• Follow-up 8: A “last chance” message or an option to opt-out.

Always include an unsubscribe option

Even in recruiting emails, offering an opt-out link is crucial. It not only ensures compliance with legal regulations (like GDPR or CAN-SPAM) but also helps you maintain a positive brand image.

Test and reiterate when needed

Don't just stick with the same old email routine. Try out a few different styles, like subject lines, calls to action, and email lengths. It’s a continuous process.  

Cold email metrics to track

Track these metrics, and you'll have the tea on your email game. No need for a psychic medium – just some cold hard data.

Open rate

Open rate tells you how many people actually saw your email. A low open rate means your subject line might be a snoozefest or you're sending to the wrong crowd. Bottom line: Only people who open your emails will read what's inside.

Response rate

Response rate is a key metric to track when you want to know exactly how effective your cold email campaigns are. It measures the percentage of recipients who actively respond to your email, whether it's through a reply, a click, or a scheduled meeting.

Conversion rate

Conversion rate is a crucial metric to track when evaluating the effectiveness of your cold email campaigns. It measures the percentage of recipients who take a desired action, such as scheduling a meeting, signing up for a demo, or making a purchase.

Bounce rate

Bounce rate actually refers to the percentage of emails that were not delivered to recipients due to reasons like invalid email addresses, full inboxes, or server issues.

You can track these metrics using your CRM or email-sending tools.

FAQs

What is email warm-up? 

Email warm-up is like training your email account. It involves sending and receiving emails within your network to build trust with email providers. This helps your emails land in inboxes instead of spam folders.

Where can I find the email addresses of hiring managers?

You can use many contact-finding tools to find the email addresses of hiring managers. One particular tool that stands out is Juicebox AI, a powerful AI-powered talent-sourcing platform designed to help recruiters find top talent as well as their dream clients.

The platform uses advanced algorithms to search through massive amounts of data to find the perfect person all without needing a Boolean search.  

How long should a cold email be?

Don't overload recipients with information. A short and sweet email is more effective at starting a conversation. Aim for 100–140 words in total. 

What’s a good success rate for cold emails? 

Open rate: Aim for 10-15%.

Click-through rate: A decent range is 5-10%.

Response rate: 2-5% is solid.

So if you send 1,000 emails, you might get:

• Opens: 100-150 (10-15%)

• Clicks: 50-100 (5-10%)

• Responses: 20-50 (2-5%)

Are there any legal considerations when sending cold emails?

Yes, when sending cold emails, it’s important to comply with local regulations like the CAN-SPAM Act (in the U.S.) or GDPR (in the EU). These laws typically require you to:

• Have a clear opt-out mechanism (e.g., an unsubscribe link)

• Honest sender information

How can I improve my response rate?

• Personalize each email, addressing the candidate’s specific skills and experience

• Keep the message short and to the point

• Use a strong call to action, like asking a question or suggesting a brief call

• Experiment with different subject lines and email templates to see what resonates most with your audience

• Ensure your email offers clear value, whether it’s a hot candidate, industry insights, or networking.

How do I track the success of my cold email campaigns?

You can track the success of your cold email strategy by monitoring metrics such as:

• Open rate: The percentage of people who open your email

• Response rate: The percentage of people who reply

• Click-through rate (if you include links)

• Conversion rate: The number of people who take action (e.g., schedule an interview). Using email tracking tools or CRM software can help you analyze and optimize these metrics.

How do I avoid my cold emails being marked as spam?

• Use a professional email address and signature

• Avoid using too many links, attachments, or promotional language

• Ensure the email content is relevant and personalized

• Test your email deliverability using tools to check your sender reputation

• Make it easy for recipients to unsubscribe

Now that you have the tools and knowledge to create effective cold emails, it's time to put them into action. 

Happy emailing!