In 2024, cold outreach email campaigns are a crucial go-to-market strategy for marketing and sales teams. Businesses must find a way to perfect the art of outbound and learn to create compelling outbound emails to their ideal customers (ICPs). 

Cold email copywriting isn't easy. It requires understanding the target audiences' needs while developing concise language with a clear solution. 

 One of the critical elements that contribute to the success of an email campaign is the Call-to-Action (CTA). A well-crafted CTA prompts the reader to take the desired action, whether purchasing, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a resource. A well-executed CTA drives immediate responses and cultivates long-term relationships with your target audience.

In this article, we will explore the importance of CTAs in outbound emails and provide a step-by-step guide on how to write high-converting CTA copy.

Understanding the Importance of CTA in Outbound Cold Emails

The CTA can make or break your cold email campaigns. An excellent cold email campaign will be highly segmented based on prospective customers and, ideally, with a targeted prospect list you’ve developed. 

The target audience you aim for needs to be segmented, demonstrating a good fit for your outreach. To have high-converting cold emails, you need specific target audience segmentation, solid email subject lines, strong messaging in the email body, and a strong CTA. 

All are important. But if your CTAs are weak, you will get very low replies to your outreach.

Compelling CTAs are central to the success of outbound campaigns because they direct your audience to the action you need them to take. A well-crafted CTA can significantly impact the effectiveness of your outbound emails, increase engagement, and ultimately lead to better conversion rates.

Effective CTAs enhance cold emails that are aligned with best practices. Even if you use cold emailing tools, you’ll always need CTAs that are concise, action-oriented, and align with your email campaign’s overall objective. 

Defining Your Message 

Before crafting your CTA, it's essential to clarify the purpose of your email. Are you trying to drive sales or increase lead generation? Are you trying to recruit better prospects for a position through LinkedIn? By identifying the primary objective of your email, you can align your CTA with that objective and create a more focused and compelling message.

Understanding your target audience is also crucial when defining your email's purpose. For example, consider compliance considerations or the best time to send emails with your outbound outreach. Consider conducting market research or analyzing customer data to gain insights about your cold email strategy. To increase email conversion rates, you'll need to tailor your message to your audience to resonate with their needs and preferences, especially with your CTA. 

6 Elements of a High-Converting Call-To-Action 

Let's break down the 7 elements of a compelling Call to Action (CTA) that can help increase cold email conversion and email response rates, leading to successful cold email marketing campaigns. 

To create a high-converting CTA for prospective customers or recruits, it's important to understand the key elements that make it effective. These elements work together to ensure your CTA stands out and resonates with the reader.

Effective CTAs go beyond just a calendar scheduling link, question, or button in an email. Prospective customers may need an exhaustive blog post or a relevant case study for a conversation starter. Your cold email copywriting and CTAs should change depending on your email strategy. 

Here are the most important elements to help you structure your CTA to maximize its impact.

  1. Placement

  2. Clear 

  3. Urgent

  4. Short

  5. Valuable  

  6. A/B Testing  

1 ) Placement of Your CTA 

It is critical to consider the placement of CTAs so you don’t overwhelm your users with too many options. When incorporating them into cold emails, the best practice is only to have one CTA per email for a customer to respond to.  

It might seem simple, but often, when you write cold emails, you’ll be tempted to include CTAs early in the email. Traditionally, this is done at the end of any email with a question or link, requiring your reader to act and respond.

Hi {{prospect.first_name}},

I noticed {{company.name}}’s platform on LinkedIn a lot more lately, and I see massive potential for sharper, more impactful execution.

As a business consultant specializing in go-to-market strategies, I've helped similar companies in your industry optimize their approach. I can help {{company.name}} increase brand awareness and revenue growth.

Interested in a brief chat? 

Looking forward to it,

{{inbox.signature}}

2 ) Ensure Clarity With Your CTAs

 Start by identifying why you’re reaching out to a customer. Then, with a clear sense of the context, you can drive engagement by asking a follow-up question as the CTA. Writing your email and CTA with clarity encourages the reader to take immediate action and connect. 

Here’s an example: 

Hi {{prospect.first_name}},

I really enjoyed {{company.name}}'s latest podcast. I learned a lot and am eager to share some of your tips with my team.

I help companies turn their podcasts into white papers, blog posts, and short clips for social media to help maximize reach and impact. 

Interested in learning more?

Thanks,

{{inbox.signature}}

3 ) Create Urgency With Your CTAs 

Urgency is a powerful motivator in cold email copywriting. Most people don’t want to miss out on a special offer, a unique resource, or a significant meeting. Use time-limited offers, limited availability, or the fear of missing out to create a sense of urgency and increase your conversion rates. 

By tapping into human emotions and desires, you can create a sense of urgency and importance that compels your target audience to act. 

Here’s an example: 

Hi {{prospect.first_name}},

{{company.name}} is currently missing out on high-quality candidates. Most companies don’t know how to recruit vetted and highly experienced people for new job openings on LinkedIn. 

We’re running a free trial to help you find the people you’re looking for through the end of March. 

Want to discuss?

Thanks,

{{inbox.signature}}

4 ) Short CTAs Are Best 

Great CTAs are short. 

The CTA is the doorway your audience enters after you’ve delivered your message. At this point, your subject line has done the heaviest lifting for getting incredible open rates. 

Your CTA should be 3-5 words and no longer than 7. Ensure your email copy is personalized and contains a compelling narrative that connects the dots between your audience's needs and the service or product you offer. Then, end with a short CTA.

Here’s an example: 

Hi {{prospect.first_name}},

I saw you just recently joined {{company.name}} as {{prospect.role}}? Congratulations! 

I help {{prospect.role}}s quickly bring in more leads and revenue by accelerating your content with our SEO playbook. I’d love to help you bring more qualified traffic and book more meetings.  

Care to discuss?

Thanks

{{inbox.signature}}

5 ) Create Value With Your CTA 

When crafting a compelling call to action, consider using persuasive language that triggers a response, such as addressing a pain point or offering a solution to a common problem.

What value does your offer bring to them? How can you make it easy for them to respond? Is your goal to drive sign-ups, book a meeting through your calendar link, or get an email message response? 

By addressing these questions, you can tailor your CTA to resonate with the recipient and increase the likelihood of a positive response. Once you’ve briefly explained how to help your reader, use your CTA to connect to your reader's need or problem. 

Here’s an example: 

Hi {{prospect.first_name}},

Serving the Global 2000 {{industry}} sector with your platform is challenging. 

{{company.name}} stands ready to dominate this space with additional firepower. 

A custom account-based marketing (ABM) strategy could be your key to deeper connections and significant growth.

 We’ll do the heavy lifting and get you the right leads looking for a solution like yours. 

Want to see custom prospect lists?

Thanks,

{{inbox.signature}}

6 ) Testing Your CTAs

The best outbound campaigns have a reply rate of 25%. To get that to that level, you must regularly test your CTAs.. Experiment with new ones and test the current ones to see if they convert well over time. 

Once you have implemented your CTA in your outbound emails, it's important to measure its success and make necessary adjustments to improve its performance. A/B testing different CTAs can help you identify which resonate best with your audience and refine your approach for future campaigns. You should also consider when is the best time to send your emails. 

Over time, tracking the success of your Call-to-Action (CTA) is crucial in understanding how effective your email marketing efforts are. By analyzing key metrics such as click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate with cold email software, you can gain valuable insights into the impact of your CTA on your audience. These metrics provide concrete data on the performance of your CTA and can guide you in optimizing future campaigns.

Quickmail Analytics info

Ready To Get Started? 

Quickmail is a cold email software platform that makes it easy to start with cold email outreach and ensures best-in-class email deliverability. 

With Quickmail, you can implement, iterate, and launch emails at scale, ranging from cold email introductions to sales and automated follow-up emails. Scheduling automation makes it simple, and unified reply handling makes it scalable. You get more replies when you optimize outreach with the market's most advanced cold email analytics.

Whether you’re looking to increase lead generation, a recruiter looking to find new candidates, or a consultant looking for new work, you can start more conversations with QuickMail. 

Try Quickmail free today.