Episode 22: 5 Questions with Ollie Whitfield

Ollie Whitfield, Product Marketing Manager @ VanillaSoft, sits down with the UNSUBSCRIBE team to talk about cold email. Email send rates are at all-time highs. Engagement rates are at all-time lows. And while we can attribute that to a bigger and more systemic issue, we can also attribute it to poor email processes and best practices. We know that not every template or subject line will make sense for every industry or vertical, but there are things that SDRs can control across the board to help improve deliverability and engagement. Ollie dove into a ton of data on cold emails, and he was able to pull out some great metrics and best practices. We start by looking at this on a high level, and then we dive into some granular details to help you write better cold emails. The Questions 👇 Before you dove into the data, what was your take on cold email as it is now? Generally good or bad? Why? Before we can even get to the email, we have to think about the subject line. Without it, you aren’t intriguing your prospect to open your message. And across all industries, one thing you can control for is length. What did you find to be the ideal length of a subject line? Nobody wants to read an essay in their inbox. I’m of the opinion that short and sweet emails perform better - and like subject lines, length is something all reps can control for. What does the data say? What’s the ideal length of a cold email? Timing in sales is crucial. The best value prop in the world is useless if your prospect never sees it. So what’s the best day to send out an email? And what about the time of day? Obviously, you can’t take this data as gospel. It’s not set in stone, but they’re good benchmarks to work off. And after combing through all of this data, if you ‘normalize’ it against a control group, what’s the biggest takeaway you had? Basically, what are people not doing that they should be?