Email marketing is the bread and butter for many brands that have figured out how to use it to grow their customer base. It’s the ideal tool for growing relationships with your current customers and nurturing leads into paying clients.
However, there’s another way you can use email to grow your business – cold emailing. This is when you reach out to prospects via email in the hopes of earning their business. Now, there are various methods and tactics you can use to increase open rates and replies.
But that’s for another article. Here, we’re going to focus on the tools you should be using for your cold emailing.
Let’s review.
Reply.io
There’s a lot to like about the Reply.io platform, which comes packed with all the bells and whistles you’ll need for managing your customer interactions. And while the price is steep compared to other platforms, you may find it’s well worth it.
It comes with host features, which include email automation, email validation, direct calls, CRM integrations, analytics and tracking, Gmail integration and contact management, to name a few. There are also email templates you can customize to match the look and feel that best resonates with your audience.
You can easily track when contacts open your emails and click on the links inside. The stats are very helpful in finding which leads are warming up and which aren’t. You can use this data for your segmented campaigns to see why certain emails work better than others.
The price for this platform is $70 per user for the individual plan. Then for business plans, it begins at $200/mo for small teams up to 3 members, $300/mo for teams up to 5 members, and $500/mo for teams up to 10 members.
There are also custom plans available for enterprises, which you’ll have to contact them about.
Hunter
Hunter is a go-to tool when it comes to lead generation via cold emailing. Hunter offers a suite of tools that help you with cold outreach on every stage of the funnel. You can find and verify emails, and send highly personalized cold email campaigns from the same place.
It doesn’t matter whether you have your own prospects or if you found some with Hunter, you can use their tool called Hunter Campaigns for cold outreach automation absolutely free.
With Hunter Campaigns you can fully personalize your emails at scale with custom attributes, set up and schedule your follow-ups, track the performance of your outreach campaigns, use a free library of hundreds of cold emails to get insights for your email sequences.
You can link multiple Google accounts to the same Hunter account which allows you to send emails directly from your Gmail. Besides that, you can set up multiple integrations with Zapier in case you want to track responses and other specific details about your negotiations with your CRM, Google Sheets, etc.
Hunter Campaigns is absolutely free for those who use one Gmail account for email sending, most of the features are available in the free plan. The Premium version, which includes multiple Google accounts, click tracking, and images and attachments in emails, start at $49/mo.
Slintel
Slintel’s sales intelligence platform lets you capture contact information (emails + phone numbers) of your top 3% of prospects that are actively looking for a product/service like you’re selling.
Slintel offers a database of 15 million companies and 250+ million decision-makers profiles across the world and also 20+ powerful filters that help in filtering prospects based on industry, company size, technologies they are using, department, decision-making power, and designation.
Apart from emails and phone numbers, you also get company data, technographics, buying intent score, keyword intent, contract renewal dates, and news alerts of prospects’ companies.
The technographic data help you find your competitor’s customer base, alternative technologies and devise (or restart) account-based marketing strategies for your business.
Slintel also has a chrome extension that lets you capture emails+phone numbers from LinkedIn profiles or websites and push them to your CRM seamlessly. You get 100 free credits when you sign up for the extension.
Warmup Inbox
Imagine spending countless hours working on an email marketing campaign just for those emails to land in the recipient’s spam folder. Warmup Inbox is an email warming tool that automatically increases email deliverability rates and domain reputation while decreasing the likelihood of your inbox and domain being added to any blacklists or deactivated for suspicion of spam.
Warmup Inbox sends and receives smart dynamic emails on your behalf with a network of over 7,000+ inboxes talking to each other. Warmup Inbox will also monitor blacklists for you and pull your emails out of spam if they land there. Keeping track of the health and ongoing progress of your inbox is critical to maintaining high deliverability rates, so a live performance tracker is also provided. You’re guaranteed to increase email deliverability on your cold emails when synced with Warmup Inbox
Klenty
This platform is a little easier on the wallet, depending on the plan you go with. The features are exceptional and the ease of use really makes this stand out. The setup is complete within minutes and you can begin sending bulk emails right away.
The software features A/B testing to help you improve your cold emailing game. You’re also able to track each of your prospects. There’s even duplicate and collision detection to ensure there are no duplicate contacts and that your team doesn’t accidentally contact the prospect simultaneously.
The system also easily integrates with your CRM, such as Salesforce or Pipeline to import and export contacts easily.
The pricing begins with $30 for the tall package, $60 for the grande, and $100 for the venti.
SalesHandy
When you are putting so much effort order to write and communicate through cold emails, you expect it to get delivered efficiently and track the results. SalesHandy does that job for you. It will help you track your emails, campaigns, and analyze them. Also, in order to make your task even easier, it has an email scheduling, auto follow-up as well as an email sequencing feature it.
This gives your hardworking managers more time to work on closing deals as they are spending less trying to gauge the most engaged contacts from their cold emailing campaign. Their basic plan starts at 9$ per month (if paid annually) and has a free trial for the same for 14 days. Their Plus plan starts at 22$/user/month, while their Enterprise plan starts at 49$/user/month, both are billed yearly.
Mailshake
Here’s a great platform you can use to “shake” things up a bit with your cold emailing campaigns. It’s a content marketing tool you can use to get in touch with prospects via email.
Unlike with many other email marketing tools, Mailshake allows you to send cold emails from a Gmail address. Of course, it’s all automated, so you can set and forget it, so scheduling cold emails and follow-up emails are seamless.
And if you’re worried about the email designs, you’ll be happy to know it comes with simple and customizable templates. All of your contacts can be easily imported and exported as well. Then you can easily keep track of your emails and the interactions your prospects have with them.
Some of the integrations for this include Gmail, Zapier, Google Sheets, HubSpot CRM, and Pipedrive. The features available include link tracking, flexible API, A/B testing, and conversion tracking.
You can also use this tool to identify which prospects are the most promising. Both iOS and Android devices can be used.
The price for the basic plan is $29/mo and $49 for the pro.
If you’re unsatisfied with the product within the first 30 days, you can get your money back, so it’s definitely worth a try.
Prospect.io
Prospect.io (as the name hints) allows you to find your ideal prospects online and reach out to them, all within a single tool. This carrot-themed software comes up with a handy browser extension you can take to any professional website or LinkedIn profile, and automatically place your fresh prospect’s email address and other information in the automated and personal cold emailing campaign.
Aside from this, there are many interesting native integrations with popular tools such as Pipedrive or Salesforce and many more thanks to Zapier and PieSync support. Every action in Prospect consumes credits, and you can adjust the amount to your needs. The pricing starts from $99/mo for an account with 1000 credits.
While there is no free trial, Prospect offers a 30-day money-back guarantee without questions asked, so it’s definitely taking the pressure out of choosing your new outbound sales tool.
Autoklose
Autoklose is an outbound sales platform that’s well-rounded. It comes with features you can use for lead generation, drip email campaigns, and CRM integration.
Like Mailshake, this platform allows you to send bulk emails using your email address. This prevents your messages from showing up in the SPAM folders of your contacts.
You can create auto follow-up emails to help nurture your cold emails into warm communications. Plus, it ranks contacts to identify which leads are hot or cold based on their interactions with your emails.
It’s a fairly new platform so it’s expected to have some wrinkles that should get ironed out over time.
You can integrate Autoklose with Salesforce, third-party providers, and various email platforms.
The pricing for this cold emailing tool comes in three different packages. There’s the pro plan that starts at $29.99/mo. Then there are the team and enterprise plans, which require a direct quote from the company.
There’s a free trial that lasts for 14 days as well.
Lemlist
As a busy entrepreneur, you want to spend more time running your business and less time marketing it. This is what makes email marketing tools a must-have. Lemlist is an excellent platform to use for cold email campaigns because it’s seamless and user-friendly.
It’s not a jack-of-all-trades like many tools are trying to be. It specializes in cold emailing, providing you with all the features needed to achieve the best results. You’ll find the dashboard is very intuitive.
It’s broken into sections with filters and menus to make everything quick and easy to find. The organization is superb, which takes the headache out of integrating a new tool into your arsenal.
Some of its features include reporting and analytics, drip campaigns, event-triggered emails, image library, A/B testing, dynamic content, template management, growth forecasts, and lead tracking.
The fees for this platform are also a big win, starting at $19/mo for a single user. Then for teams up to five, it’s $34/mo and $69/mo for enterprises with up to 10 users.
Outreach.io
Now, if you’re looking for something that does a little more than offer cold emailing features, then you’ll like Outreach.io. This platform combines voice, email, and social into a neat package for your sales and marketing teams.
It comes with cloud, web, and SaaS deployment. Its features include intelligent automation, reply detection, custom schedules, A/B testing, tailored messaging, and master sequences.
Even better, you can call your contacts right through the platform. This may come in handy when you get an email from an interested lead.
If you’re looking for a tool that’s flexible and you’re willing to learn its operations, it can be a very powerful addition to your strategy.
The developer doesn’t offer pricing details so you’ll have to contact them to get a quote. However, there’s a free trial you can take advantage of to test it out.
QuickMail
If you’re just starting entrepreneurship, almost any of the tools on this list will do. But if you have a need for more advanced customizations or more visibility when managing multiple accounts, you’re going to need something a bit more powerful and that’s when QuickMail comes in handy. It offers a wide variety of metrics and features to maximize the visibility & performance of your campaigns, while fully automating all your team workflows.
They have quite a few agencies managing more than 100 client accounts with them, so they are definitely doing something right. What’s unique with them is the ability to create incredibly complex campaigns to be carried out simply & efficiently. Plus they also have some cool unique features (like referencing colleagues automatically in your email). Definitely worth a shot.
Close.io
If you’re looking for a cold emailing platform that’s received raving reviews, then Close.io is the one you want to consider. This cloud-based platform is available for both Mac and Windows and even offers training.
You can read through the documentation available or opt to watch webinars and attend live online videos. This software is very flexible and can be easily customized. The setup is also quick and simple.
Some of the features it comes with are one-touch communication, personalized templates, email scheduling, real-time reporting, and customer interaction history. Close.io gets consistent 4- and 5-star ratings for its long list of features.
The basic package starts out at $65/mo, then goes up to $110/mo for the professional package, and $165/mo for the business package. However, you can save 10% by paying annually. There’s also a 14-day free trial.
OutreachPlus
OutreachPlus is an email marketing software that ensures all your emails that are sent to capture the attention of prospects are reverted with positive replies.
There are multiple features offered by OutreachPlus that can help you conduct efficient email actions such as simple personalization touch for each email, email campaign templates, easy creation of email campaigns with 4 easy steps, smart automation to detect prospect behavior, and more. You can also integrate it with top tools.
From providing 24/7 support via multiple support mediums to having a dedicated list of prospect management, OutreachPlus is a perfect solution for those brands who are expecting better results via email marketing.
OutreachPlus offers a free trial for the first 14 days. Its paid subscription plans start from $11 a month.
Woodpecker
Another tool for sending cold email campaigns is Woodpecker.co. The tool is designed specifically for that — sending cold emails and follow-ups. It sends them from your own email account, be it on Gmail, Office365, Exchange, or your individual IMAP. You can tweak the schedule of your sending for it to be sent at the right time. Woodpecker.co has an easy UI, even for those who are completely new to cold email. There are some default custom fields for personalization like a company name, but you can add your custom ones too. It offers an agency panel designed for lead generation agencies that have to manage a lot of clients at the same time. It’s pretty convenient to have every client in one place. The pricing starts from $40 per month for one active email account, for bigger teams it’s $50 per account, and an agency panel’s price is negotiated individually. The trial at Woodpecker.co is again 14 days and you can test all the features while on trial.”
Turn Your Cold Emailing Into a Powerhouse with these Tools
Ready to ramp up your cold emailing efforts? Then you’re going to need the right tools to get the job done. Combining proven methods with high-rated platforms is a recipe for success. Check out this list of tools to see which you should empower your sales and marketing teams with.
Highly dedicated entrepreneur, co-founder of Poptin and Ecpm Digital Marketing. Nine years of experience in the digital marketing field and internet project management. Graduated with an Economics degree from Tel Aviv University.
A big fan of A/B testing, SEO and PPC campaigns’ optimization, CRO, growth hacking and numbers. Always loves testing new advertising strategies and tools, and analyzing the latest start-up companies.
