Positive reply
Definition
A positive reply is a response to a cold email that expresses interest in continuing the conversation, as opposed to an unsubscribe, an out-of-office, a referral to someone else, or a no.
A positive reply is a response to a cold email that expresses interest in continuing the conversation, as opposed to an unsubscribe, an out-of-office, a referral to someone else, or a no.
Every cold email program reports replies, and the word covers everything from "yes, let's talk" to "take me off your list." A reply rate that doesn't separate the two is a number that tells you nothing.
What counts as positive should be written down before the program starts, because the edge cases are where agencies and clients disagree. "Send me more information" is usually positive. "Not now, try me in Q2" is positive and gets logged with a date. "Talk to Rick, he handles that" is a referral, and it's positive if Rick fits the line. "We're all set" is a no, however politely it's phrased.
An example
A program gets 60 replies in a month. Twenty-two are unsubscribes or out-of-office. Twelve say no. Eight say "who is this." Eighteen say some version of "yes, when's good." The positive reply count is 18, maybe 20 if two of the "who is this" replies turn into conversations. Reporting 60 would be technically true and completely misleading.
How it's used
Positive replies per lead contacted is the reply-rate number worth comparing across programs. On our programs a positive reply that fits the qualification line becomes a lead, and the client sees every reply, positive and negative, so the count can be checked.
Related terms
Cold email reply rate · Lead qualification · Sales accepted lead (SAL) · Cold email follow-up
If you want this run for you, see our cold email agency.
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