Cold Email Strategy that Works, Guaranteed

Do you get open percentages and reply rates like these from your cold email campaigns?

If you're not, but you're curious how you can, then read on.

I want to give a warning up front.

What I've written below is what built my business. This is stuff that I don't want everybody in the world to know - because it'll likely kill its effectiveness for my business - so I'm likely not gonna post it on Reddit, or LinkedIn, or anything like that.

This is info for you - people on my mailing list - because you trusted me enough to sign up.

So let's get to this.

If you're reading this, and you have a business, you probably have some thoughts about cold emailing as a lead gen tool.

You probably fall into one of the following buckets:

1. Cold emailing is spammy - when I get them, I delete them!

2. I've tried cold emailing. I've tried a couple templates, sent to a couple lists, and it never worked out for me.

3. Cold emailing works for my business. I use it, but am always looking for ways to improve.

4. I'm a cold emailing wizard - your kung fu is weak, Sensei Brad - begone!

If you fall in any of the above buckets, except you wizards in bucket 4, then I want you to consider what I've written below.

First, to address the 1st bucket, the people who think cold email is spam: yes, I agree.

If it's done wrong.

It's like the story the legend Dan Kennedy told about the Annoying Pest vs Welcome Guest.

One day, a guy jumped his gate to knock on his door. At first, Dan ignored him. The guy kept knocking. He ignored him more. Until he realized the guy wasn't going away. So he answered the door, and the guy says, "Sir, your hedges out front are on fire."

And at that moment, this Annoying Pest became a Welcome Guest.

He had an actual welcome message: right person, right message, right time.

If those things don't align, then yes, you're an Annoying Pest and cold emailing can be spammy.

But if the message you're sending is valuable to the people who you're sending it to, then you are a Welcome Guest.

So that's the first principle here - and it's not something that's easy to figure out. You will need to test your messaging and who you're sending to so you can find this right fit, and it's something I can talk more about in future letters.

But one of the hardest - but most important factor of success in cold emailing - is to put together a solid list.

How are you putting together your lists?

Scraping them?

Buying them from some lead provider?

How do you know anything about these leads?

What do you know about their proactive marketing efforts?

Are these questions you've wondered about?

Here's how I generate my lists: I go to podcasts.

Specifically, podcasts where my target audiences appear on.

I hire someone to go to these podcasts and in a spreadsheet put their name, their email, their business name and website, and the podcast they appeared on.

Then, I go through and find one or two valuable things about them that I will include in the email as some personalization - maybe one of the things the mentioned on their podcast, something new they're working on. I put this in the spreadsheet on their row.

Then I write the subject line, and it's very simple: "Your interview on (podcast)". That's it.

It works because they know they appeared on that podcast and it gets them to open it - that's the first step in this battle.

Now, the question is, what is your message to them?

I'll give you my best suggestions:

1. DON'T ask for an appointment or their time off the bat.

2. DO make it short - not more than 3-5 sentences.

3. DO have a soft call to action: "Is this something top of mind?" "Would it be helpful for us to send a sample?" "We have a case study from a client just like you, do you want to take a look?"

4. DON'T talk all about you - talk about them.

5. DON'T send 1000's of emails until you've tested your messaging and your list and get to numbers roughly what you see on my screenshot at the top of this newsletter.

6. DO send follow ups. 40%+ of my leads come from follow-ups.

If you follow what I've written above, you will succeed in cold emailing.

It's not a question of "if" - it's a question of "when" you succeed: and that all hinges on you.

If this was helpful and you want to read more of this sort of actionable advice, let me know. Any questions, reply to this and I'll help.

Keep kungfu fighting,

Sensei Brad