Ask HN: how do cold calls/emails work for you?
20 comments
Probably because everyone is emailing them, and they can't keep up.
I have a way to describe this. I call it "they need everybody yet they need nobody".
They have decided that they would rather have contact from as many people as possible and be the filter that decides if what someone is offering (or wanting) is desirable to them or not.
The other side of this is (back in the day) people who would do a version of "serious inquiries only" which would surely scare off all but the hardiest people.
They have decided that they would rather have contact from as many people as possible and be the filter that decides if what someone is offering (or wanting) is desirable to them or not.
The other side of this is (back in the day) people who would do a version of "serious inquiries only" which would surely scare off all but the hardiest people.
I've found they can work well and are generally not despised in two situations: 1) if you're inviting someone to speak at an event, 2) if you're asking to interview them.
You're not guaranteed a "yes" by any means, but people generally seem to feel flattered by such requests, and I know people who've tried to increase their profiles in niches by attempting to interview many of the big names there.
I guess my hidden point is that if you want to achieve a business aim with cold calling and e-mailing, it might help to hang it off of something else that the callee might find desirable or at least non-annoying.
You're not guaranteed a "yes" by any means, but people generally seem to feel flattered by such requests, and I know people who've tried to increase their profiles in niches by attempting to interview many of the big names there.
I guess my hidden point is that if you want to achieve a business aim with cold calling and e-mailing, it might help to hang it off of something else that the callee might find desirable or at least non-annoying.
What you're really doing in those emails is making them about the recipient, not the sender and this is why they work.
wow, I kind of disagree. I don't know what businesses you've been in but I find that if you think your "business aim" is something that it "might" help to "hang off of something else the callee might find desirable" - then your approach is really tough.
Businesses exist because customers love paying them. There are few to no business aims that you could possibly fulfill without being inherently interesting to the people you're writing or being in touch with.
If you don't have an offering that is interesting, it's not that you should hang your offer on something that is of interest - it's that you need to fix your product/market fit!
That said, there are appropriate and inappropriate venues. As shown by my shopping habits, I love buying groceries, or paying for utilities - but that doesn't mean I'd like to see emails about either.
So I can see that you might have to overcome the limits of your channel. Overall, however, you should be able to find channels where your business aims align easily with what customers want.
Businesses exist because customers love paying them. There are few to no business aims that you could possibly fulfill without being inherently interesting to the people you're writing or being in touch with.
If you don't have an offering that is interesting, it's not that you should hang your offer on something that is of interest - it's that you need to fix your product/market fit!
That said, there are appropriate and inappropriate venues. As shown by my shopping habits, I love buying groceries, or paying for utilities - but that doesn't mean I'd like to see emails about either.
So I can see that you might have to overcome the limits of your channel. Overall, however, you should be able to find channels where your business aims align easily with what customers want.
In my main day to day business we do no outbound marketing or cold e-mailing/calling as we are overrun with business from companies who randomly find us. That said, if were to use outbound, I'd still come up with a separate, more intrinsically intriguing Thing™ to talk about than the nuts and bolts of the business.
In my original post, I was just pulling on experiences with ancillary projects, particularly content driven ones (e.g. interviews are a great way to launch a blog) or in my role as chair of a a commercial O'Reilly conference, where e-mailing potential speakers or inviting them to give interviews, etc, is a common technique that works well.
As ever, YMMV.
In my original post, I was just pulling on experiences with ancillary projects, particularly content driven ones (e.g. interviews are a great way to launch a blog) or in my role as chair of a a commercial O'Reilly conference, where e-mailing potential speakers or inviting them to give interviews, etc, is a common technique that works well.
As ever, YMMV.
The major part of my company prospective customers came from the web but I really want to tackle the outbound marketing/sales "mistery". They are two different beasts, we can close a USD 20K sale in less than two weeks in the first case but it can take months or years to close a sale with someone from an outbound channel.
Obviously if you are working for an O'Reilly conference the inbound flow can make you forget the other side of the problem. Our company participated in the MIT G-Lab program [1] to help us in the outbound part. They helped us a lot, mainly because they can interview prospective customers as MIT students and in this way people are less reluctant to talk.
[1] http://mitsloan.mit.edu/actionlearning/labs/g-lab-info-for-h...
Obviously if you are working for an O'Reilly conference the inbound flow can make you forget the other side of the problem. Our company participated in the MIT G-Lab program [1] to help us in the outbound part. They helped us a lot, mainly because they can interview prospective customers as MIT students and in this way people are less reluctant to talk.
[1] http://mitsloan.mit.edu/actionlearning/labs/g-lab-info-for-h...
> There are few to no business aims that you could possibly fulfill without being inherently interesting to the people you're writing or being in touch with.
If your marketing costs are low - like you only pay for hits or something - then you can afford to brute force the problem. Which is the underlying idea behind spam and door to door. Rather than solving the hard problem of how to identify the people who are likely to be interested in your product.
If your marketing costs are low - like you only pay for hits or something - then you can afford to brute force the problem. Which is the underlying idea behind spam and door to door. Rather than solving the hard problem of how to identify the people who are likely to be interested in your product.
I've never made a cold call but I've had 100% success with email in 2 scenarios:
1. I've just started a digital magazine with curated articles. I emailed 6 contributors (5 of whom had never heard of me) and just asked clearly and politely for permission to reprint their articles. I gave them the option to say yes or no. I used a similar flow for each but they were personal and focused on the reader.
2. I emailed the local Mac dealer to offer some webdev services (email marketing and SEO). Just as a test, really to validate cold email as a customer acquisition tactic. Again, it was all about the recipient. The polar opposite of the generic emails I get from Indian agencies every week.
There's a great I Love Marketing podcast that talks about a play they call "the cats whiskers". It's worth a listen if you plan to do cold emails. It's episode 24.
Actually, I just thought of a third -
My girlfriend is an artist and had gifted a painting to some friends for their wedding. They hung it prominently in their restaurant and had a few enquiries about it from their customers. They collected a few email addresses.
About a year later, my girlfriend decided to do a limited edition print run and sent 9 emails (just as a test really, to see if there'd be any takers).
Basically said "You saw my painting in Ord Ban. I'm doing a ltd edn print run. Send £100 to my paypal email if you'd like one". Next morning there was £700 in paypal which covered printing/shipping and a profit margin. Not 100% cold because the recipients had expressed an interest but there'd been no prior contact at all.
1. I've just started a digital magazine with curated articles. I emailed 6 contributors (5 of whom had never heard of me) and just asked clearly and politely for permission to reprint their articles. I gave them the option to say yes or no. I used a similar flow for each but they were personal and focused on the reader.
2. I emailed the local Mac dealer to offer some webdev services (email marketing and SEO). Just as a test, really to validate cold email as a customer acquisition tactic. Again, it was all about the recipient. The polar opposite of the generic emails I get from Indian agencies every week.
There's a great I Love Marketing podcast that talks about a play they call "the cats whiskers". It's worth a listen if you plan to do cold emails. It's episode 24.
Actually, I just thought of a third -
My girlfriend is an artist and had gifted a painting to some friends for their wedding. They hung it prominently in their restaurant and had a few enquiries about it from their customers. They collected a few email addresses.
About a year later, my girlfriend decided to do a limited edition print run and sent 9 emails (just as a test really, to see if there'd be any takers).
Basically said "You saw my painting in Ord Ban. I'm doing a ltd edn print run. Send £100 to my paypal email if you'd like one". Next morning there was £700 in paypal which covered printing/shipping and a profit margin. Not 100% cold because the recipients had expressed an interest but there'd been no prior contact at all.
Did you get a reply back form Mac dealer? Would love to see a sample text of the email you sent.
Receiving: I get a lot of mails from Indian companies for outsourcing work; I delete them. I sometimes get mails from EU freelancers; I don't delete them. So depending on the content they seem to work. Calls never work for me; if I see an unrecognized / blocked number i'm not answering.
Sending: works fine if you write a targeted mail / make a targeted call. In software consultancy my experience is that companies you call are more often than not looking for a new 'partner' to have software developed with as they will commonly rotate the companies they work with because the grass could be greener elsewhere. Same for products; if you have a good/better proposition of something they need or already have they'll want to listen.
I think cold whatever works unless it's perceived as spam. That's why you need to be careful in composing and timing such communication. For instance; it is 4.5 hours later in India, so i routinely get mails/calls from outsourcing companies at around 5-6 my time which is 9:30 for them. That is automatically spam to me; if you want to make me a business proposition, you have to do it on my time.
Sending: works fine if you write a targeted mail / make a targeted call. In software consultancy my experience is that companies you call are more often than not looking for a new 'partner' to have software developed with as they will commonly rotate the companies they work with because the grass could be greener elsewhere. Same for products; if you have a good/better proposition of something they need or already have they'll want to listen.
I think cold whatever works unless it's perceived as spam. That's why you need to be careful in composing and timing such communication. For instance; it is 4.5 hours later in India, so i routinely get mails/calls from outsourcing companies at around 5-6 my time which is 9:30 for them. That is automatically spam to me; if you want to make me a business proposition, you have to do it on my time.
I agree and the main problem with the received e-mails is lack of focus. For example, they offer me software development services when my company works on extremely challenging software issues.
The lesson is: before contacting people do your homework.
The lesson is: before contacting people do your homework.
This summer I did several hundred cold calls and several thousand cold emails.
On the sales front, I found emailing a much better use of time. While sales were marginally easier on the phone, getting the right people on the phone beyond difficult. And even when people agreed to chat - they often bailed last minute or never called me.
With emails I found two techniques -
For sales emails, I found the best response rates when I was the weirdest. For example, in a moment of exasperation after emailing the same guy 4 times (and getting no response), I wrote "Maybe you're like the wizard of oz, everyone lists you as a media contact, but you don't exist." I heard back within 30 minutes.
For intro cold emails, I found people incredibly receptive. The more specific the emails (specific to the person), and the more concise the email, the more warmly I was received. Perhaps common sense.
On the sales front, I found emailing a much better use of time. While sales were marginally easier on the phone, getting the right people on the phone beyond difficult. And even when people agreed to chat - they often bailed last minute or never called me.
With emails I found two techniques -
For sales emails, I found the best response rates when I was the weirdest. For example, in a moment of exasperation after emailing the same guy 4 times (and getting no response), I wrote "Maybe you're like the wizard of oz, everyone lists you as a media contact, but you don't exist." I heard back within 30 minutes.
For intro cold emails, I found people incredibly receptive. The more specific the emails (specific to the person), and the more concise the email, the more warmly I was received. Perhaps common sense.
Cold calling via phone is a not an effective use of a smaller team's time in my experience-- you will rarely reach the right person within an organization, there are lots of 'gatekeepers' for high level executives, and voicemails just don't generate responses. You can only make so many dials per day, and it is exhausting getting rejected all day. Where I've seen it become more effective is for larger inside lead gen teams for products like credit card terminals, or energy efficiency services where a quick pitch can be made to almost any business person who picks up the phone.
Email however, when done correctly (and legally!! don't spam!!) can be very effective. Instead of focusing on making a sale via an email, try instead to focus on getting a referral. Consider it a "win" when you get a referral to someone in the organization with whom you can have a "warm" conversation.
If you are honestly looking for feedback on your product/service, the sales will come. Your cold email will get forwarded to the right person and you can get some conversations started. For us, these campaigns have been extremely low cost and have yielded some great partnerships and repeat business in our niche industry.
A couple rules we laid down:
1. No attachments, no pricing, no selling
2. Make no more than two attempts over 30 day campaign
3. No more than 5-6 sentences with 1 embedded link and a clear request for a referral
Some recommended tools and resources include:
http://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices...
http://www1.toutapp.com/
http://www.data.com/
Email however, when done correctly (and legally!! don't spam!!) can be very effective. Instead of focusing on making a sale via an email, try instead to focus on getting a referral. Consider it a "win" when you get a referral to someone in the organization with whom you can have a "warm" conversation.
If you are honestly looking for feedback on your product/service, the sales will come. Your cold email will get forwarded to the right person and you can get some conversations started. For us, these campaigns have been extremely low cost and have yielded some great partnerships and repeat business in our niche industry.
A couple rules we laid down:
1. No attachments, no pricing, no selling
2. Make no more than two attempts over 30 day campaign
3. No more than 5-6 sentences with 1 embedded link and a clear request for a referral
Some recommended tools and resources include:
http://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices...
http://www1.toutapp.com/
http://www.data.com/
Agree with all you are saying above.
"Cold calling via phone is a not an effective use of a smaller team's time in my experience-- you will rarely reach the right person within an organization, there are lots of 'gatekeepers' for high level executives, and voicemails just don't generate responses."
Along these lines I'm amazed at the amount of times don't use postal mail to break the ice.
I don't mean a canned direct mail piece. I mean a personal letter, signed in ink, that makes the point.
With that their is no (direct) rejection and it's possible to send many at a very low cost (even if they don't end up in the right place).
"Cold calling via phone is a not an effective use of a smaller team's time in my experience-- you will rarely reach the right person within an organization, there are lots of 'gatekeepers' for high level executives, and voicemails just don't generate responses."
Along these lines I'm amazed at the amount of times don't use postal mail to break the ice.
I don't mean a canned direct mail piece. I mean a personal letter, signed in ink, that makes the point.
With that their is no (direct) rejection and it's possible to send many at a very low cost (even if they don't end up in the right place).
Really appreciated this info and will check out that book -- looks great.
As a biz dev guy for a web development company, the thing i'm struggling with is how to bank on cold-emailing as a sales approach when there is so much variability/unpredictability. Sure, someone might pass on your contact to a referral, etcetera, but i'm having a hard time justifying devoting so much time on an outbound marketing campaign a la cold emails when the results are scattershot. How does this low cost marketing campaign you speak of fit within the composition of the rest of your sales efforts?
As a biz dev guy for a web development company, the thing i'm struggling with is how to bank on cold-emailing as a sales approach when there is so much variability/unpredictability. Sure, someone might pass on your contact to a referral, etcetera, but i'm having a hard time justifying devoting so much time on an outbound marketing campaign a la cold emails when the results are scattershot. How does this low cost marketing campaign you speak of fit within the composition of the rest of your sales efforts?
I don't do it but I have friends who have built successful companies just because of cold calling. Their products and services are not unique or anything special but it works because they're not afraid of selling to strangers on the phone.
many times it gave me surprising (good) results...even when I cold emailed some "hot shots" (Guy Kawasaki, Fred Wilson, etc.)
Here's a great post I found by a seasoned entrepreneur about this: http://www.startupmoon.com/how-i-got-meetings-at-twitter-lin...
I also wrote about my experiences with cold emails: http://blog.jhaniv.com/cold-mails-to-hot-people
Here's a great post I found by a seasoned entrepreneur about this: http://www.startupmoon.com/how-i-got-meetings-at-twitter-lin...
I also wrote about my experiences with cold emails: http://blog.jhaniv.com/cold-mails-to-hot-people
I get sent emails from a guy offering to do web development work. He has emailed me a number of times but I have never met him, contacted him or communicated with him. Trouble is, he sent the same emails to a number of recently registered domains. All exactly the same. They arrived in my spam folder and then I delete them.
I also get telephone calls from people/business I've never contacted before. I get so many, I just let the machine deal with it.
You have to remember if you cold call or email, then you are just one of a number that people get every day at home or at work. They will assume its junk, spam or your selling something they don't need. The ideal way is to not to bother people with cold calling/emailing but rather be the person they are looking for. The solution to their need. The useful thing they don't know they want till they need it.
I am sure, cold calling, emailing works for some but for me I just ignore them and I believe many people do. May be different in Enterprise.
I also get telephone calls from people/business I've never contacted before. I get so many, I just let the machine deal with it.
You have to remember if you cold call or email, then you are just one of a number that people get every day at home or at work. They will assume its junk, spam or your selling something they don't need. The ideal way is to not to bother people with cold calling/emailing but rather be the person they are looking for. The solution to their need. The useful thing they don't know they want till they need it.
I am sure, cold calling, emailing works for some but for me I just ignore them and I believe many people do. May be different in Enterprise.
I'm pretty sure that OP was asking opinions of those who make calls, not those who receive them (as these are obvious).
I made the mistake several years ago.of subscribing to finance/technology magazines. I get an average of 2 cold calls per day as a result. Asking them to stop calling you doesn't work. The only thing I've found that succeeds is to tell obvious salespeople they have the wrong number. I really hate anyone that makes cold calls.
In my ye olde business days, I made the mistake of having my startup listed in a certain "yellow" directory here in the UK. As I used the same number for home and work (it was a low volume type business and YES I was stupid and I will never make that mistake again), I then got more businesses trying to sell me stuff then customers by a large margin.
I lost track of the large number of people who asked for the "Webmaster" or person who owns the website. That was in 2001/2002 and way before Google.
I lost track of the large number of people who asked for the "Webmaster" or person who owns the website. That was in 2001/2002 and way before Google.
Cold emailing has worked out well for me in a research context. I needed help and some leads from a couple archaeologists and linguists, reaching out directly, yet demonstrating knowledge of their research in the area worked out well. I'm not an archaeologist, myself, at the time I wasn't even with the Ronin Institute, I was just a Barista with an interest in their field, but each got back to me within 24 hours with the information I needed to move forward in my research.
Conversely, the cold emails I've received have always been very welcome, though I do encourage people to reach out to me for expert opinion or whatever else.
Finally, the cold phone calls I've received have always been a very negative experience for me. A lot of that is on me, but the immediacy of the phone is a major inconvenience most of the time, especially when there are so many time-delayed methods of robust communication now.
Conversely, the cold emails I've received have always been very welcome, though I do encourage people to reach out to me for expert opinion or whatever else.
Finally, the cold phone calls I've received have always been a very negative experience for me. A lot of that is on me, but the immediacy of the phone is a major inconvenience most of the time, especially when there are so many time-delayed methods of robust communication now.
I'm Director of Sales for an open source consulting company (EU based with a small staff here in the US) so I do this a lot. It really is a crap shoot. I get a quick response of some sort about 3/10 contacts. However I don't contact anybody unless I see something about their company that gives me a specific idea of where we might be able to help them. I never, ever call / email somebody for an appointment to learn more about business. I call because I noticed their website isn't responsive to mobile devices and 35% of their target market is mostly online via mobile devices, or their site is mostly flash, or I met an employee at a networking event who told me how much they all hate Sharepoint, or whatever.
That said, we just landed a new client that called me back out of the blue months after I initially contacted them. So you never know...
That said, we just landed a new client that called me back out of the blue months after I initially contacted them. So you never know...
It’s just like the saying at Harvard Business School - "Life is a cold call". I've definitely done a lot of cold emails (and still do today). As a matter of fact, my very first internship came from cold calling, it ultimately landed me a job on Wall Street, coming from a none-top tier school.
Cold emails have worked well for me for customer development and interviews (problem/solution interview. I'm following Ash Maurya's Running Lean approach.)
You can find tons of blog posts about cold emails with different techniques, etc. For me, I had some key takeaways. (FYI, I don't have any hard data to back my claims, only my experience and feelings.)
- If the market sees value in the problems or solutions that you're pitching, the market will respond.
- When I start my emails being open and giving about myself and background, I seem to get more responses. I usually open up with "Hi, my name is Minto. I'm a software engineer in Austin, TX, developing X."
- I'm very specific about the person's niche. ie. "I'm developing X for <Y niche>."
- My emails are very laid back and unpolished. I try to come off as informal as possible, as if I was writing to an old friend.
- I approach from a place of learning instead of selling. I think people, myself included, don't like being sold to, but like to help a fellow human being out. The fun and exciting thing is that if you hit on the interview with the right problems and solutions, you've pretty much sold them.
- I put a timeframe on my ask, "30 minute coffee", etc.
- Adding your social identity seems to help. I add a link to my LinkedIn profile in my signature. I can only imagine that this adds credibility and many people I email will ask to connect with me on LinkedIn.
- Referrals get high responses. Not really a cold email, but the technique of having a subject line of "Referred by X", gets a high response rate. I only do this if I was really given a referral by someone.
- Be short and sweet. I'm not a very verbose person as it is, but I think people will tend to read your emails if they're short.
I haven't done any cold calls yet, when I do, I would approach it in a similar way. I am pleasantly surprised at the responses I've gotten and the willingness of people to help.
You can find tons of blog posts about cold emails with different techniques, etc. For me, I had some key takeaways. (FYI, I don't have any hard data to back my claims, only my experience and feelings.)
- If the market sees value in the problems or solutions that you're pitching, the market will respond.
- When I start my emails being open and giving about myself and background, I seem to get more responses. I usually open up with "Hi, my name is Minto. I'm a software engineer in Austin, TX, developing X."
- I'm very specific about the person's niche. ie. "I'm developing X for <Y niche>."
- My emails are very laid back and unpolished. I try to come off as informal as possible, as if I was writing to an old friend.
- I approach from a place of learning instead of selling. I think people, myself included, don't like being sold to, but like to help a fellow human being out. The fun and exciting thing is that if you hit on the interview with the right problems and solutions, you've pretty much sold them.
- I put a timeframe on my ask, "30 minute coffee", etc.
- Adding your social identity seems to help. I add a link to my LinkedIn profile in my signature. I can only imagine that this adds credibility and many people I email will ask to connect with me on LinkedIn.
- Referrals get high responses. Not really a cold email, but the technique of having a subject line of "Referred by X", gets a high response rate. I only do this if I was really given a referral by someone.
- Be short and sweet. I'm not a very verbose person as it is, but I think people will tend to read your emails if they're short.
I haven't done any cold calls yet, when I do, I would approach it in a similar way. I am pleasantly surprised at the responses I've gotten and the willingness of people to help.
Your approach would definitely work with me. (Side note: very off-put on Ash Maurya's page by the autoplaying video, so I immediately closed it. But I'm guessing it converts better for him.)
Your approach answers the following questions in the recipients mind:
* why is this person contacting me?
* what is it going to cost me (time/money/etc.)?
* what's in it for me?
* is this some sort of scam?
[edit: formatting]
Your approach answers the following questions in the recipients mind:
* why is this person contacting me?
* what is it going to cost me (time/money/etc.)?
* what's in it for me?
* is this some sort of scam?
[edit: formatting]
I've had some success with cold calls.
I'm uncomfortable with the scattergun approach, so I research the business before calling and use LinkedIn to see who I should be talking to. I use the call to ask them about pain points, and while talking try to figure out a solution tailored for that individual.
This takes much more time per prospect than cold emailing or phoning through a list, but figuring out something for each target already narrows the field down a lot and increases your chances.
I'm uncomfortable with the scattergun approach, so I research the business before calling and use LinkedIn to see who I should be talking to. I use the call to ask them about pain points, and while talking try to figure out a solution tailored for that individual.
This takes much more time per prospect than cold emailing or phoning through a list, but figuring out something for each target already narrows the field down a lot and increases your chances.
I use LinkedIn InMail to pass spam filters and it works in the ~15% of the cases. This means having an interaction.
The messages are very focused and I study people (LinkedIn/Blogs/etc) one by one.
Do you prefer to receive an e-mail than a LinkedIn introduction? personally I don't care where the message is coming assuming the proposal was directed to me and can be of value.
The messages are very focused and I study people (LinkedIn/Blogs/etc) one by one.
Do you prefer to receive an e-mail than a LinkedIn introduction? personally I don't care where the message is coming assuming the proposal was directed to me and can be of value.
If you do a lot of cold calls our beta app might help you track and manage them... check this out: http://www.getinch.com
Not very well.
We have had some success with them.
[deleted]
Ironically enough, the guys who sign their blog posts with "what do you think", "drop me a line", "I'm always available on email" etc, are usually the guys who never reply :-)