A coaching client came to me recently to review their cold outreach strategy. They were sending cold emails, dm’s on social, and cold calling businesses in 3 different niches across the US. They were leveraging time from 2 virtual team members. Booking a few monthly meetings but ultimately a large effort for the response rate and opportunity size.
The call to action was to book a meeting with their agency to talk about marketing needs.
The truth about this strategy is that it's widely used. As a founder, I receive 30-50 cold messages each week. They vary from messages that start in my spam box with an all too familiar opening line "greetings on the day" all the way to Instagram DMs that start with "Hey, can I ask you a question?" If you read my email a few weeks ago "outreach wins" you will remember how that message turned into an interesting conversation. (you can find the email on my blog if you missed it).
So how can that message break through the spam filter, the exhausted entrepreneur reading the same opening line as 100 other emails that month, and ultimately get someone to take action and respond? It probably cannot. In fact, with the new rules coming from Google and Yahoo about deliverability, the risk of landing in spam is becoming higher all the time. Some email providers have even cut off access to people buying inboxes for mass cold emailing cough Zoho cough
We stepped back and discussed a new strategy. Something that would be an easier “yes” to the person receiving the message. Inviting business owners to an online event! “How To Leverage Google Ads For Your Business” was born. It was a 20-minute presentation with unlimited Q&A at the end. You can watch it HERE.
The response rate was significantly higher than when trying to book a discovery call. Even if people did not attend the event live we still had either their confirmed email address or a connection on LinkedIn. The fact that they replied with a "yes" to the event provided implied consent which means this person could be sent marketing emails and correspondence. Not that the plan was to spam them after the event happened but they showed interest in learning about how Google Ads could impact their business. It would be crazy to skip over the opportunity to spark a conversation after the event.
The result: 300+ attendees registered, 100s of new emails collected, and more importantly, a captive audience.
The Q&A was the most impactful because business owners made it known that they were curious to learn how Google Ads would work for their companies. When I give a presentation like this I always try to keep the education under 20 minutes. People do not like sitting in a lecture. Q&A provides the opportunity for people to get greedy and find out how something can work for their specific situation. This is exactly the conversation you want to be having. Specific question from an interested party. If nothing else, you get to learn about how your potential buyers think. What they worry about, what they are stuck on, what they are skeptical about.
So if you are doing cold outreach as part of your marketing, take a step back and think about how you can truly bring value to the conversation. Don't be afraid to be different in your outreach. It will likely be the only way to get a result.
Mike
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