Cold emailing is frustrating...need advice.

biz2mob

12 years ago

Make a better mock site?

Thanks

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CollegeCEO

12 years ago

Without seeing the email you're sending its pretty much impossible to give you good insight. But I guess just work on your copy and you're going to have to send a lot more than 100 emails to get some success.

Thanks

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SJJPFTW

12 years ago

Cold emails do NOT work on their own.

You NEED to follow them up with a phone call. NEED TO. I can not stress that enough.

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ambrking 12 years ago

Originally Posted by SJJPFTW

Cold emails do NOT work on their own.

You NEED to follow them up with a phone call. NEED TO. I can not stress that enough.

Agree. Follow it up. Call them and discuss your service. Also, create a better mock up site.
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TimD

12 years ago

Originally Posted by TazzDigital

So I was trying cold emailing these last days and actually I had a pretty good response in the beginning.

I'm offering free mockup for website redesign.

Out of 100 email I sent, I got 8-10 people interested in this but after I sent the mockup...

There was no response.

And it's really frustrating. I currently stop cold emailing to refine my system.

Any advice for this?

Thanks in advance.

Tazz, the free mock up offer can be very difficult to close if you're not meeting with them in person. If possible, when they request the mock up, call them immediately. Find out why the mock up is appealing. And set up a follow up meeting with them. I tell them that you need to sit down together to "red pencil" the mock up. So you both know what needs to be changed.

If they're not willing to meet, be cautious. They're not that serious.

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vivekmoyal

12 years ago

Its better to call them and having cold calling

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HAdrian1239

12 years ago

I never liked the "mock up" concept... because if they don't "like" your mockup, you're screwed before you began, and most of the time they "want" things that they don't really need or are actually hurtful to their business conversions or image.

JMO though, and that doesn't mean they get NO say... just that... you're the website expert, and they're the expert in whatever their biz is... so... it should stay that way.

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Danny Archer

12 years ago

We do this strategy....

Flyer in the mail with BENEFITS clearly stated along with phycological loading
Email day or two later
Phone call - demo video with other results in the same market
Agree demo if they require on their site
Phone call, agree..
Convert!

Result - a much, much higher conversion rate! It is worth the effort.

Follow up call is a must - people like to deal with people (real people) not blank faced emails.

Hope it helps.

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iAmNameLess

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Danny Archer

We do this strategy....

Flyer in the mail with BENEFITS clearly stated along with phycological loading

Email day or two later

Phone call

demo video with other results in the same market

Agree demo if they require on their site

Phone call, agree..
Convert!

Result - a much, much higher conversion rate! It is worth the effort.

That sales process is super long....

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Aaron Doud

12 years ago

You are getting an 8 to 10% response rate to your emails. That sounds good. You are just failing to convert those who you give the mock up to.

What conversations are you having with them about the mock up?

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fightnever

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Aaron Doud

You are getting an 8 to 10% response rate to your emails. That sounds good. You are just failing to convert those who you give the mock up to.

What conversations are you having with them about the mock up?

I always believe that customer support service is one of the important part to convert actual lead to sale.

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1 reply

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TazzDigital

12 years ago

Thanks for the advice guys!

Originally Posted by TimD

Tazz, the free mock up offer can be very difficult to close if you're not meeting with them in person. If possible, when they request the mock up, call them immediately. Find out why the mock up is appealing. And set up a follow up meeting with them. I tell them that you need to sit down together to "red pencil" the mock up. So you both know what needs to be changed.

If they're not willing to meet, be cautious. They're not that serious.

Yup, I also think many of them are not serious yet so I need to find out how to make them really invested in my services.

Originally Posted by Aaron Doud

You are getting an 8 to 10% response rate to your emails. That sounds good. You are just failing to convert those who you give the mock up to.

What conversations are you having with them about the mock up?

My email goes like this...

- Greetings
- Asking if they're interested in a new website/revamp
- Offering them a free mockup with no obligation

And then when they agree, I create a mock up from a premade template with their logo or images.

I try to follow them up too but still no response...

I really want to create a custom mock up that I make from scratch but I'm afraid they wouldn't be interested and I prob will spend all day making it.

I know my email is probably attracting the wrong client so I was wondering how to get serious client with money to spend...

Thanks

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Aaron Doud

12 years ago

Are you doing phone calls or all just emails?

Thanks

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econnors

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Danny Archer

We do this strategy....

Flyer in the mail with BENEFITS clearly stated along with phycological loading
Email day or two later
Phone call - demo video with other results in the same market
Agree demo if they require on their site
Phone call, agree..
Convert!

Result - a much, much higher conversion rate! It is worth the effort.

Follow up call is a must - people like to deal with people (real people) not blank faced emails.

Hope it helps.

Posted from Warrior Forum Reader for Android

Thanks

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WebdevelopmentGroup

12 years ago

Just follow up..plain & simple you'll be okay man I've been there.
Send the mock-up & then follow up in the next day or 2.

Cheers!,
Guillermo.

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chiwawa

12 years ago

In my opinion, i suggest you try to send more than 100 emails so you can get better response. Following it with phone calls can help too.

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cash89

12 years ago

If you got an 8-10% the cold email isn't the issue, your issue is following up. The purpose of a cold email is to lead into a phone call. Stop wasting time and pick up the phone.

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Underground

12 years ago

What category of business was you targeting? Businesses with no website?

Thanks

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Jarrod

12 years ago

If you do really good work, but hate the cold-emailing an cold-calling part of it, then consider other options to get clients.

1-For $25, post a job on Craigslist for others to do this job for you. You have to be willing to offer a finders fee. Then take the finders fee you will offer, divide it by the number of hours you think it will realistically take them to make one sell (or generate one lead, if they are just seeing if there is interest and then passing over to you to close the sale) and post a job with the title "Work From Home. Set Your Own Hours. Make X Per Hour." You'll get a few replies of folks in need of some money that are willing to take on the work for you. Then when they generate a lead, it's up to you to close it, and then pay them for the lead.

2-Spend some time brain-storming 1-who exactly is most in need of the service you offer and 2-who is already selling to those people? Contact those already selling, share what you do and how it could be of great value to their clients, and see if they would be willing to introduce you to a few, understanding of course that you will pay them a portion of any sales you make from doing so. This requires very little effort on their part, and puts extra $ in their pocket, so if you're make the proposal to them a good one, and what you offer is truly a good valuable service, then this could work.

Hope that helps. I feel your pain, as I too have been through a lot of frustration with cold emails and calls and have had to try a few other ways to get clients. These are a couple that have worked.

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Defacto

12 years ago

There are a ton of cold email templates that I have used to get a positive response. But unless you go from email to talking on the phone (or in person) you won't get anywhere. Emails are not perceived as real communication by business owners and will not bring about a paying client. I have people email businesses every day offering a free website and often times more like a lead generating report, but they don't actually get the freebie until the business owner talks to a closer, or me, personally.

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Underground

12 years ago

A 10% response rate is excellent. You're prob don't close them because, even following up, you may have a poorly presented and marketing solution for them. Because of the low barriers for entry, amateurism is rife on this place and many don't learn how to look like a professional outfit.

The stuff people make here for clients is usually very, very bad. Tune up what you offer and get a USP. Make it high quality. Help them see that they'll make a return on investment and generate more leads, have higher conversions, out-do their competition, generate more revenue, get found and be fully modernized with all the things a business needs in 2012 on their website.

Some of the stuff I've seen people sell to clients is an absolute joke. The worst template available. Cheesy, stock image, ugly fonts and colour schemes.

Be a professional and then close some of those leads by really offering them something they'll really want, not 'webdesign' which everyone does, but add more. Market a fully optimised, authority website. Use the best themes, and widgets. Buy and email list and send out blasts of multiple hundreds at a time, or high someone.

But right now, change what needs to be done. Follow up by phone like others have said. But fix what it is that is getting you a 10% response rate, and don't waste that opportunity.

Step out of warrior forum standard of loads of hungry people desperately trying to sell tat and looking like every other chancer. If you don't make money getting a 10% response of interested leads or close any off them, you won't make money any way, because clearly what you are offering would have to be crap.

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1 reply

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cash89

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Underground

A 10% response rate is excellent. You're prob don't close them because, even following up, you may have a poorly presented and marketing solution for them. Because of the low barriers for entry, amateurism is rife on this place and many don't learn how to look like a professional outfit.

The stuff people make here for clients is usually very, very bad. Tune up what you offer and get a USP. Make it high quality. Help them see that they'll make a return on investment and generate more leads, have higher conversions, out-do their competition, generate more revenue, get found and be fully modernized with all the things a business needs in 2012 on their website.

Some of the stuff I've seen people sell to clients is an absolute joke. The worst template available. Cheesy, stock image, ugly fonts and colour schemes.

Be a professional and then close some of those leads by really offering them something they'll really want, not 'webdesign' which everyone does, but add more. Market a fully optimised, authority website. Use the best themes, and widgets. Buy and email list and send out blasts of multiple hundreds at a time, or high someone.

But right now, change what needs to be done. Follow up by phone like others have said. But fix what it is that is getting you a 10% response rate, and don't waste that opportunity.

Step out of warrior forum standard of loads of hungry people desperately trying to sell tat and looking like every other chancer. If you don't make money getting a 10% response of interested leads or close any off them, you won't make money any way, because clearly what you are offering would have to be crap.

I agree and disagree with what you said.

There are many here offering garbage and don't know how to sell it
There are also many offering garbage, but they know how to sell it and are making some money.

Some here are offering quality but don't know how to sell it...
and there are very, very few offering a good product and they know how to sell it.

They key is learning how to sell. You can send me a great email that builds interest, but if you follow up with more emails and demos and brochures i will lose interest. You need to follow up with a phone call, sound confident and natural... not rushed and stuttering.

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Underground

12 years ago

Originally Posted by cash89

I agree and disagree with what you said.

There are many here offering garbage and don't know how to sell it
There are also many offering garbage, but they know how to sell it and are making some money.

Some here are offering quality but don't know how to sell it...
and there are very, very few offering a good product and they know how to sell it.

Spot on. Most are adept at selling pure garbage that lines their own pockets, often charging massive money for such crap, because they know how to sell or hype something up.

They key is learning how to sell. You can send me a great email that builds interest, but if you follow up with more emails and demos and brochures i will lose interest. You need to follow up with a phone call, sound confident and natural... not rushed and stuttering.

Yes, I agree in learning to sell and following up and what people have said about the importance of that. It's as vital as crafting a truly outstanding and valuable offer that most businesses owners want. The advice from people here who know what they are talking about on selling, is talking about value, finding out what the customer needs and how you can help them and how it's essential to be able to articulate that in the way you said.

That attitude and client focused thinking should extend to the actual product you put together behind the offer, so that it contains far more quality than the shit the get pitched by those who do sell commoditized junk, and does alot to sell itself.

Most people I observe here have the mindset ''what can I sell to make ME money, just give me something to sell that makes money'' and will slap anything together they think will do. And that is the extent of their thinking, They will try to sell anything that comes along in a WSO, never considering the client and how to craft an offer and sell it. How to add value from the perspective of the client and what they actually want.

If a client doesn't want something, rarely will they buy. But the product itself is really something they see value in, then selling it is pretty easy.

Thanks

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Sarevok

12 years ago

If you're buying leads, you should try to email AND call them.

If you totally suck at making calls, outsource it.

You can hire a pro for $14 an hour, and a newb for $6 an hour.

Either way, it can be very profitable.

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Underground

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Sarevok

If you're buying leads, you should try to email AND call them.

If you totally suck at making calls, outsource it.

You can hire a pro for $14 an hour, and a newb for $6 an hour.

Either way, it can be very profitable.

If he was to get this average every time, 10 people interested in seeing a demo and therefore qualified, he could buy an email list from an email broker with 50,000 opt-in business emails, for less than a hundredm or buy a scraper. Email 1-200 a day, and deal with 10-20 people a day, 50-100 people a week.

And then to hire outsources to make the mock ups and scale up. He should learn to sell himself. I wish I did when I started instead of thinking I needed professional phone advisors.

I'm sorry, but in that situation it is unforgivable not to make massive amounts of money from that able to get a good hearing from 50-100 qualified prospects a week. Selling a $1-2000 product and getting a 10% close rate would mean very good money. I pretty shocked at the title of the thread. Cold emailing is frustrating with a 10% response rate. Not a correct diagnoses.

He won't get a decent close if he's trying to flog some cringeworthy, generic crap he picked up in a WSO. Which he probably is.

He needs a good product and he needs a good process to close deals once he presents the mock-ups.

But as for his 10% response rates to cold emails. I can't believe how blase some people have been about that.

I've been where you are OP, once. 30 wasted contacts, because I'd hired people to prospect and close and they left me in the shit and the prospects went cold before I could sort the situation out. Get real. Really learn how to craft a product from your clients point of view. They don't want a shiny new wordpress site that is slightly less crap than their old one, and won't hand you checks just because you put an offer in front of them.

They want a professional, well designed site, optimised for conversion and SEO, so they can be more visible and get found and convert more visitors, would like multi-media content like video (videohive.net) to keep people on the site, reduce bounce rates, get their value proposition across concisely and effectively, want content for their site and which they can have distributed across the web to draw in visitors or can be ranked to for keywords (you can get blog posts, content and articles written without cutting to deeply into your profits), they want social media sharing capability so visitors can share their content on their social networks. If you can wrap that up in package that makes clear that what they are getting is not something that is simply nicer to look at, but is guaranteed to out-do their current site, generate more leads, get more traffic to their site, and convert more of them into sales (see marketingexperiments.com), and you can impress that on them that you offer way more than what they'd get at a standard webdesign company, both in writing and in your follow up's, then you can begin to capitalize on that incredible response rate.

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TazzDigital

12 years ago

Wow, so many replies on this thread. I'm really thankful.

Originally Posted by Aaron Doud

Are you doing phone calls or all just emails?

Just email.

I know it sounds pathetic but I'm really bad at cold calling or meeting and I tend to avoid it.

When I think about it, my forte is designing and I think I'll stick to this job and find partner who can do selling for me and split the money.

Originally Posted by Underground

What category of business was you targeting? Businesses with no website?

No, redesign of an existing website. I heard it's much more difficult to target people with no website since they don't understand the value of having a website.

Originally Posted by Jedi Jarrod

If you do really good work, but hate the cold-emailing an cold-calling part of it, then consider other options to get clients.

1-For $25, post a job on Craigslist for others to do this job for you. You have to be willing to offer a finders fee. Then take the finders fee you will offer, divide it by the number of hours you think it will realistically take them to make one sell (or generate one lead, if they are just seeing if there is interest and then passing over to you to close the sale) and post a job with the title "Work From Home. Set Your Own Hours. Make X Per Hour." You'll get a few replies of folks in need of some money that are willing to take on the work for you. Then when they generate a lead, it's up to you to close it, and then pay them for the lead.

2-Spend some time brain-storming 1-who exactly is most in need of the service you offer and 2-who is already selling to those people? Contact those already selling, share what you do and how it could be of great value to their clients, and see if they would be willing to introduce you to a few, understanding of course that you will pay them a portion of any sales you make from doing so. This requires very little effort on their part, and puts extra $ in their pocket, so if you're make the proposal to them a good one, and what you offer is truly a good valuable service, then this could work.

Hope that helps. I feel your pain, as I too have been through a lot of frustration with cold emails and calls and have had to try a few other ways to get clients. These are a couple that have worked.

Thanks, I'm currently considering the CL option...I'll try to make a good copy and see how it goes.

Originally Posted by Underground

A 10% response rate is excellent. You're prob don't close them because, even following up, you may have a poorly presented and marketing solution for them. Because of the low barriers for entry, amateurism is rife on this place and many don't learn how to look like a professional outfit.

The stuff people make here for clients is usually very, very bad. Tune up what you offer and get a USP. Make it high quality. Help them see that they'll make a return on investment and generate more leads, have higher conversions, out-do their competition, generate more revenue, get found and be fully modernized with all the things a business needs in 2012 on their website.

Some of the stuff I've seen people sell to clients is an absolute joke. The worst template available. Cheesy, stock image, ugly fonts and colour schemes.

Be a professional and then close some of those leads by really offering them something they'll really want, not 'webdesign' which everyone does, but add more. Market a fully optimised, authority website. Use the best themes, and widgets. Buy and email list and send out blasts of multiple hundreds at a time, or high someone.

But right now, change what needs to be done. Follow up by phone like others have said. But fix what it is that is getting you a 10% response rate, and don't waste that opportunity.

Step out of warrior forum standard of loads of hungry people desperately trying to sell tat and looking like every other chancer. If you don't make money getting a 10% response of interested leads or close any off them, you won't make money any way, because clearly what you are offering would have to be crap.

Yup, I think the mock up could be the problem or the price. Either way, I'll revise both of the and come up with better offer.

Originally Posted by cash89

I agree and disagree with what you said.

There are many here offering garbage and don't know how to sell it
There are also many offering garbage, but they know how to sell it and are making some money.

Some here are offering quality but don't know how to sell it...
and there are very, very few offering a good product and they know how to sell it.

They key is learning how to sell. You can send me a great email that builds interest, but if you follow up with more emails and demos and brochures i will lose interest. You need to follow up with a phone call, sound confident and natural... not rushed and stuttering.

SO TRUE. A lot of people selling horrible to decent websites but still making a lot of money anyway.

Thanks

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Mwind076

12 years ago

There was another thread recently just like this...so I brought my answer over which applies here.

Good for you getting out there and prospecting! Now, on to what you could improve on

My advice comes as a cold caller for years - which doesn't matter, a follow up is a follow up.

YES. people are busy, rude, uptight and otherwise need prodding especially when they didn't expect your call or email. No, most people that receive a call, email or VM (that's another issue) do not respond immediately unless they were already looking for what you are selling. Put it this way, if I NEVER called back those that were out of the office, or that I sent an email to that didn't answer, or that I was sent to VM on...I'd be horrible at my job. You call them back, because it will be the only way you will get a response with some people. Even if that response is no, you aren't left wondering.

You can do it anyway you want, but here is my suggestion (and again I may be biased). You would serve yourself better pulling their phone number and email and making yourself a list (like excel). I'm assuming you already pulled a list of emails, so do both at the same time. Then, CALL THEM, and say "My name is Melissa with ABC Services, I know you are busy, but I'd like to know if I can send you an email to introduce myself and my SEO services." They are going to say:
1- NO (then thank them and call the next guy)
2- Well tell me a little more about yourself first (and then you're in on the phone)
3- Yes, and they'll give you an email address (to which you reply, "great, look for an email with the subject _____, is there a day I can follow up with you next week to discuss?" They'll either say whenever, or yes, or no...but you'll call them anyways to FOLLOW UP!)

If you do it your way, and blind email, then you should still call them back, but you say this when you call. "This is Melissa with ABC Services, I sent you an email on Wednesday and didn't hear back from you. I'm sure you're busy, but I wanted to make sure you got it and answer any questions." They will say:
1- No, I didn't get it (then you can either pitch on the phone or verify email, or ask them to check spam...and send it again)
2- Yes, I got it but I'm not int (rebuttal or move on)
3- Yes, I was just busy, tell me a little more OR YOU say, when is a good time for us to discuss for a few minutes on the phone? How about Tuesday at 1 pm? (BAM, appt)

Good luck! PM me if you have any other questions or need some more advice.

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Cold emailing is frustrating...need advice.

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