Sending email - then call?

Both approaches take skill and practice.

Option 1 - Get better at cold calling.
Option 2 - Practice emailing until you figure out what works.

Either way will take time to develop the necessary skill.

Or, and this is my favorite, reexamine why you are struggling. Maybe there is an easier way?

Maybe you think you are no good at calling because you are calling people who don't know about PPC our just aren't interested?

If that is the case then you will struggle trying to educate them in three major areas. 1- Why PPC rather than other ads? 2- Why PPC rather than nothing? 3- Why PPC with you instead of trying it myself or asking my "web guy?"

Make sure you are going after people whom you know for do sure are interested in PPC.

Please be aware, you are going to have to get good at both cold calling (phone) and email marketing. You're also going to have to add Direct Mail, networking, and advertising (print and/or online) to the mix. In other words, if you want your business to be successful you are going to have to use all of these methods to keep business coming in consistently. Learn how to do each of these methods yourself. As your business grows, you'll be able to outsource much of this, if you decide to.

You can also hire individuals who are great on the phone and can close the sale for you. The same goes with targeted emailing your leads. You can pay people who are much better than you are at that particular field of marketing. Delegation is great. I do this all the time.

Thanks for the replies guys.

I will try sending targeted emails to about 200 potential clients, and then measure the result.

But I would also be interested to know from the people here in that use email marketing for their web related services, and how it have worked out ?

Unless you have an amazing prospecting email, most unsolicited communication goes into the trash. 200 is a low number when we're talking about email.

If you want quick results, you'll have to get on the phone. Then you can have real conversations and qualify your prospects.

Both emailing and calling are skills...you have to work at them to develop them. Thinking that you would somehow be born being able to do either or both well is incorrect. You will suck at them at the start. The question is, do you have the stick-to-itiveness to get past the initial hurdle and develop a business? Truth is that most people do not.

No, emails are fine, and have a place. All marketing has it's place, you just can't do ONE and depend on it...but you can't do ALL of them and not know what you're doing. I know, sounds odd.

Emails work best if you have a person/business that has asked for it, or has expressed an interest. So, if you have already made that list of 200, my suggestion would be to call first (here's hoping you put their number on that list), and then send emails to those that are ACTUALLY interested. That's when you'd do the research on their personal numbers.

Emails CAN work in an email blast, but like I said before, unless you are going to go big and email tons of businesses, then you're not going to see a huge return. You'll also be wasting time researching when you could be calling to find actual interest.

In my personal account and business account, we don't open mail that isn't solicited. Also, as a business owner, if within the first line, you aren't asking for MY services...you're out, deleted and marked as spam. Your thinking that people are more relaxed and open to answering your unsolicited email in the morning is off. Most spam comes between 12 am and 6 am (look at your personal account), because you, and every one else thinks that people will want to see your email first...only it's buried in the spam.

There are many other ways to reach your customers.

@the OP:

You are wasting a lot of time "researching". Get out there and make calls. You will get quick results. You don't need to know the decision maker's name.

The time wasted on "research" will kill your business. What you need to be doing is talking to people and sorting them into non-buyers and buyers.

As I've experienced, calling a prospect works best when you have already established contact with them through other means, usually through email.

Through an email, you get the chance to present your offer. If they respond positively, your queue to call comes up! The call helps to spur a discussion between you and your prospects and allows you to come to terms as well as understand their current needs.

there is loads of stuff on here and you tube for example on how to cold call in a better manner, however i would agree that an email first is the best way to get the attention of the potential client. i would call firstly to get the correct email address of the decision maker, then send the email and follow up again with a phone call, that way they are as warm as you can get the lead in the circumstances

I tend to disagree with doing extensive research... however, I get a lot of my consulting clients with cold emailing and I always do some sort of research on them prior to emailing (even just looking at their website and including something personal in the email). With this approach I consistently sit around 30%-40% response rate, with around 60% of those moving into a phone conversation. It does take time, however I have taken the time to extensively test different emails & methods and figured out how to minimise that time (thankfully!). When I am doing it, I tend to send approximately 20-40 emails in a day.

Others may disagree, but without any kind of phone or face to face conversation I have struggled to move someone into a high priced sale.

Important note: With these particular emails, I am targeting individuals, not companies. Companies I use a very different technique.