Why switch from cold calls to letters? How to approach the decision maker and find common language with him? How to find high-quality targeted leads for your managers? Today I will try to answer these questions, using my own experience and the experience of my colleagues in building B2B sales.

I argue that it is more than possible to get qualified leads through cold mailings, and these will be leads that can later be easily converted into successful deals with good profits. In just a few weeks, you can solve a lot of problems: find new opportunities in the market, test working hypotheses, prepare meetings with possible clients that would take months to call.

One of the most popular outreach agency tools is cold mailing, which does not directly advertise the products the company makes or the services it offers, but is intended only to come into contact with the decision-maker, arouse his interest and obtain a response letter.

Email-outreach operates on the same principle as cold calling, using customer bases to put forward commercial offers to potential partners and consumers. However, if by telephone you reach one subscriber per call, then mail makes it possible to send one letter to any number of people.

Here are specific numbers from one of the successful cases:

• Total number of letters – 850;
• Open rate – 60%;
• Reply rate – 15.8%;
• Conversion of letters into leads – 5.5%;
• Number of qualified leads – 47.

What is the usual response when targeted leads respond positively to an email?

Let me give you a direct example:

To explain everything in the simplest way, I will break the whole process into stages. Each of them is equally important for the final success and therefore requires painstaking preparation, including the smallest details. This is long and quite difficult, especially at first, but if you do not plan to contact a cold email agency, and want to do everything yourself instead, you will have to work hard.

Stage 1. Creating a database

You must collect a database of enterprises that are most likely to be interested in your offer. If you invest properly from the beginning, the chances of your letters not eventually being massively sent to the trash bin and banned will increase significantly.

I categorically do not recommend buying ready-made databases. It makes more sense to either collect them manually (yes, I agree, it’s difficult, you need experience and a fair amount of perseverance), or outsource them to professionals who have their own lead generation strategy. I prefer the first path and effective tools that can make my task easier – in particular, I use Apollo.io, which has extremely convenient filters for finding clients who match my needs. It makes it easy to collect a database of necessary names in the B2B segment with basic contact information to start communication.

In addition to it, I would also recommend the Snov.io platform, which allows you to automate and simplify work with your client base, and at the next stage, set up mailings more efficiently. However, it does much more, so in any case, I advise you to explore the capabilities of the platform.

Here is an example of an email newsletter database prepared by my company for a digital agency:

Have you collected the base? Amazing. Don't even think about using it yet! You have in your hands a rough diamond that needs to be cut to turn it into a diamond. This is what the second stage is for.

Stage 2. Validation

Now carefully review all the entries in your lead lists, add the missing information about the decision makers you are interested in (not all of it will be contained in the sources used, some will have to be obtained separately), delete the unnecessary. Correct grammatical errors, finally. You should have a product in front of you that is 100% ready for distribution.

Some processes at this stage can be automated, but most of the tasks are done manually by humans. The more responsibly you approach this matter, the higher the results will be.

Stage 3. Letter chains

Write briefly, simply, to the point. Complex structures, links, and extended presentations in cold emails will not bring you leads. You must make sure that you get noticed, but at the same time not bore the client with sheets of text. You can even resort to a spreadsheet editor.

It is advisable to prepare several options for both the content of the letter and the subject lines; they will be useful to you later at the testing stage.

Stage 4. Domain preparation

My company’s domain has never been banned, but I realize that this possibility always exists when participating in email campaigns. The rules of email services are strict and changeable, so your messages may well be considered spam, despite all the precautions, which will not only harm the given chain of letters, but also, in principle, impede email deliverability from a banned domain. Therefore, I prefer not to give services a chance and use new domains for cold mailing. Even if they get banned, the losses will be minimal.

Go through the email authentication process and send emails in batches to your own mailboxes to “warm up” the new domain. This way you can see if the services are tripping you up at the very beginning of your journey by sending your messages to “Spam”.

During the “warm-up” stage, you may find it useful to have another effective email marketing tool based on artificial intelligence. This is Smartl.ead, with which you can ensure that letters end up in the “Inbox” folder, and also connect as many email accounts as you like, combining them into a common main unibox. It makes it easy to launch AL warm-up and lead generation, track conversions, and close deals.

Stage 5. Test mailings

Now the preparation is over, and it’s time for the main part for which it all started: the newsletter, which should provide a cold email open rate of at least 30%, and preferably twice as much. I have long made it a rule to first send out small batches of letters with different content options – this allows me to make the best choice and create the text that show the best conversion potential.

By testing the chain on contacts from the client base, I understand which email is most often opened and read, which is more likely to prompt a respond from the recipient, and in the future, I focus on it.

For cold mailings, our agency uses Woodpecker because it is easy to adapt to the specific needs of the sender, regardless of whether you are an individual entrepreneur or the head of a large enterprise.

To close the topic with mailboxes, I’ll name two more useful tools. The first one is cloud CRM Streak, which integrates with your mailbox and allows you to build an effective communication system with clients and your own team. The second one is the Pipedrive CRM system for organizing and conducting sales, which allows you to always have before your eyes all the key points of the process with an emphasis on important transactions.

Stage 6. Main mailings and analysis of their success

Remember the numbers given at the beginning of the article? I consider 60% of open letters in the first or second week a good result and conclude that the mailing was properly prepared and executed. If the number of letters receiving a response remains at least 9-12%, this also indicates success.

The most common mistake is that you neglected the second stage. Yes, it can be difficult for a beginner to understand how to do this in principle, but without properly working through the entire base, you will not achieve success. This is an invariable and irreplaceable part of an outreach strategy: you must clearly understand who needs your product, who it might entice, and cut off those who are not interested. Simply put, offering active Greenpeace members tours to a crocodile farm to buy leather for new boots will not get you many leads.

Another possibility is that you didn’t spend enough time writing and editing your letters. But it is the texts that are responsible for captivating clients.

That's all for now. I’ve written more about writing texts, searching for data for databases and making appointments in my other articles. You can familiarize yourself with them – I will be glad if they are useful to you. If you have any questions, write to me or express your thoughts in the comments.