How can I generate more leads from cold emailing?

Cold emailing is easily one of the best strategies to find new clients. But it takes patience and perseverance to really make the most from this specific lead generation channel.

Lead generation means basically guiding potential customers from having their need unsatisfied to seeing the light in your solution. The core of lead generation is: If you offer bigger value, you can expect bigger interest.

So, let’s get down to business and generate some quality leads. Here are 3 steps for generating more leads from cold emailing.

1. Segment your target audience and create customer profiles

Without the right customer profile, you stand no chance at engaging anyone with your messages. Having either too broad or too narrow customer profile will hurt your attempts at cold emailing.

That’s why you need to develop a workable target — it should be somewhere between 10.000 and 100.000 decision makers worldwide. The smaller the target, the easier it will get to recognize their common pain-points and address them in your communications.

Create customer profiles by asking:

• Where is my client located?
• Which industry do they belong to?
• What is the size of their team?
• How much revenue they generate?
• Who’s the decision-maker I should contact?

There are also other, more specific questions to ask — they basically depend on what you’re selling. So:

• Do they have VC/angel investor backup?
• Do they use a specific technology?
• When was this company founded?

You will end up with a target group like:

Sales Directors in companies

• that provide IT services
• with a headcount above 50
• located in California

2. Gather your data

Once you’re set for specific criteria, you’ll need to figure out a way to mine data and keep on building prospect lists. This is where you either choose paid B2B data providers (general or focused on technology/industry), or build a process yourself to mine data from platforms like AngelList, Crunchbase or LinkedIn.

Stay away from buying ready-made lists of companies or people. 99% of them are low-quality and include outdated data. At this point, gathering the right data is a key element of the entire process, because you’ll only generate quality email sales leads by addressing the right people.

3. Write a killer email pitch (and multiple follow-ups)

What do you want to achieve with your pitch? Here’s what:

• you want to get clients interested, not sell from the first email
• show that you’re likeable and straightforward
• know what’s their pain and offer a solution (put it in your subject line)
• include only key information
• use a call-to-action (like invite to a meeting)
• keep it short (max 5 sentences)

Read more about writing effective cold emails.

Write emails that add value and present your unique personality. Depending on the industry, you can try anything from memes, free trials, consultations, actionable content or whitepapers.

And then follow up. You’re doing it for 2 good reasons:

• you’re presenting more value in several emails, not crafting one that is extremely long and boring to read
• you can get the person’s attention because your message reaches them at the right time (that’s right, maybe they haven’t seen your previous emails, but your 4th follow-up might just do the trick and present itself to them when they’re paying attention)

With these 3 hacks and regular work on your campaigns, you’re bound to enjoy a steady stream of quality leads knocking on your door.