Spray and Pray Still Works…to a Degree

After an analysis of the pipeline created in 2021, I was surprised by how well cold outreach performed. I’ll start by defining the terms above from most effective to least:

Prospecting (36.1%): Initial meeting set up through warm intro, but discovered through cold research.

Cold Outreach (25%): Initial meeting set up through cold call/email campaigns.

Executive Introduction (16.7%): Direct relationship with C-Level executive.

Investor Introduction (16.7%): Introduction to portfolio company executive through investor.

Partner Introduction (5.6%): Introduction through technology or referral partner.

Amidst all the noise around inbound marketing and product-led growth, there seems to be an implicit conclusion that cold, unsolicited outreach no longer works. But unfortunately for those on the receiving end of cold calls and cold emails from entry-level SDRs, spray and pray still works…to a degree.

Given the complexity of our value prop, and its difficulty to be condensed into a concise email, I shied away from cold outreach during the first few months of my tenure at FPS.

After working through the low-hanging fruit and experimenting with only highly-tailored notes (which is not scalable at all btw), I purchased Outreach and added volume campaigns to my business development motion. See sample note below:

After a few experiments, this email, and the associated follow up, was the most effective in generating meetings and creating opportunities.

Notice anything? It’s incredibly salesy, and represents everything most people hate receiving when it’s not a fit. The poster-child for what gets trashed on on LinkedIn.

I even thought about posting some of the replies or cold call transcripts of when it REALLY doesn’t hit…but thought better of it.

Though the reply is extremely low (0.05%), and the meeting conversion rate even lower, when it does hit the results were extremely valuable — generating $1M+ in pipeline with our primary contacts being C-Level executives.

The Point: Spray and pray still works. If you hit an executive with a short, concise email outlining the problem you solve, they will respond and take a meeting if it is something they are actively working through.

However, don’t rely solely on cold outreach. Tools like Outreach have made it insanely easy to send 1,000+ emails a week with much less effort, but it should be just one arrow in the quiver. It’s imperative to incorporate a reasonable amount of tailored emails, warm intros, calls, etc… in order to effectively generate meetings and build pipeline.

Some articles will be first-person, and some will be just general thoughts on industry trends. Feel free to reach out with feedback, thoughts, etc… nate@bluebirdanalytics.co