Cold Email Case Study: ‘Facebook Fuckery’
Last week, I traveled to Gold Coast in Australia to speak at Retail Global’s ecommerce conference and exhibition about the logic and processes that drive effective growth hacking strategies. Australians are my kind of fun.
Once the conference (and parties) had ended, I opted to stay in Sydney for an additional week to explore the city and be, as they say, “on holiday”.
The conversations that resulted from me preemptively searching Facebook for ‘my friends who live near Sydney’ had catalyzed the offer of a cozy couch in a 31st-story luxury penthouse. The return on investment from the time spent searching and chatting in Messenger was already exponential.
Years ago, I’d matched with this adorably spunky blonde on Hinge (dating app). Seeing that she was a Creative Director, I opened the conversation with a string of font related puns and it resulted in a first date. After food was ordered, she told me she was leaving for a month in Australia the week following and I could see it in her eyes that she wasn’t coming back.
Turns out, my prediction was on the money as she stayed there for 18 months (and met a handsome Irish dude). In that time, we developed a friendship and were able to work together on a number of projects. While she hadn’t popped up in my search, I knew she’d played in the agency world of Sydney texted her my specific inquiry.
The Monkeys (formerly Three Drunk Monkeys) is an independent creative agency based in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 2006, they now employ over 130 staff. Clients include University of Sydney, Telstra, IKEA, etc. (via Wikipedia)
Naming your company ‘Three Drunk Monkeys’ (assumed to reference the three founders) seemed in-tune with my canned response to inquiries regarding my work, “I convert drunken ideas into profitable businesses.”
Clearly we were destined to be best friends. Or so I hoped.
After perusing their portfolio, blog, and various social profiles; I surmized that my assumptions regarding the irreverent tone of the company were correct… to a degree. There’s a lot that happens to the culture of a company between 3 and 130 employees so my assumptions were diluted accordingly.
I snagged the ‘contact@’ email for their general inbox from their website as well as leveraging the Hunter.io plugin for Google Chrome to snag two of the founders’ emails from LinkedIn to put them on CC for good measure.
My goal was to grab their attention (the subject line ‘Facebook Fuckery’ accomplished this), hook them with unique accomplishments, and then explain why the hell I’m emailing them… as succinctly as possible.
People are busy, inboxes are crowded; less is more.
Here was the resulting email…
This whole process took me about thirty minutes and, once sent, I rejiggered the message to send to similar agencies. Why? … Why the fuck not?!
The best outcomes come from simple initiatives with no intentions.
This “pitch” process is a bit like meeting a Victoria’s Secret model* in a NYC dive bar and (respectfully) asking her for her phone number at 2:30AM… you’ve got nothing to lose (and plenty of colorful experiences to gain).
The Monkeys never responded to my email.
However, this process was an exercise in honing my communicational skills, resulted in this baller instructional post which promotes the type of value delivered inside Ghost Influence (which you should totes join), and reminded me of that energizing feeling when fucks… just, aren’t given.
*She laughed at my jokes, we talked for a bit, but she politely declined.
