Cold email if you sell B2B products
❷ Finally someone else I can talk to about FSA's, 401k's and ERISA's. ;)
❸ Your day:
Tick tock. Spend time approving time off requests. Tick tock. Spend time onboarding new hires. Tick tock tick tock.
What if all those protracted mutli-step back-and-forth processes can be done in a few clicks?
[animated screen capture of one major differentiating product feature]
Freeing up your time to devise high level HR strategy like how to further reduce turnover.
Something you'll be actually recognized for. Instead of grunt work.
Would you have 10 minutes to chat?
Tomorrow at 2pm EST
Wednesday at 10am EST
Thursday at 11am EST
Signoff
❸ To be able to mass send one cold email approach to everyone in a list, put prospects with different roles (thus different pain points) from different types of companies (for example: tech startup versus ecommerce company) into separate lists. In this example, the approach targets HR managers who would love to save time on grunt work work to be able focus on high level strategy. Something they can actually be recognized and promoted for.
❹ Highlight the biggest differentiating feature of your product and show a screen capture or screenshot to visually demonstrate it.
❺ Present 3 times in the next few days for an initial chat. Use a mailto link for each time slot that opens up a prewritten email the prospect can 1-click send. When a prospect does, email them back a calendar invite containing a link to the call. By offering preset times and making it easy to schedule, the prospect doesn't have to think too much. The killer of conversions.
Cold email if you sell B2B services
❶ Wondering if you've ever noticed this: the office going from conquer the world to sleepy mode a little after 2pm?
❷ We've had a lot of success vanquishing those early afternoon fades by putting delicious beef jerky within any employee's arm reach. Scouring coast to coast for true jerk artisans, we can surprise your staff every month with won't-find-these-in-Walmart flavors like chile limon and habanero.
❸ Novel flavors + chomping on A grade beef = you may start noticing a few more check marks beside each day's goals :)
Let me know if you'd like to receive a free jerk sample? [3 days after they receive the free sample, send them a follow up email asking them to subscribe to the monthly plans.]
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❷ Describe what your solution is and why your solution is superior.
❸ What is the biggest benefit you offer to the prospect, a benefit that is most relevant to their goals? A lot of people get this one wrong. For example, if you're selling office snacks, your biggest benefit is not that you satiate employees' hunger or make them happier (employees will not be the ones buying your snacks, the company is!). So for a company, your benefit is by making their employees livelier and happier, they get more stuff done for the company.
Cold email for contractors or freelancers who offer B2B services
❶ Really like your interior design work - wish I could wake up inside a few of those rooms!
❷ We've helped many interior designers use their websites to capture 20%+ more customers. Here are a few changes you can make to convince your next visitor you can design their dream home:
- Add a slider of large portfolio pictures right on your homepage so visitors can immediately see your style and talent
- 'Share to Pinterest and Houzz' buttons on all your pictures - a lot of people decorating their houses create inspiration boards. By letting them save your work, they'll be reminded of you when they're ready to bring their vision to life.
- A dedicated page for your customers testimonials with pictures of each design project - people are much likely to work with you after seeing successful past projects.
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❷ Even listing what benefits you offer the prospect isn't enough for B2B service cold emails. Why? This still requires your prospect to expend the cognitive effort and take an imaginative leap to visualize how you can apply your skills and experience to help them. Most prospects won't. Instead, you'll get the most responses when you provide ready-to-act-on ideas or strategies tailored to your prospect's business goals.
❸ Provide a few ready-to-act-on ideas and explain why they work.
❹ Gentle ask for your prospect to respond.
Cold email prospects who use products that serve needs relevant to your services
Hey Prospect,
❶ I came across your comment on Sales IQ on Product Hunt.
❷ Here are a few other tools I use in the prospecting process that allowed me to contact 100+ prospects a day semi-automatically:
- Snapper - Search for prospects on Linkedin and download all the profiles that match your criteria. Includes their full names, position, company and smart guessed email addresses (from experience, 80%+ of them work).
- Verified - Upload all the email addresses to verify which ones are working.
❸Recently, I used this process to generate 300+ warmed up prospects for Redeem. 35% of them converted into paying customers, representing $20 000 in new business.
Let me know if you have any questions about how to semi-automate your prospecting to consistently get new customers.
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❷ Provide them valuable lesser known insights related to the topic they commented on and the services you provide.
❸ Mention a specific result you achieved for a client to intrigue them into asking for more details.
Cold email to users affected by a change in a similar product
Follow the news about products that are similar to yours. When they roll out a change its customers reacts negatively to, browse different sites to compile a list of customers who use this similar product. Good places to find them: Nerdy Data (if your competitor's product is something people add to their sites, Nerdy Data lets you find all the sites that use their code), Capterra (customers who reviewed your competitor's product), Reddit (find people who mentioned they use your competitor's product). Add each person's full name and the company they work for (search for it on Google or Linkedin if this info is not readily available) to a spreadsheet. With a prospect's full name and company information, you can smart guess their email address to send them a cold email introducing your product as a better solution.❶ As you may have heard, Alvo acquired Trellis. Sometimes acquisitions work out and sometimes ... the product gets shut down. Or starts drifting from its vision. Or the new owners increase its price by a lot.
❷ Over at Swell, we have all the product management features you love:
- Draggable cards
- Using boards, lists and cards, manage the workflow for any type of project from development to interior design
- Attach many different types of content to cards from checklists to images
❸ Plus we can do a lot more to 10x your project productivity:
- Native iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets with real-time data sync
- Bug tracking (open/closed statuses, assign priority, attach code)
- Built-in instant chat to discuss different projects and move them forward
❹ Give us a try with 1-click data migration
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❷ Show the prospect your product has the most important features of your competitor's.
❸ Then list a few valuable features you have that your competitor doesn't to entice them to migrate.
❹ If possible, make it easy for prospects to switch by letting them migrate their existing data.
Cold email to pitch a retail buyer to carry your product
❶ I’m Sam Svaard, the creator of GO, the “revolutionary smart carry-on luggage” (Travel Leisure March 2017).
❷ I saw you’re the buyer for Nordstrom’s luggage department, thank you for curating options that embody the best of both worlds: tech and style!
❸ Here are a few reasons why GO's done-for-you travel conveniences and beautiful design would also fit this bill. And further elevate Nordstrom as the first mover on stylish tech innovations.
[Side by side: 1 image of the whole product, 1 image of a differentiating product feature, 1 image of another differentiating product feature]
❹ Travel made easy features customers rave about:
- Its axle-less wheels make the carry-on 30% easier and lighter to pull
- Built-in pull-out table so you can eat, snack or work in transit without having to precariously balance anything in your lap
- Never run out of juice again. Built-in charging station with 2 USB ports and 1 power outlet (fits a three prong plug) that can charge your laptop, phone and tablet at the same time
❺ The GO is selling briskly in 30 speciality stores and boutiques across the United States and we’d love to also help Nordstrom customers avoid pesky travel inconveniences in style.
❻ We can work out a smaller order batch so you can test it first.
❼ Can I send you a product sample?
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❷ Show your reason for connecting by saying you noticed they’re the buyer for X store and department. Praise their product selection taste in a way that hints your product matches their criteria.
❸ Introduce a list of top reasons why your product would resonate with their customers by mentioning 1-2 of your product’s differentiating features. You can also mention how carrying them would elevate the store's reputation.
❹ List 3-4 of your product’s top differentiating features, framed in terms of how they benefit the buyer’s customers.
❺ Establish your product's credibility by citing a good sales history and/or reviews from authoritative sources.
❻ Show you’re open to a lower initial order size so the buyer knows they can test it first.
❼ Ask for permission to send product sample as a way to gauge their interest level in your product.
Introduction email: open the conversation by leveraging a referral from the prospect's colleague
Getting a referral from your prospect's colleague lends you credibility. Also, letting your contact know someone else is aware of this exchange gives them more impetus to respond.Just fire off an email to a mid-level employee of the company with:
❶ I wanted to get in touch with someone about your advertising. Who would the best person to speak about this?
Thank you,
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Using a referral from their colleague in a cold email
❶ Sarah from marketing recommended I speak to you about advertising. I'm Evrin from AdBlend. We have worked with several top luxury brands including Hermes and Prada to customize their ads to the website/app they appear on and the preferences of visitors seeing them. All dynamically.
This is how your ad would look, seamlessly blended into any context it appears in:
[screenshot of product customized to prospect]
We can also inserts images from visitors' connected social media profiles relevant to your brand to grab their attention. Basically, native personalized advertising, without you having to create unique designs for every publisher you advertise on.
❷I'm free this Wednesday afternoon and I'll give you a quick call 4-5pm with a few more details.
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❷ Again, don't expect your prospect to take the initiative to call you. Your initial sales email should focus on introducing them to your products so they know what to expect when you call them.
Ask for feedback: put yourself in front of a potentially influential customer
If you're just starting a business, find influencers and ideal customers who would benefit from your product and email them to ask them for feedback. The benefits are twofold. First, they can provide you with valuable insights about how your product can be improved. Second, they may actually end up being your customer if you like your product or share it with their audience. This approach is effective because by only asking for their advice, you’re not raising their don’t-sell-me defenses.Hey Ideal Customer,
❶ I've looked up to you (and wondered where you get your unlimited stamina) ever since I binge read Metamorphosis in high school (until my thumbs turned color!). ❷ I created a doc editor for prolific writers like you and I'd love to get your thoughts on it.
❸ Basically, it get rids of most of those annoying in-between steps when writing.
Done for you features: it lets you create sections inside a doc so you can easily rearrange paragraphs. Without resorting to copy and paste. You can also turn sections into universally shared ones that can be inserted into other docs. Update that section in one doc and magically, it updates in all the others.
Here's the 5 months in the belly version: [link]
❹ If this sounds interesting, would you be open to a 10-min chat to go over some of the 'ugh' aspects of writing you'd love to not have to do?
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❷ Briefly explain what you created.
❸ Highlight 2-3 of the major pain points your product solves.
❹ Ask them for a brief chat to discuss the challenges they face doing what your product solves.
