What I learned from sending 44,000 cold emails

Most cold emails suck.

Even the expertly-crafted, strategically targeted cold emails barely do anything other than annoying the prospect.

Yet you probably should be sending more cold emails than you’re sending now.

Why?

Because if you get a 10% response rate, and you have a decent lead sourcing system, cold emailing could be one of the main revenue growth opportunities for your business.

But where to start?

Most people want to start with: What email should I be sending out?

And then they waste hours googling email templates.

But that's not enough. Taking a template, filling in the blanks and hitting send is easy. It even feels like you accomplished something important.

That’s not how you grow your business. The best cold email template in the world is not enough. You grow your business by developing a solid process.

Or you copy someone else's process that works and improve it over time.

I started with the former and ended up with the latter.

44,000 cold emails later, here's what I learned.

I use HubSpot CRM/Sales Hub for all outbound activities. Most of the sequences I used originated within Gmail, through the HubSpot Chrome Extension.

I acquired the email addresses in a few ways:

• Hunter.io to pull email addresses associated with target customers' websites
• LinkedHelper to connect with target customers, then pull their emails from LinkedIn exports (you're no longer able to do this, probably because of people like me)
• Inbound/content marketing efforts, i.e. ebook downloads, website graders, free audits, etc.

After 12-months of testing individual templates and ad hoc'ing sequences, I landed on the 5 Step Outreach (seen above).

This sequence targeted owners, CEOs, heads of marketing, heads of sales, and general info@ addresses of SMBs in the Greater Chicagoland area.

Bounced emails were automagically removed from the sequence and removed from HubSpot.

I started this sequence May 2015 and lasted used it January 2019 when I was on paternity leave. Haven't touched the sequence structure since 2016 (which probably isn't smart, but it did give me an incredible sample size).

Couple of caveats:

• Reply Rate includes when recipients tell me to "pound sand," "kick rocks," "go to hell," and sometimes worse. So 35% looks great, but doesn't tell the whole story
• Meeting Rate means the recipient booked an appointment directly using a calendar link or replied with a time/date. 3% is really good. That said, only ~25% of that 3% actually showed up for the meeting or call. Not good.

You're probably able to manually override what counts as a reply in HubSpot, but I honestly was too lazy to dig into that.

The bigger issue was the no-show rate. Keep in mind, this whole system's run on email automation.

When I added a reminder/confirmation phone call to the mix, the no-show rate dropped from 75% to 50%. Not great, but better.

Tactically, the best emails included baseline personalization:

• First name (using name tokens) in the subject line
• Requesting help in the subject line
• Company name (using company tokens) in the body copy

HubSpot users know that tokens are only as good as the data within the CRM. I probably spent a couple of weeks tweaking how First Names and Company Names appeared in the contact records, i.e.:

• JOSEPH --> "Joe"
• ACME, INC. D/B/A Office Sply Plus by Joseph --> "Office Supply Plus"

Tactically, the email copy was concise, mobile-friendly and (hopefully) genuine:

• explain what we do in one sentence
• offer social proof
• provide transparency
• only one call-to-action

Here's the sequence in its full glory:

What did I learn?

1. Cold email still works (kinda)
2. You HAVE to supplement automation with human interaction
3. Provide enough value through content/thought leadership/consultative selling so you don't have to use cold email
4. HubSpot's a powerful tool, but competitors Mailshake, Lemlist, and Outreach.io are clipping at their heels
5. It pays to learn how to write copy (literally)
6. Don't get stuck in analysis paralysis -- it's better to DO --> LEARN --> DO BETTER than sit on your hands
7. Start DOING by borrowing ideas and processes from others, but you'll always be behind if you only steal stuff. Find out what works for you and innovate
8. Treat business like a sport: practice, execute, practice, improve, WIN

So what'd I miss? Let me know in the comments!