Cold Emailing is Just Obnoxious
I get it, generating new business can be tough. Being active on LinkedIn has its advantages, but it also attracts a ton of spammers and poorly targeted marketing efforts. Today I received five emails from online market and lead generation vendors whose tactics are unproductive, intrusive and downright obnoxious. My goal in sharing these emails and my response is to highlight the downsides of this lazy approach to marketing.
Email #1
Subject: Brian, can you take on 1-2 referrals?
“I was sent your LinkedIn profile”. Who sent you my LinkedIn profile? Do I know them? Would they want me to know it was sent to you? What makes you think we should talk?
“We build sales machines for very small businesses. We do this because their referrals are not enough.” Maybe you insulted me by referring to Groove Management as a “very small business”. Did you happen to look at our client list? How do you know that referrals are not enough for our business or that we don’t have a sales team generating leads and sales?
The presumptive nature of the email, the lack of research to personalize the approach to my specific company left me frustrated. The email was sent at 10:11am.
Email #2
Subject: Brian - I have to chime in
This email arrived at 11:20am just over an hour after their colleague emailed. I am curious if there is any business owner out there that would feel even more compelled to reply as a result of having received two sales emails within such a short timeframe? I found his email equally spamming and annoying. Once again, it was a templated email that showed no effort to get to know anything about Groove Management.
Fast forward a few hours later and I received another similar email from a completely different company.
Email #3
Subject: The Truth about cold emailing
He is referring to cold emailing as an art. If he is practicing what he preaches, am I a highly targeted prospect? Did he write a catchy subject line and does his email have “irresistible email copy”? I certainly did not read it that way. I found it uninformed and uncompelling. To learn a bit more, I clicked on the link in his email signature which prompted my browser to open a warning screen that his site could be unsafe. Not exactly a confidence building move. His site has a bunch of links that forward to website builder template yet the images that link there are for well known and respected companies. This was very troubling. If you want to help businesses generate leads, at least have a fully operational website.
Be Real or Be Gone
Groove Management is a human capital consulting business that helps individuals and organizations maximize their performance by focusing on their strengths. Sending spammy emails in hopes that volume through the funnel will equal success never fit with the way I think. I would always prioritize quality over quantity. Authenticity is a key trait to success in a relationship business. Sending form emails likes these to people you don’t know is a complete waste of time. Not only does it frustrate the recipient, it damages your brand. The two companies highlighted above did themselves a disservice through their approach.
I did choose to respond to the tag-team email from the morning.
Capture Their Attention with a Personal Touch
If your growth strategy does involve email marketing to those not in your network and without the aid of a personal referral, do your homework, understand the business you are targeting and write a compelling email that is personalized to the recipient. Spend the requisite time on the company website to understand the business, highlight something specific that you learned about the business or the person you are emailing and try to make a personal connection.
Your personal brand is your reputation and cold email marketing can be detrimental. It is my hope that by highlighting my recent experience, others won’t make the same mistake and will be more targeted and intentional.
