Cold Email Outreach Isn’t SPAM, Here’s Why
I thought taking the time to answer this in a more
in-depth manner would serve as a good resource for me to be able to send to
people to for further reading.
What is Cold Email Outreach?
You won’t find the term ‘cold email outreach’ in the
dictionary, but this is the basic definition:
Cold Email Outreach – Is an ‘outreach’ plan that uses a
personalized email to make contact with an individual person/prospect who you
have had no prior connection.
Is Cold Email Outreach SPAM?
There is a difference between bulk pharmacy product
emails (which accounts for 81% of spam) and one-to-one emails to a targeted
business audience.
Under the CAN-SPAM act, you are able to send emails to
business people that you do not know. However, you want to make sure you are
complying with the rules that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has outlined.
Luckily, that isn’t difficult to do. Here are the seven
things you need to incorporate when sending cold emails:
Don’t misrepresent who you are – Basically, your “From”,
“To”, and “Reply-To” information needs to identify who you are. Don’t use misleading subject lines – Using a subject line
of “Your receipt” when pitching your product/service would be misleading. Keep
it real.
Identify if the email is an ad – If your email is an advertisement
or special coupon offer, just make sure it is labeled as such. Include your business address – This can be a PO Box or
your physical address, but you have to include it. Ideal placement for this
information would be in your signature.
Give them an opt-out option – You don’t have to use an
“unsubscribe” link which takes away some of the personal aspects of the email.
Instead, ask them, “Please let me know if you are not the right person to
contact for this.” It’s a good alternative that keeps things personal.
Honor opt-outs – If they don’t want any future emails,
make sure they don’t get any more emails. I don’t even respond to the request,
I just make sure they don’t get any more follow-ups.
Know what others do/send on your behalf – Even if you
hire a company like ours to handle your email outreach, you are still legally
responsible. Make sure whoever you have working on your email outreach
understands these seven rules.
For more information, apply for a PDF straight from
the FTC.
Is cold email outreach unsolicited? Yes. Is it SPAM? No.
Not if you follow the rules outlined above.
Ways You Can Use Cold Email Outreach
Obviously, using cold email outreach is a method to
generate leads and interest in your product/service. There are other ways you
can use cold email outreach as well.
Here are three other ways (aside from lead generation)
I’ve used cold email outreach:
1. Determine Startup Viability
In today’s lean startup approach, it’s more important
than ever to talk to your potential customers before you start going crazy with
development and business plans.
I’ve actually used this approach to determine the
viability of a business idea.
I would gather up a list of people in a target market and
shoot them an email to determine what, if any, pain points they have. I’d look
for common responses and then do research based on that feedback.
Or if I have the idea already, I would just direct them
to a landing page to see what kind of interest there was.
2. Data Gathering
Another way to leverage cold email outreach is to gather
feedback on surveys or to ask questions.
Let them know you’re performing research and planning to
publish the results of the poll/questions/feedback in a future blog post on
your blog.
This is a very soft way of sending people to your website
without directly asking for a sale.
3. Invitations
You might want to invite prospective customers to a webinar
or a networking event (if they’re local).
Cold email outreach is a great way to increase attendees
with prospective customers.
Conclusion
In my past with various B2B startups, this is usually
almost ALWAYS the first lead generation strategy I executed.
It gets me straight in front of my potential customers
without needing to invest in sales people, advertising, etc.
Hasta la vista & Buena Fortuna,
Paul Van den Brande
Independent Freelance Business Development & Direct
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