Anyone have success using cold e-mails for B2B sales?
Major_Grooves: Not a start-up, but still a B2B database (then later internet) company. We were an "early adopter" of email marketing when we started. It used to be fantastic - there wasn't much spam in them early days so people were quite receptive to the emails and we would make lots of money from them. Hey - they were free to send and they make you lots of money - what can go wrong with that?Well, unfortunately that formula is a bit addictive and it gets to the point where if sales are low, the top management start demanding to know how many thousands of emails we have sent that week. What they don't realise is that the days of just email marketing your way to success is over - email marketing is now spamming and people hate it.Nevertheless, send 10,000 emails and we might make one sale which is still worth a few thousand so how can we resist?!What isn't appreciated is that this strategy is overall damaging the company. People now associate us with "those people that send spam". It was only relatively recently that we moved to a proper email marketing service with an opt-out option and as a result I managed to get us removed from a significant email filter black list (which, ironically, we subscribe to).Anyway, do I have any useful advice? Check the legality re: data retention etc. I'm not actually 100% on the rules but I do think they differ between the US and Europe for example, which I think might depend on where you are based, rather than where you are sending to.Email marketing /should/ be opt-in, not opt-out. However, I guess giving your business card must be considered opting in as I always seem to start getting more marketing emails after a conference. It's ok though as they all do it properly and have an opt-out link in the email...Just sending marketing is a bit of a fail imho. Nobody thinks to themselves "ooh I can sign up here to receive marketing material!" Have an interesting newsletter talking about your industry, or publish white papers and thought leadership articles. Be subtle and demonstrate your expertise. That is much more powerful than some email saying "buy this!"Good example: http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/home.aspxIf you do just want to talk to someone about a specific product, do as the poster below says, keep it short and specific. In that sense make it personal too.HTH.