Ask HN: What website/app do you use to cold email potential clients?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8046242

by dvega1 • 12 years ago

9 11 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Taking into consideration that sending cold email from Google usually marks it as spam?

uniclaude2• 12 years ago

As much as it will sound as a non-answer, the best solution I could find regarding cold email was not to cold email.

Beyond the spam issue, I can tell that I had horrendeous statistics when cold emailing, and I've found that the extra work of getting introduced was worth it more often than not.

mrfusion2• 12 years ago

How did you get introduced?

uniclaude2• 12 years ago

Linkedin helps. I dig through the degrees of separation between myself and someone with an access to the budget I need to tap.

dvega14• 12 years ago

Thanks for your comment, I will keep this in mind.

davidrc• 12 years ago

On the same line as the previous comment, I would recommend you to capture hot leads, at least interested in the theme of your business. There are many ways to capture leads that can also become a steady stream of potential customers to convince that your business is their best choice.

If you need more information about this, ask me without problem.

As for the cold sending emails, you can use SendGrid or services like this to send.

mrfusion2• 12 years ago

I'd be interested in hearing more about this too.

dvega14• 12 years ago

Thank you David! I would like more information about this so I might shoot you an email if you don't mind. I've never heard of SendGrid, but just checked it out, it looks similar to MailChimp, but then again, they might have different solutions. Will have to research this more.

thejteam• 12 years ago

I don't have data on how this works with web development or SaaS, but in many industries direct mail is still the way to go. Crafting a sales letter is like crafting a landing page on your website.

There is a reason you still get junk mail. It costs more but has a much better response rate. I can only imagine this must be even more true with development given the high value per client.

There are two tricks to it. Having a good list and having a good sales letter. Get the list first. Then write (or pay somebody to write) a sales letter based on the characteristics of the list. The list should be as focused as you can make it. Not knowing who you are targeting I can't say more than that. Then the sales letter should be written to the needs of the people on the list.

dvega14• 12 years ago

Thanks for your comment. Unfortunately, it is a SaaS application we are trying to market :) However, I do see your point in how crafting a sales letter can give a better result for other industries.

JSeymourATL• 12 years ago

If you're a going concern-- simply use your company/business email address, also include your digits and physical address in the signature line. As a point of communication strategy-- personalize the note, be concise and buttoned-up.

dvega14• 12 years ago

Thanks for the advice. That's what I actually plan on doing from the looks of it. Only problem will be organizing the leads since current host webmail (bluehost) doesn't really have good CRM. But other than that, I think it will suffice.

Ask HN: What website/app do you use to cold email potential clients?

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