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My First Time Cold-Emailing Web Design Clients. I'd Love a Critique!

sector7

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Create a 5 minute video of their website while you record yourself and give them honest feedback and advice. Go out of your way and tell them how they could make some of the changes / improvements themselves. Tell them what results they could expect from those improvements and then offer to help them do some of the changes if they're too busy. Chances are much higher that they'll respond to such an email, compared to a generic one.

Track the emails to make sure they actually open them and watch the video.
 

BlindSide

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I think that calling would provide a much better ROI for your time, as well as improving your sales skills at a quicker rate.

Not saying they are poor in any way, I just know that if you are going to eventually demand money for services from someone, there HAS to be a personal touch. Because of this, e-mail will serve as an introduction, at best. Better to talk to them, show them that you are a person with some personality who just wants to help improve their business, and clients should come easier.
 

JustKris

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Some good responses in this thread.

I get emails like these all the time. Some quick tips---

- Nobody cares about you. They care about their problems.
- They definitely don't care that you're a college student. All that does is make me want to lower the bid.
- Short and sweet (and engaging) wins every time

If I got something like this, I might actually respond:

Subject: Had an issue pulling up [site name] on mobile...

Hey [First name],

Noticed that your site isn't optimized for mobile. Do you need help with that? Looks like you're also not indexed on Google properly---you could be missing out on a lot of eyeballs.

Here's a quick mock-up of how your site would look---[link]

I can get this knocked out in 3-5 business days. What do you think?

Sincerely,
Blah blah blah

-------

Also, pick up the phone. Nothing will refine your pitch faster than having to say it to people in real life.
 
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JustKris

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Some good responses in this thread.

I get emails like these all the time. Some quick tips---

- Nobody cares about you. They care about their problems.
- They definitely don't care that you're a college student. All that does is make me want to lower the bid.
- Short and sweet (and engaging) wins every time

If I got something like this, I might actually respond:

Subject: Had an issue pulling up [site name] on mobile...

Hey [First name],

Noticed that your site isn't optimized for mobile. Do you need help with that? Looks like you're also not indexed on Google properly---you could be missing out on a lot of eyeballs.

Here's a quick mock-up of how your site would look---[link]

I can get this knocked out in 3-5 business days. What do you think?

Sincerely,
Blah blah blah

-------

Also, pick up the phone. Nothing will refine your pitch faster than having to say it to people in real life.

Speaking of bad emails---I JUST got this one while looking through my spam folder.

"Hi Kris Can you point me in the right direction...

Can you connect me with the person responsible for new customer acquisition from your social media efforts? Specifically, who would be interested in how to get decent leads from Facebook paid ad campaigns?

Kris , I really appreciate your time and help. Thank you in advance!"


LOL. Why? Why is the impetus on me to help you? What's in it for me?

The only mildly interesting phrase in the whole email is "decent leads"----and even that is suspect. I don't want decent leads. I want great leads.
 

amp0193

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Speaking of bad emails---I JUST got this one while looking through my spam folder.

"Hi Kris Can you point me in the right direction...

Can you connect me with the person responsible for new customer acquisition from your social media efforts? Specifically, who would be interested in how to get decent leads from Facebook paid ad campaigns?

Kris , I really appreciate your time and help. Thank you in advance!"


LOL. Why? Why is the impetus on me to help you? What's in it for me?

The only mildly interesting phrase in the whole email is "decent leads"----and even that is suspect. I don't want decent leads. I want great leads.


The tactic they used is good, but the execution was terrible and way too wordy.

The strategy is to send a very short email, that says who you are, and just asks for the appropriate person for X. No pitch, no nothing. The goal is to either get a "yes, that's me", or a "I've forwarded your email to: X". Once you've got the decision maker, you can start a conversation, as the act of replying to your initial email has warmed them up a bit.
 

notacustomer

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Hey guys, I've been running my marketing business for a few years now, and have recently started cold-emailing some high-paying niche clients. I put this together earlier today, and would love your opinions on it!


Hi [NAME],

I’m [My Name], a [College Name] student from [City]. In the past three years, I’ve helped my clients generate an additional $250,000 in revenue, and have worked for major brands across Canada and the United States through my web development agency, Toy Soldier Marketing. I came across your [INDUSTRY] site, and it hasn’t been updated since [YEAR]. Here’s a mock-up of what your site could look like:

[Link to Wordpress template in their niche, through a subdomain of mine]

Your new site will be mobile-responsive (it isn’t currently), and indexed correctly for Google search engines, which will improve your search ranking. Everything is completely customizable and will make your site stand out from the competition.

Do you want more customers? If so, I can help. Message me, let’s chat.

-Neal

While the advice given by the participants seems to be all over the lot, I'd like to offer one absolute that I can provide from experience.

Literally, my experience. My experience from having actually received your above email.

And I don't mean an email "along the lines of" the template above. I mean I received the exact template above, including all the field names between square brackets which you intended to replace with data specific to me, but didn't.

My advice: I'll never do business with you. For one thing, you've revealed how incompetent you are by sending your email before it was ready. For another thing, you've destroyed any sense that you might actually know something about me and what you can offer that I might be interested in.

Moreover, you've led me to this discussion forum, in which I've learned all the tactics and ploys that marketers use to try to get a foot in the door when they actually can't offer a damn thing and probably are lying to me.

You've also identified me in your post as a "high-paying niche client". The last thing I want is to be targeted only because you think I'm "high-paying".

No, if I ever need a service like this I will ask people I know and trust for recommendations.

Please go back into your hole in the ground.
 
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Harbourmaster

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While the advice given by the participants seems to be all over the lot, I'd like to offer one absolute that I can provide from experience.

Literally, my experience. My experience from having actually received your above email.

And I don't mean an email "along the lines of" the template above. I mean I received the exact template above, including all the field names between square brackets which you intended to replace with data specific to me, but didn't.

My advice: I'll never do business with you. For one thing, you've revealed how incompetent you are by sending your email before it was ready. For another thing, you've destroyed any sense that you might actually know something about me and what you can offer that I might be interested in.

Moreover, you've led me to this discussion forum, in which I've learned all the tactics and ploys that marketers use to try to get a foot in the door when they actually can't offer a damn thing and probably are lying to me.

You've also identified me in your post as a "high-paying niche client". The last thing I want is to be targeted only because you think I'm "high-paying".

No, if I ever need a service like this I will ask people I know and trust for recommendations.

Please go back into your hole in the ground.
What a giant waste of time you just took today. You got the email and it was not filled out properly, so instead of just putting it in the trash you decided to google the words in it and come to this forum and critique someone who is trying to start a business and who made a mistake? Get a life. And grow up. After reading this drivel you posted I am confident that you don’t fall into his intended audience of prospecting in the first place.
 

Mike S

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What's your conversion rate? I'd venture to say it's extremely low. We were in the web-dev business when we started our company and once we figured out how to scale we implemented a 10 step process that I developed that yielded a 35% engagement rate and of the 35% we converted 15%. Keep in mind it takes 5 to 7 "touches" to convert (sell) a new client, if your process doesn't allow for a multiple touch process you'll never grow to anything that will even need to scale. If you're happy building one or two sites a month, go for it, if you want a business you'll need to figure out a process to both scale and then deliver customers. Speaking from experience here.
 

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