In this episode we talk about nurturing leads.  Both cold and warm leads are important in your sales and marketing efforts.  Today we’re going to consider cold leads as a sales effort and warm leads as a marketing effort where people have opted in.

Cold emailing is becoming more and more popular, especially in the B2B space.  Viral apps were all the promise a few years ago, but not startups are realizing that they have to communicate with customers directly.  

The most important part of building a list is making sure that the list is the right one for your goals.  Using a tool like ClearBit will get you clearer results and a more targeted list.  From there you can segment the list down into lists that are more appropriate for the target audiences.  Good ways to segment a list may include:  size of company, title of recipient, and industry.  

Once you have a list segmented, begin sending them consistently every day.  A good number to start with is 50 emails per sales rep per day.  This allows you to both follow up with leads, learn from the early campaigns that you sent, and adjust as the campaigns proceed.  The rule of thumb to follow with follow ups is to try to connect with a cold lead 5 times before sending the final email to them.  At this point you can tell them that they’ll be removed from the list and won’t receive further emails from you.  This is a very effective email to send.

When talking warm leads, the best thing to do to convert a lead from warm to hot is to ask for a demo of your tool when they’re signing up for your list.  This is a time when they’re most primed for engaging with you in a buying situation.  

To promote your content, send an email with every blog post.  This is the best opportunity to let a reader know about the software tools you’re offering.  Doing this every time you post will give you the most genuine opportunities to remind them of the solutions you offer.  People who have opted in to get your content want more content from you.  So email it to them.

Hiten advocates not segmenting a warm email list until your list size grows to >10,000 subscribers.  At this point you can segment by engagement.  Who’s opened, who’s clicked, and who’s still silent.  

Remember:  The biggest email lists also have the highest unsubscribe rate.  

Here's a short list of some of the resources on cold email from the Close.io blog:

How to improve your cold email response rates

The breakup email: Before you stop following up, send this

How to call prospects who open your email

Today’s Tips

Hiten:  Subscribers have opted in to get more of your content, so send it to them.  If you’re not sending them your blog posts, webinar announcements, etc. you’re letting them down.

Steli:  When you send sales emails, write like you would to your mother.  Act like a real human and you’ll get better results from your cold email.  

We are approaching the 500 member mark on Facebook.  This has become a wonderful community.  Please join us, Facebook group.  

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