"A fabulous example of how not to cold e-mail people"
The other day, John Whiteside - former colleague, friend forever, and one of the best all-round marketers I know - sent me the following note:
I thought you might enjoy this email; it’s a fabulous example how not to cold-email people. I read it and have no idea what they do, other than obviously send out mail merge messages (because how else would she call us “[long, formal, never used in real life name of the company where John works]” multiple times?
And after not explaining what they actually do, she asks for a meeting!
Blog fodder perhaps…
As co-founder of Opinionated Marketers, John sure has a keen eye for blog fodder.
Here is a lightly scrubbed version of the note John forwarded:
Hi John —
Recently I was looking over the [long, formal, never used in real life name of the company where John works] website, and recognizing that you’re a business whose brand impression and awareness is very important to your organizational goals, I wanted to take just a moment of your time to introduce myself as well as my company, as I have been informed you are the person responsible for your marketing and sales growth.
I’m not sure how familiar you are with us; however, [our company] realizes that in today’s economy, organizations need to be able to do MORE with LESS time, resources, and budget. Therefore, we work with our clients everyday to help them improve upon and work with what they already have in place for growing their business.
At [our company] our products and services have helped many technology focused businesses ranging in size from 1-2 man operations up to Fortune 100 firms, expand awareness as well as gain market share by streamlining the process in which they systematically communicate, target and promote their message to a specific lead or contact.
While we do offer quite an array of marketing and sales products and services developed to enhance your current strategy, a quick phone call would best identify how we could be of support more specifically as it relates to [long, formal, never used in real life name of the company where John works]“.
By clicking the link below you can see just a few of the companies using our products and services today:
[Hyperlink]
Is there a particular day this week or next that would be good to schedule a phone conference, or I can also set-up a time to come by your office?
I look forward to hearing back from you!
First off, there’s the truly awkward use of the long, formal, never used in real life name of the company where John works - made even more awkward by the fact that the long, formal, never used in real life name of the company where John works begins with the word “The”. Thus, the note starts out with ‘I was looking over the The Place Where John Works Inc.” website…. Talk about unnatural writing.
As John points out, you can go through the note - which is way too long, given the lack of content - and not know exactly what the company does. Then there’s the hyperlink, which actually takes you to the interesting stuff: what they do and who they do it for. But unless I’m going to blog about it, there’s really no incentive for me to click on that link. Maybe they’re holding back the goodies because the e-mail blast metric is click-throughs. But without the goodies - some impressive clients, and something that’s closer to actual info on what the company does - I’m not likely to click through. Why hold back?
Then there’s the ‘let me know when you want to meet’ stuff. Sure, any sales rep is going to “look forward to hearing back from” a prospect, but how often does that happen? Whatever happened to “I’ll call you.” Naturally, no one wants to cold call, or bombard complete strangers with phone messages, but, to me, it is completely unrealistic to expect a prospect to contact you. It may happen occasionally, but not often.
This would have been a more effective communication if it had just said:
We help technology-focused companies like yours expand awareness and grow their businesses through online marketing. Some of our recent successes are:
- Example one (with hyperlink to full story)
- Example two (with hyperlink to full story)
- Example three (with hyperlink to full story)
I’ll call you within the week to see if you’re interested in exploring how our company can help your company. In the meantime, please let me know if there’s a time when you’d prefer me to call, or if you have any questions.
Better yet, why not offer an opportunity - podcast, webinar, online article, white paper, blog - that will let the prospect learn more about your company, without having to talk to a sales person? If they “spring” for any of those things, then the salesperson can presume a level of interest that gives them greater permission to place that follow up phone call.
Another better yet: this sales person is looking for a possible face to face meeting, which suggests a price point that might make it worthwhile to really tailor the message to the audience, rather than just send out a shotgun blast. Mention a client in the industry, if you have one. Mention an issue that the industry is facing - that you can help with.
The company that sent out this e-mail may actually be very good at what they do. But you’d never gather that from the e-mail.
—————————————————————————————————————————————-
From one opinionated marketer to another: thanks, John, for sharing this with me.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically each day to your feed reader. If you don't have a feed reader, you can always have these articles delivered to your email inbox every day. Click here to sign up.
do you have any idea how many more people they are able to reach by having it be a little less personal?
1. they don’t want to waste their time giving webinars, whitepapers etc.. it’s a qualifying technique- if the prospect won’t even have a conversation then how interested can they be??
I didn’t think it was that bad of an email.. sounds like they sell a tough service/product to sell and it’s very customizable - hence wanted to talk on the phone as a first step.
Shame on me for even reading this - let alone replying.. but shame on you for writing this… what a waste of time.. readers and writers.. this person is just trying to make a living.
They probably get a 2-5% response on these…
Chris - You may well be correct that this is an effective e-mail in terms of its yield (as you note, they certainly reach a lot more prospects with a generic blast than with a customized e-mail), but - universe of one - my friend who received it, an experienced marketer, was put off by it. With my friend John, I still come down on the side of always including a clear statement of what a company does, not just the vague benefits.
You point out that the sender is “just trying to make a living,” which is why I didn’t mention the name of the sender or their company. No need to embarrass anyone - just trying to point out what, in my opinion (although obviously not everyone’s), is a less than effective e-mail approach.
Sorry about all those italics - I thought I put the stopper in after “always.”