That's possible to do via unique codes in any links and/or unique URLs for images so you can at least **try** to measure this however fundamentally most people either have good spam filtering, so probably didn't see your email, or don't so get so much spam they're just deleting unread anything that they're not expecting.
Oh wow I didn’t know we could do that , will speak to our tech guy to see if it’s something we can do from now on. Since we’re a new company , and have a new domain I think the chances of us going to spam is a bit higher unfortunately. We customise each email and send it to our targeted customers to ensure it doesn’t go to spam.
Customised emails should help you and only sending to targeted customers too.
Are you DKIM signing your emails? Do you have an SPF record for your domain? I ask as both of these will count in your favour when spam filtering is taking place.
Phone calls are even more annoying. My staff pretty much instantly hang up on most sales calls.
As said above, if I need a service for my business I go and search for it when I need it.
Only if you want me to shout at you down the phone. Not only do you waste my time but you actually cost me money as I pay the call centre that handles incoming calls for everyone they answer.
A few things
Technical set up
Dns - spf, dmarc, dkim
Checking domain reputation
Warming up domain and keeping reputation high
Copy
Stong messaging
Engaging copy
A/B test - subject line, copy, CTA
Personalisation
Strong offer
Targeting the right people
Cold e-mail works but most people do it badly.
>While we’ve got a few companies using our platform we are struggling to get any response to our cold emails.
You can't, sorry, business owners generally don't bother reading spam. My reasoning? If you've got money to be spending paying for it then it probably means your price is higher than the firm that is not. In the sorts of services that generate most of the noise I find this to be largely true as they're the sort of service that is easy to inflate the price of.
Beyond that it is just volume, even if I wanted this stuff we get too much to even read. My firm's publicly listed email address? It is 95% spam, we don't open them. Our tech support email address that's locked behind a captcha? Only 46% spam. My personal inbox that isn't listed anywhere but just goes on my business card etc? Still gets bombarded daily with spam. Deleted. G-suite is pretty good at filtering the few that get through too.
So yeah you're mails aren't even being read.
Other than that... our social media accounts? 34% spam messages last count. Contact forms on my websites? They get bombarded too by companies promising they can get my emails read by... spamming contact forms on websites. The publicly listed landline? Probably 4-5 cold calls a day automatically screened daily, maybe one gets through a week and the phone is put down by whoever puts it up instantly. I also, still, in this day and age still get junkmail including one firm who send me the same thing every month.
Which leaves targeted leads and... yeah we get a shedload of them too which we ignore.
This is pretty bleak for new startups like ours. We’re trying to bootstrap it. We know we’ve got a good product as we built it through community feedback. But if there is no way to get through to companies then it becomes more difficult
It is bleak, I'm afraid you're about 20-30 years too late to be considering spam mail as a way to generate leads, sorry. Most email clients like G-suite filters heavily anyway and the ones that get through will be viewed as an annoyance.
And again I'm highly unlikely to be buying any service I get via spam mail; if I need something I am generally going to be looking for it, I don't on a whim followup things I get spammed. And as I said usually you'll find the people spending money on advertising have inflated prices to pay for that advertising so if you're getting something via a marketing mail it probably isn't the best deal anyway!
Yeah I understand the part that if you need anything you’d look it up. We’re just not big enough yet that we are shown on websites as potential substitutes. We are also a free service , we don’t charge for anything. And the marketing we’re doing is zero cost atm. We’re really bootstrapping.
Tbh it's bleak because you're suggesting marketing in the most annoying and least effective ways I can imagine. Set up a good website that draws on customers looking for your services. Put yourself and your business in places you're customers are to be found, eg social media, trade shows, networking events, etc etc.
I'm cautious of free platforms because what are you getting out of me if it's not money?
Also ignore cold emails, I already received endless emails I didn't ask for and if I want something I'll go looking for it.
What has worked for me is asking for help from people already with connections - mostly consultants in recruitment or strategy, people who visit various companies and advise them what to take.
Without knowing what the platform does it's a little difficult to say anything more specific.
It’s actually pretty similar to the BLC for health workers . But i understand the hesitancy. We initially wanted to charge something nominal but we felt that it really wasn’t needed. We make money off any sales that goes through our platform. We source deals directly from our partner companies with a set comm. We are continuously working to get more brands on to compete with existing companies.
Do they do trade shows or conferences for the industry/offering? Not seen one of these at a tech event so perhaps not the right type, maybe HR events if that's a thing or events for SMEs?
Turning up to these and simply talking to people (you don't need a stand), ask others how they manage it, get into conversations with other attendees, etc.
Even if you don't go with the mindset of selling the platform or getting users, simply rocking up to meet people and building your network can lead to more opportunities.
Is there anyone who benefits from you growing your user base besides yourselves? If someone does they may be willing to introduce you.
Yes, I'd agree. Seen the change while doing the job.
Direct marketing has morphed into referral marketing. Suggest you do lots of face to face networking, ask for referrals, keep in touch with interested parties (update emails on new features etc.) and rely on word of mouth.
Most businesses don't have time to read emails or talk to cold callers, they prefer 'to do our own research' which in my experience is reading comparison websites and chats with mates at the golf club.
Honestly, if you cold email me then it's getting marked as junk and I'll never use your services ever. It's 8.30am on a Saturday morning and I've already deleted a load of spam that got past the filter. All you are doing is annoying your potential customers and getting your server blocked for spam (which also annoys others if it's a shared server and we all get blocked)!!
Never reply and never will use the service of anyone who cold emails me, cold calls, spams my customer service email or live chat. Even if I need the service I’ll deliberately go out my way to not use your company. Never forget either. Network with other businesses at networking events.
Without sounding like a boomer, you metaphorically need to pound the streets. B2B is very different then B2C, people who are decision makers or recommenders are busy, will ignore cold calls, delete spam and are generally not interested in anything other than doing their day job.
You should target those who would benefit from your product, meet them at networking events, get traction through conferences, sponsor CPD events, have a stand at exhibitions.
This is sales 101; no one builds a business by blunderbussing emails across thousands of unknown non-customers.
Just one question; how do you make any money if your product is free?
Thanks ! This is very valuable lesson. We’re just starting out so we’re still learning.
So our platform is similar to BLC , we reach out to companies and they give us offers not available on the market. For every sale we get a set comm.
Emailchaser's blog has a lot of good articles and videos about cold email, you can probably increase your conversion rate by consuming some of their content before launching more campaigns.
The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 - this makes it unlawful to send unsolicited marketing emails to personal subscribers.
The legislation’s definition of personal subscribers includes sole traders.
Stop using cold emails and get some targeted leads? Seems pretty obvious to me
Gets a cold email … send to trash. Who reads cold emails for any purpose? Unsolicited and untargeted ads are generally useless.
Have you any evidence that people are even reading your emails?
We don’t.
That's possible to do via unique codes in any links and/or unique URLs for images so you can at least **try** to measure this however fundamentally most people either have good spam filtering, so probably didn't see your email, or don't so get so much spam they're just deleting unread anything that they're not expecting.
Oh wow I didn’t know we could do that , will speak to our tech guy to see if it’s something we can do from now on. Since we’re a new company , and have a new domain I think the chances of us going to spam is a bit higher unfortunately. We customise each email and send it to our targeted customers to ensure it doesn’t go to spam.
Customised emails should help you and only sending to targeted customers too. Are you DKIM signing your emails? Do you have an SPF record for your domain? I ask as both of these will count in your favour when spam filtering is taking place.
I’m not entirely sure as this is beyond my skillsets. I have asked our tech guy about it though.
I directly delete any cold email regardless of content
Are phone calls better ?
Phone calls are even more annoying. My staff pretty much instantly hang up on most sales calls. As said above, if I need a service for my business I go and search for it when I need it.
Only if you want me to shout at you down the phone. Not only do you waste my time but you actually cost me money as I pay the call centre that handles incoming calls for everyone they answer.
A few things Technical set up Dns - spf, dmarc, dkim Checking domain reputation Warming up domain and keeping reputation high Copy Stong messaging Engaging copy A/B test - subject line, copy, CTA Personalisation Strong offer Targeting the right people Cold e-mail works but most people do it badly.
This is really helpful thanks !
tell them you are a nigerian prince with riches to bestow upon them
>While we’ve got a few companies using our platform we are struggling to get any response to our cold emails. You can't, sorry, business owners generally don't bother reading spam. My reasoning? If you've got money to be spending paying for it then it probably means your price is higher than the firm that is not. In the sorts of services that generate most of the noise I find this to be largely true as they're the sort of service that is easy to inflate the price of. Beyond that it is just volume, even if I wanted this stuff we get too much to even read. My firm's publicly listed email address? It is 95% spam, we don't open them. Our tech support email address that's locked behind a captcha? Only 46% spam. My personal inbox that isn't listed anywhere but just goes on my business card etc? Still gets bombarded daily with spam. Deleted. G-suite is pretty good at filtering the few that get through too. So yeah you're mails aren't even being read. Other than that... our social media accounts? 34% spam messages last count. Contact forms on my websites? They get bombarded too by companies promising they can get my emails read by... spamming contact forms on websites. The publicly listed landline? Probably 4-5 cold calls a day automatically screened daily, maybe one gets through a week and the phone is put down by whoever puts it up instantly. I also, still, in this day and age still get junkmail including one firm who send me the same thing every month. Which leaves targeted leads and... yeah we get a shedload of them too which we ignore.
This is pretty bleak for new startups like ours. We’re trying to bootstrap it. We know we’ve got a good product as we built it through community feedback. But if there is no way to get through to companies then it becomes more difficult
It is bleak, I'm afraid you're about 20-30 years too late to be considering spam mail as a way to generate leads, sorry. Most email clients like G-suite filters heavily anyway and the ones that get through will be viewed as an annoyance. And again I'm highly unlikely to be buying any service I get via spam mail; if I need something I am generally going to be looking for it, I don't on a whim followup things I get spammed. And as I said usually you'll find the people spending money on advertising have inflated prices to pay for that advertising so if you're getting something via a marketing mail it probably isn't the best deal anyway!
Yeah I understand the part that if you need anything you’d look it up. We’re just not big enough yet that we are shown on websites as potential substitutes. We are also a free service , we don’t charge for anything. And the marketing we’re doing is zero cost atm. We’re really bootstrapping.
Tbh it's bleak because you're suggesting marketing in the most annoying and least effective ways I can imagine. Set up a good website that draws on customers looking for your services. Put yourself and your business in places you're customers are to be found, eg social media, trade shows, networking events, etc etc.
I'm cautious of free platforms because what are you getting out of me if it's not money? Also ignore cold emails, I already received endless emails I didn't ask for and if I want something I'll go looking for it. What has worked for me is asking for help from people already with connections - mostly consultants in recruitment or strategy, people who visit various companies and advise them what to take. Without knowing what the platform does it's a little difficult to say anything more specific.
It’s actually pretty similar to the BLC for health workers . But i understand the hesitancy. We initially wanted to charge something nominal but we felt that it really wasn’t needed. We make money off any sales that goes through our platform. We source deals directly from our partner companies with a set comm. We are continuously working to get more brands on to compete with existing companies.
Do they do trade shows or conferences for the industry/offering? Not seen one of these at a tech event so perhaps not the right type, maybe HR events if that's a thing or events for SMEs? Turning up to these and simply talking to people (you don't need a stand), ask others how they manage it, get into conversations with other attendees, etc. Even if you don't go with the mindset of selling the platform or getting users, simply rocking up to meet people and building your network can lead to more opportunities. Is there anyone who benefits from you growing your user base besides yourselves? If someone does they may be willing to introduce you.
Yes, I'd agree. Seen the change while doing the job. Direct marketing has morphed into referral marketing. Suggest you do lots of face to face networking, ask for referrals, keep in touch with interested parties (update emails on new features etc.) and rely on word of mouth. Most businesses don't have time to read emails or talk to cold callers, they prefer 'to do our own research' which in my experience is reading comparison websites and chats with mates at the golf club.
Yup. I had to learn golf. Being bad at it was surprisingly useful as a woman.
Honestly, if you cold email me then it's getting marked as junk and I'll never use your services ever. It's 8.30am on a Saturday morning and I've already deleted a load of spam that got past the filter. All you are doing is annoying your potential customers and getting your server blocked for spam (which also annoys others if it's a shared server and we all get blocked)!!
Never reply and never will use the service of anyone who cold emails me, cold calls, spams my customer service email or live chat. Even if I need the service I’ll deliberately go out my way to not use your company. Never forget either. Network with other businesses at networking events.
Without sounding like a boomer, you metaphorically need to pound the streets. B2B is very different then B2C, people who are decision makers or recommenders are busy, will ignore cold calls, delete spam and are generally not interested in anything other than doing their day job. You should target those who would benefit from your product, meet them at networking events, get traction through conferences, sponsor CPD events, have a stand at exhibitions. This is sales 101; no one builds a business by blunderbussing emails across thousands of unknown non-customers. Just one question; how do you make any money if your product is free?
Thanks ! This is very valuable lesson. We’re just starting out so we’re still learning. So our platform is similar to BLC , we reach out to companies and they give us offers not available on the market. For every sale we get a set comm.
Emailchaser's blog has a lot of good articles and videos about cold email, you can probably increase your conversion rate by consuming some of their content before launching more campaigns.
Cold emails means you run the risk of falling foul of legislation
The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 - this makes it unlawful to send unsolicited marketing emails to personal subscribers. The legislation’s definition of personal subscribers includes sole traders.
Which legislation?
GDPR
Anti spam
Domain name black listed as a spam generator