Cold Email Isn’t Dead. You’re Just Doing It Wrong⏐Ep. #253

Will Cannon (0:00)

We got probably to our first 1 million ARR, almost entirely through cold email. I started doing SEO, I started doing ads and other stuff, but that takes time, so I was like, let's just cold email. And that's what we did. I was cold emailing 5 plus million emails a month. So that's what, 60 million emails a year. You don't need to start with 50,000 emails. You can start with 100 emails a month. You don't have a sequence of emails. You're throwing money in the trash, actually throwing your campaign in the trash. You think that cold email means I send you a cold email. No, that means you have a sequence of emails because 80, 90% of the time, you're going to generate more revenue on a follow up than you are the initial email. People are busy. He's booking like five meetings a day. So we're talking 100 meetings a month. He's crushing it. It's the one channel that's slow barrier to entry, doesn't cost a lot to start. You can get your first customer in a day. It still works.

Chris Koerner (0:47)

Is it true that cold emailing is dead? I keep hearing that over and over. So I wanted to put that rumor to bed. Today I had my friend on his name is Will Cannon. He started two software businesses from scratch that do millions of dollars a year. And he sends tens of thousands of cold emails per month. And he says it is still alive and well. So today he gave us an absolute master class on all things cold emailing. How to stand out in the age of AI, how many times to follow up, what your offer should be, etc. How to make sure your emails hit the inbox, how to scale a campaign. Please enjoy.

Will Cannon (1:18)

People just think, I need to call people. That means send people an email. No, that means a 15 email sequence or a 10 email sequence. We found that 80, 75 plus percent of the revenue we generate from cold email is not from the first email.

Yeah, of course. Yeah.

Chris Koerner (1:36)

How many follow ups?

Will Cannon (1:37)

10 to 15 email sequence. Yeah.

Chris Koerner (1:40)

Now, what type of people like a, this is like a real estate agent or?

Will Cannon (1:43)

No, this is B2B. This is where we're reaching out to SaaS companies, 50 to 500 employees, IT services, computer software, people that need B2B data, people that have sales teams. So, yeah, I mean, this is another big part of cold email is, you think that cold email means I send you a cold email. No, that means you have a sequence of emails because you're going to generate more revenue on, normally, 80, 90% of the time, you're going to generate more revenue on a follow-up than you are the initial email. People are busy. They get 100 cold emails a day. You know, the lobby is big companies. They don't reply to the first email. And so, if you don't have a sequence of emails, you're throwing revenue and you're throwing money in the trash collection during your campaign in the trash collection because that campaign is not going to be nearly as successful as a full sequence of emails.

Chris Koerner (2:27)

That's okay. So that's crazy to me because typically when I send cold emails, I see such a big drop off at like the third follow-up that like the open rate is like so low and the response rate is abysmal. Like if they are responding, they're saying, leave me alone, that I just thought it was like diminishing returns. Like the difference between the fourth follow-up and the 15th follow-up is next to nothing. What is like your timing of these follow-ups look like? Like how long does it take you to send 15 emails?

Will Cannon (2:53)

45 to 60 days. So I would, I mean, look, every industry is different. Every campaign is different. So there's a lot of factors here, but I would say first email, the second email is three to five days later. The next email is two to three days after that. And you're, yeah, I mean, it sounds like you're just peppering someone with emails. It sounds to the normal person like, they would have already replied on the first or second email. They don't want to be bothered with the eighth email.

Yeah, but if you look at cohorts or if you just run, here's what I'll say, A, B, test everything. Go test this yourself. Have 1,000 leads, divide 500, 500 Send one campaign and just send one cold email. And then on the other campaign, five to 10 touches of cold email, test it for yourself and see what works better. I can almost guarantee you in most cases on B2B cold emailing that you're going to have more revenue, meetings, everything from the campaign that has follow ups. I mean, this isn't a secret.