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Rant: Cold emails vs warm intros - which actually works better?
I spent 6 months sending cold emails to local shops in Denver, got maybe a 2% reply rate. Then I asked a buddy to introduce me to one owner, and that single meeting turned into a $3k deal. Am I wasting my time with cold outreach or just doing it wrong?
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carter.joseph5d agoTop Commenter
@bennett.harper that feeling of relief then frustration is real. I went through the exact same cycle.
So follow up question - when you get that warm intro, do you still send any kind of follow up email later? Or do you just rely on the intro to do all the work?
My buddy’s intro got me the meeting but I still had to send a proposal after. Felt like the warm intro got my foot in the door but the cold follow up closed it. Kinda blurry line sometimes.
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emeryj665d ago
Oh, you mean spending hours writing personalized emails to strangers isn't the same as having a buddy say "hey, meet my friend"? Who would have guessed? Cold email is basically shouting into the void and hoping the void shouts back with a credit card. Warm intros are like having the void's mom tell them to be nice to you. Yeah, you're probably wasting your time with cold outreach unless you enjoy playing the lottery with your effort. That 2% reply rate is actually pretty standard, so you're not doing it wrong, the game is just rigged from the start. People trust people way more than they trust a name in their inbox from someone they've never met.
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bennett.harper5d ago
Whoa, hold up, you're saying that 2% reply rate is actually standard? That's wild to me. I've been banging my head against the wall thinking I was just terrible at writing emails, @emeryj66. It's honestly a little freeing to hear that's the norm, but it doesn't make the whole process any less frustrating when you put in all that effort for basically nothing.
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