Switching from ads to cold email

There are two ways to send cold emails: 1. The "spray and pray" approach – blast 10,000 generic emails hoping someone bites 2. The targeted sniper approach – send fewer, highly customized emails that hit the bullseye I've been using the second method to initiate conversations with premium clients. Here's my exact 5-step process: 👉 Step 1: Choose Your Perfect Target Niche I focus exclusively on info marketers and course creators. Why? Because I understand their business model, speak their language, and can deliver specific results they value. 👉 Step 2: Find Approachable Prospects on YouTube My sweet spot? Channels with 10K-200K subscribers. These creators are: ✅ Established enough to afford your services ✅ Not so big that they're inaccessible ✅ Still handling much of their marketing themselves Channels under 500K subscribers are generally responsive if your approach is right. 👉 Step 3: Join Their Ecosystem Before sending a single email, I: ✅ Subscribe to their email list ✅ Watch their recent videos ✅ Study their sales process ✅ Purchase their entry-level products (if affordable) ✅ I become their customer first. This gives me insider knowledge no generic cold emailer could ever have. 👉 Step 4: Identify Specific Gaps in Their Marketing After studying their ecosystem for a few days, I look for clear holes in their funnel: ♐ Are they sending infrequent emails? (Once a week is a missed opportunity) ♐ Is their copy generic and uninspiring? ♐ Are they missing a front-end offer before their main product? ♐ Are they neglecting paid traffic? ♐ Is their lead magnet underwhelming? The key is finding specific problems I know how to fix—not vague "I can help you grow" promises. 👉 Step 5: Craft a Compelling, Problem-Aware Email Your email must stand out in a crowded inbox. Boring subject lines like "Looking to partner" or "Marketing services" get ignored. Instead, I use pattern-interrupting subject lines that spark curiosity without being deceptive: "I noticed something about your funnel..." "Quick question about [their product name]" "This confused me about your offer" Asks for a simple next step (not trying to close the deal immediately) I then follow up intelligently—at least 7 touches over 2-3 weeks, each adding new value.

If I had to start cold email all over again, here's exactly what I would do: Start by understanding that cold email success comes down to just three things: Sending, List Building, and Campaign Strategy. Nail those, and you'll win. 1. Sending Use a real outbound platform like Smartlead.ai or Instantly.ai — not MailChimp, HubSpot, or private SMTPs. Send from Google or Outlook inboxes, not from sketchy servers. Buy .com or .co domains only. Don’t worry too much about how the domain looks, it doesn't matter nearly as much as you think. Buy your domains from Porkbun or Dynadot, not GoDaddy. They often have domain sales. (one right now for .co domains for $2 and .com for $7). Use a vendor like Zapmail.ai or Hypertide.io to spin up inboxes, you want to have admin console access. Warm up your inboxes properly, especially for Outlook (sometimes for 4–6 weeks if you are targeting large enterprises.) 2. List Building Realize that most list building platforms are just scraping LinkedIn and guessing emails. If you’re targeting local businesses, Google Maps scraping works well. Generic emails like contact@ can work — especially with small businesses. 3. Campaign Strategy (What You Say) Use a proven format that you can iterate on weekly. Use ChatGPT to mimic styles like John Barrows, Josh Braun, or Will Allred. If campaigns fail, adjust your template and list filters fast. Usually after sending to 1,000 contacts. Don’t rely on seven-step sequences. Two or three emails max — most replies come from email one. Prioritize sending more net-new emails over sending tons of follow-ups. Misc. Advice Ignore LinkedIn screenshots bragging about reply rates. Most of the people bragging are running campaigns they can't run for more than a week. Use open tracking when you're unsure about deliverability. It's not the boogie man people make it sound. It can tell you within a day if you're having real issues with deliverability. Always use custom tracking domains. Don’t obsess over fake open rates from Apple devices — it still gives a good sense of inboxing. Think about what's in it for the prospect. If they respond, what will they get in return.

I’ve made over $10M+ for my clients with my agency, If started again here’s how I’d hit $10k in 60 days or less: Most people would run paid ads or go for organic content. But I’d focus on cold emails. And this is exactly how I’m going to hit $10K in no time: 1. Define my target: This is one of the most important things to do. First look at your skills and after into who you can help using those skills. Along with if they are capable of buying your service (do they have money or not?) For example: If you’re good at writing copy for info products and you charge up to $2k/mo retainer. You might want to make your target coaches already making over $25k/mo This will make it easier to create your offer and messaging for cold emails. 2. Create my offer Here I do 3 things: - Make a guarantee - State a time frame to deliver - Add a risk reversal For example: “I’ll help you make an additional $20k/mo from your course (guarantee), in 90 days (time frame) or I’ll give you a full refund (risk reversal) 3. Test my offer Even after weeks of research and thinking you have made a no-brainer offer… You still have to get and analyze feedback from the market. I suggest using cold emails for this because you get direct feedback from your prospects. based on the responses or lack of responses from your campaign you can see what’s right or wrong. For example if you’re pitching social media growth and most of your prospects ask how much that’ll make their business that means they care more about growing their revenue over followers. Then you have to adjust your offer based on feedback 4. Volume: After multiple tests and finally validating the offer in the market… I’d step into sending more emails to my target. The more “Yes’s” I get, the more calls I book, the higher the chance of signing clients. 5. Over deliver: I will make sure I do an incredible job for the first client and get more than the results required. This more often than not leads to a referral/retainer or solid testimonial from the client. 6. Case study: This is a very underrated system. I have a working offer. I already signed a client. I did a fantastic job. Now I will document the process alongside the results and transformation. This would be used as my case study… 7. Leverage case study in new campaign: It gets way easier to sign new clients when you already have results to show for your offer. You go from:  “I can help you do X” to… "I recently helped X get Y results, and noticed you run a similar business. Worth a chat?” Increased authority = More conversions. Here’s a recap: 1) Define your target 2) Create your offer 3) Test your offer 4) Volume 5) Overdeliver for first client 6) Build / track case studies 7) Leverage case study in new campaigns This is the sure fire way to hit 10k in less than 60 days, When I first started my cold email agency I followed this process (almost to the tee) and built it to 7-figures with 2 years.

If you’re in B2B selling a product or service in the $10K–$80K ACV range, read this 👇 When it comes to Cold Email, Founders often don’t know where to start.   You’ve got a solid product. You’re closing deals. Now you’re asking: “How do we turn this into something scalable?”   That’s when the marketing rabbit hole opens up: SEO? LinkedIn Ads? Google? TikTok? Cold Email?   After working with 50+ B2B companies at SalesCaptain, here’s what I've seen: Most channels work when it comes to marketing, but not all of them work for everything.   Let’s benchmark them based on what matters 👇 (Cost, Speed, Targeting, Scalability, and ROI)   📬 Cold Email & Outreach 💸 Low cost (just tools + time) 🎯 Super efficient targeting (job title, industry, company size) ⚡ Fast results (you can book meetings within days) 🚀 High ROI (especially with $10K–$80K deals) 🧠 Scales with smart systems, not ad budget   💰 Google Ads → Great for high-intent leads → High CPCs, intense competition → Works well if you already rank for your brand 📈 SEO/Content → Compounding returns (but painfully slow) 😰 → Not where you start if you need meetings next week 🎯 LinkedIn Ads → B2B targeting is 🔥 → So are the costs → Better for nurture than cold conversion 🎥 Social Ads (Meta/TikTok) → Great for DTC, not great for niche B2B → Requires a heavy creative + testing budget 🤝 Referrals & Partnerships → Highest conversion, warmest leads → But you can’t build a predictable pipeline off hope Cold Outreach shines when: ✅ You know your ICP ✅ You’ve got a clear problem-solution fit ✅ You’re ready to build a repeatable sales engine   It’s not a magic trick. It’s not spam. It’s targeted, strategic, and scalable when done right   We turned all this into a visual → check it out below 👇 📊 Save it. Share it with your Marketing Lead. Use it to plan your next move.   And if you want help designing an Outbound engine that books meetings on autopilot, let’s talk.