How many leads do you have to email before getting any traction? (B2B app)
Hi fellow IH,
So I have done a lot of interviewing and iterating while building my MVP and now looking at pushing the product out to targeted potential users. I have launched on HN and StartupSchool but they are not the main place where my potential users hangout. Just thinking about how much I should email in the first batch.
Good question @JMR. Even I am trying to do B2B outreach right now for my product ruttl.
The average response rate on cold outreach mails is around 8% roughly. That being said, while it is harder to get a response, if you approach the right target person with perfect emailer content, you might get more responses.
I don't there is a way to put exact number on your question, but you should at least reach out 20-30 people and see if your can get at least one response to ensure that your approach is working. Otherwise, just keep experimenting new ways to approach them until you find the one that works.
Thanks for your input. Sometimes I just need to see how others do it, it gives a confidence boost when doing things for the first time. Otherwise I will keep guessing for that missing answer. 20-30 seems like a good start.
That is the nature of entrepreneurship haha! The quicker your learn from others, the lesser time you need to spend on learning while launching your own product.
I reached out to 800 prospects. Converted one after emailing six times - was totally worth it. There are also a few in the pipeline I'm still trying to convert. B2B can take sometime to convert especially when you cold email people. There's something about cold emails that makes people want to resist at first. Most of my customers arrived on the site organically.
Thank you dammyX for sharing your experience. 800 prospects. That's a ton of prospect before any sales. I now have a better perspective on how others are facing the B2B cold emailing challenge. All the best to your venture.
It depends on how targeted your leads are, and also how you obtain the email addresses.
Scraping email addresses is of course going to be yield very poor results, not to mention the possibility of getting your account banned by your smtp provider.
Buying email lists is also a no-no for the same reason as above.
In the beginning stages when I cold emailed leads for our tool, I manually searched and scoured through the web and find sites, jotting down their email address on the contact page. If they don't provide one, I use tools like hunter.io and snov.io to help find email address by entering the domain on these tools.
Going back to your question -- how many leads before you get your first customer -- honestly I don't know because there are lot of variables at play. For me, I did somewhere around 400ish (I think) before I got my first customer thru cold email.
After you get the first one, you'd have more confidence because you know it works. You just have to keep doing it. It's tedious and boring, I admit. Which is why when you've closed a few customers, hire someone to do the laborious tasks of searching for leads.
Thanks wellymulia, this is exactly how I experienced it. Seem that finding the leads takes a lot of time and energy. It takes a while to find their email, so I was really cautious when emailing them, afraid of wasting the hours I had just spent finding those leads. Thanks for the perspective. I think I need to do the first 400 before I get better at identifying the right leads to go after. Thank you again!
My 2 cents: It's not a numbers game: Pick your prospects one by one, write a super customized email showing you care, follow-up, stay concise. And repeat.
Customers should convert eventually.
Great point Jules. I get into this infinite loop of trying to find and write the perfect email (I have written many drafts), that I never get to actually email them. I obviously just needed to "Do it", but I'm limiting it to Vijay's 20-30 folks before I try to re-write my cold email. Thanks for the advise.
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