How we've got our first $15k web design client using cold email (Framework included)
Cold email can help you land your next $10k + web design client. You only need to put in the hours first and then let the system run for you.
So we've (me and @tosawa) laid out a step by step process on how to build your cold email system.
Let me know when you start this process, and if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them (No I don't have any lead gen or email marketing to sell you 😄).
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Thank for sharing the strategy, definitely going to try that!
And for lead generation, you should try Tweetscrape to scrape leads directly from Twitter, been working so good for me!
Awesome, hope that it brings you awesome results!!
That's a really good tool, I will check it out.
Nice strategy! thanks for sharing
Glad that it was helpful!
The fact that you can access all other frameworks for free is mind-blowing 🤯
Glad to know that are helpful! Let me know when you implement it, and how it's working out for you.
@Saadoon - I heard that Google is clamping down on email warmers and that you won't be able to auto-warm email accounts in some time. Which also means you'll have to keep using your primary email account! That means we'll have to get a 20% Reply Rate for our primary email accounts.
Yeah, I've heard about that.
The simple answer is if you are using Instantly, you have nothing to worry about for now. But if you end using a service provider that is using Google's API to handle all things warmup then yeah, I would recommend you switching to a software like Instantly, or omni.us.
For reply rates, we are seeing 2% - 10% depending on the quality of leads. And then we need to take into account how many will watch the video, then meeting show up, then close rate.
Just keep in mind that we have not launched any cold email campaign for over 45 days as we are working on other projects as well. But from what I reading in the cold email space no one who's using Instantly is harmed. And we are launching it again back soon.
Awesome, thanks so much! This really helps calm my nerves a bit :)
I've started with your playbook. Thanks so much for sharing this. I'll let you know how it goes!
Would love to keep learning more from you. Keep posting!
This is amazing, thank you! Quick question about the email set up - should the emails be set up as entirely new primary domains in google workspace, or can they be set up as alias emails of the primary .com email address?
Glad that it's helpful!
And to answer your question, yes it's best to completely separate your cold email domains from your primary ones. So if your main domain is .com, then you should buy .net. Or you can buy a variation of your domain name.
And under the .net domain you can create three email accounts max, however I do recommend 1 ~ 2 email accounts max per domain.
this is insanely cool. can you allow it so we can duplicate it? i like to keep all notion sites in one place.
Sure thing!
Really ingenious, thanks for sharing it with us :))
Thank you!!
This was really well explain. I love how the whole flow is laid out.
Thanks a lot for this.
Glad to hear that!
Thanks for sharing its amazing. We are currently working on it and getting some good traffic for our tool Churnfree which is helping membership business to grow thier revenue.
It will help us to improve our work for the cold emailing...
Now we have removed our landing page but it was mostly similar to our home page (merged the sections)... by visiting the home page you will got the point and see how we provide the information to visitors.
It's such an amazing process. We are also building our own tool and we'll def use cold email to get that initial traffic.
Good luck with Chrunfree, really digging the idea and how you've laid out your landing page!
I used to do a lot of dev work. I got my first client from an online forum. Wasn't thinking too much just replying to a post. Then I got clients by posting youtube workshop videos, participating in online study groups, referrals, and even posting in the public chat group.
I think to get dev work, you need to try all means to increase your visibility. And provide value by answering questions, helping others, etc. from day 1.
Yeah, our call to action was a quick audit video on how their website could do better in capturing leads. So you could try that CTA out. (I will write another detailed framework on how to do it hopefully by the end of this week so you keep an eye out for that)
But definitely, offering value upfront is always the way to go especially when you are doing any form of cold outreach you have two objectives that you need to nail:
1- Build rapport with them (So don't waste their time and tell them why you're here)
2- Get them to reply (The objective is to start a conversation)
So the simplest way to achieve that is offering value upfront.
(Btw, it would be awesome reading about your experience getting clients 😄)
Amazing, thanks for sharing! Do you see any technical downsides in using a regular gmail account for cold outreach?
What is the added value of custom domains, beside being looking more legit?
Tends to go to spam, I would invest the 20 dollars and get a domain. Then add either office 365 or Google workspace, will look more professional.
Personally we've never experienced with .gmail accounts before, but reading other people's stories all argue against it because mainly it gets low open rates.
And some of the leads who replied to our email, actually said they trusted our email because we had a professional one and not a .gmail account, so that says something about it.
So, if you don't want to use Google Workspace you can use Zoho mail, but just keep in mind that you would have to warm it up for longer and send emails at lower rate per day.
THIS IS AWESOME!
Thank you! Glad that you found value in it 😃
Love it!
I just had one problem: at the 4th step my monkey-brain could not figure out how to start the warmup. I finally figured out Instantly = instantly.ai
Maybe adding this link would help people like me.
🫣 Hahaha, that's actually a good point. Thank you for mentioning it, and I will edit it.
This was helpful. thank you!
Glad that it helped you 😁
cool
Thanks !
Greeeat strategy! thank you for sharing
Glad that it's helpful! My pleasure.
Thanks for sharing. Cold emails can be highly effective. It helped me get jobs in the past. I wrote about cold emailing myself. Phil… https://abitgamey.substack.com/p/cold-emails-to-hot-leads
Yeah, cold emails def should be part of every agency/freelancer's marketing plan.
Good article you've written btw!
This is a great post, thanks for sharing it. It will help people a lot.
Thank you! I hope it does 😃
cold email works so well if done right! Congrats!
Yeah, cold email is a great way to get new clients. You just have to keep testing out your offer until you find something that works. And thanks!
Wow. Thanks for sharing!
I love the way you explain the process!
Thank you! Glad that it is valuable to you.
Wow. This is really helpful. Thank you.
Do you need to pay for the email warming service ongoing or just to start?
Are there any cheaper alternatives?
Thanks
For the mean time, you can warm up your emails during the Free Trial that instantly offers. So when the time comes to send out your cold emails, they are all warmed up and ready.
Plus you can start with their Starter plan and upgrade as you go.
Other than that, they are the best option that we've tested out. And its the best bang for your buck compared to other solutions out there in the market.
Thanks for sharing
My pleasure!
Great to hear about your approach to cold email for landing your next big web design client!
Thank you! Glad it's helpful.
Thanks for sharing your framework. When you were sending cold emails from the new domains you purchases, isn't there a period where you need to warm up the email, so that you dont get blocked as spam?
Yes, you should warm up your emails for 2 weeks before sending out your first cold email. Otherwise you risk landing in spam or getting blacklisted.
Even after the 2 week warm up period, I recommend that you start sending only 25 emails per day (Including follow ups) then increase the limit gradually every week by an increments of 5.
Thanks for getting back to me. I saw this advice when I started reading through your Notion template. Very good insights by the way - thank you for putting together!
My pleasure! Good luck ✌️
Wow, This is very amazing. How is it free? Damn
Thanks for sharing man
Impressive results from using a cold email approach to acquire your first 15k web design client! The framework provided in this post is a great starting point for others looking to do the same. I appreciate the transparency in sharing both the successes and failures of this process.
Thank you and hope it helps!
https://elecomco.com/programming-class
Well documented thanks for sharing!
Glad that it's easy to follow!
Outstanding Strategy
Thank you! Glad it's helpful
Thanks for sharing!
Glad that it's helpful!
Good
I don't understand why you're talking about buying 4-5 domains. Am i missing something?
Ok, so the simple is deliverability and scale.
In order to ensure that you are landing in their (Your lead) inbox you should make sure that you aren't sending more than 35 ~ 50 emails per day.
So if you are only sending 50 emails per day because you are only using one account (Or 150 per day if you are using 3 accounts created under one domain)
So if you are sending only 150 emails per day (Reaching out to new leads + the follow up emails) that's not enough and won't help you scale, and if you send more you'll land in spam, so no one would even see your email.
Here's a video that explains the whole idea behind it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bajzbp193j0
Great stuff - thank you for sharing!
I have started doing outbound reach but recently, I may have found better success with "Inbound Growth".
I am still testing out "Outbound Growth" to see how it goes but my data is telling me to create more content for end users.
Yeah, it's def worth experiencing with different channels and sticking with what works best for you.
It is very interesting, and very rewarding when you realize how many customers you gain, when you least expect it.
100% true!