I sent 212 cold emails to lawn care businesses. Here's what actually worked.
I run a lawn care business in Brisbane. I also build software. Weird combo, but it means I know exactly how broken the tools are for service businesses.
A few weeks ago I launched LeadScouts — a tool that delivers verified B2B leads from Google Places in 48 hours. No stale lists, no scraping.
To find beta users for my other product (YardPilot, a CRM for lawn care businesses), I did cold email outreach to 212 trade businesses. Here's what I learned about cold outreach that applies to any early-stage product:
212 emails sent
47% open rate (way above the 20% benchmark)
6.4% click rate (not great — working on it)
1 beta signup so far
0 revenue
What worked:
- Short, conversational subject lines (no clickbait)
- Writing like a human, not a marketer
- Mentioning a specific pain point ("good at lawns, not paperwork")
- No bullet point feature dumps
What didn't:
- Generic CTAs ("learn more" = death)
- Trying to explain everything in one email
- Not following up (building a 3-email sequence now)
The open rate tells me the problem resonates. The click rate tells me the pitch needs work. That's the game — iterate fast on what the data says.
Currently building follow-up sequences and testing new email variants to push that click rate above 10%.
Anyone else doing cold outreach for an early-stage product? What's working for you?
This is a really clean breakdown.
One thought on the click rate: it might not be copy yet, but intent mismatch.
Lawn care owners who resonate with the pain still hesitate to click unless the outcome is ultra-concrete (e.g. “10 local businesses you can call this week”).
Curious what was the promise behind the click?
Good observation — I think you're onto something.
The CTA was a link to the YardPilot beta signup page with a pretty generic "check it out" prompt. No concrete outcome attached.
Lawn care owners think in jobs and schedules, not "platforms" and "features." The email got their attention (47% opens) but the ask wasn't tangible enough to get the click.
Building out a follow-up sequence now that focuses on a specific pain point per email instead of trying to sell the whole product at once. Will report back on what it does to the numbers.
Appreciate the feedback — hard to see this stuff when you're too close to it.
Exactly ! making the outcome tangible is usually the missing piece. Something like:
“Get 10 verified local leads this week no fluff, actionable right away”
even in a single line CTA can shift the click rate dramatically, because it tells them exactly what they get.
Would be curious to see how the next sequence performs once you anchor each email around a single, concrete pain point. Small adjustments here usually compound a lot.
That's the plan. First sequence goes out this week — each email anchored to one specific outcome instead of "here's our platform."
Will post the numbers when I have them. Appreciate the back and forth 🤙