🏓Hate cold outreach?

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I am feeling it today, Inbox Hackers. That’s good news for you because my rants usually produce the best emails - my opinion, results may vary for you personally. 

All I’m gonna do is give you ways to do cold outreach minus the suck. Sounds impossible but give it a shot. 

Then I’ll polish off this work week with the Marketing Wrap-Up.

Quick Hit: Good stuff as always from Nick Kolenda on “choosable items”…

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Making Cold Connections

Over the years, I’ve read countless useless articles telling me how effective commenting on people’s social media posts is for making connections and building awareness for your business. And warming up for pitches via DMs or cold email.

I never had any luck doing that. Why?

I could blame the advice slingers. Yet, I’ll humble myself and tell the truth. I never stuck with it very long because I don’t like it — deep dislike for social media in general. Plus, I don’t believe any human being can hop on then hop off in time to avoid the addictive traps laid all over each of the temptation-packed platforms. 

All that said, I do believe there’s got to be value in mingling with people on social media to build your brand. I’ve seen too many smart people promote that strategy for it to be a stupid plan (and these folks weren’t selling a course on doing it).

So, I got to wondering how I could make this kind of cold outreach and connection building fun instead of sucktastic and mentally draining?

I’ve got a couple of ideas. Then I’ll drop in a few cold outreach statistics that might encourage you to try it… or try it again.

Option #1: Gamify Cold Connections

Daily Missions (Set achievable daily goals).

• Start with 5 outreach messages per day

• Each successful response earns you 10 points

• Each meaningful conversation earns 25 points

• Each meeting scheduled earns 50 points

• Weekly goal: 300 total points

Time-boxing

• Set aside 30-45 minutes each morning

• Use a timer to make it feel like a game session

• Stop when the timer ends, regardless of progress

• Celebrate completing your daily "quest" with a small reward

Instead of mass commenting, pick 3-5 potential customers and really study their content for 2 weeks. Notice their language patterns, pain points, and what gets them to engage. This intel is worth more than 100 generic comments. 

Week 1 & 2 Study Phase

Create a tracking document for each person noting…

• Topics they post about most 

• Specific language/phrases they use repeatedly

• Their biggest frustrations (look for posts starting with "Why does..." or "I'm tired of...")

• Other accounts they frequently engage with

• Times of day they're most active

• Type of posts they respond to most (polls, stories, questions, etc.)

Notice their conversation patterns in comments

• Do they give long, thoughtful responses or quick replies?

• What questions do they ask others?

• What type of comments get responses from them?

• What topics trigger deeper discussions?

Track their business ups and downs

• What changes or challenges are they currently facing?

• What tools or services do they mention using?

• What goals or plans have they shared?

• What aspects of their business do they seem proud of?

• What frustrates them about their current solutions?

After the Study Period:

Draft a "Customer Voice Document"

• List exact phrases they use to describe problems

• Note specific goals they mention

• Document their daily challenges

• Compile their terminology patterns

Create Your Connection Plan

• Write 2-3 potential conversation starters 

• Identify 1-2 specific ways your solution aligns with their stated challenges

• Plan your outreach for their most active times

• Prepare relevant resources / insights you can share

The key? You're not just gathering data - you're learning to speak their language and understand their world - at least better than you could before.

This makes your eventual outreach feel less like cold contact and more like hopping in on a conversation that’s been going on.

Option #2: Challenge

Pick a partner to do a $200 challenge. Each of you set a goal to do a set number of cold outreaches through DMs, comments, group discussions, cold email, or all the above. 

After 60 days, one of you - the loser - owes the other 200 bucks. 

Or if you can’t find a partner, put a lighter next to two $100 bills where you see it every day and light them on fire if you fail to meet your daily goal (whatever measurement you set).

I’ll never love doing cold outreach. Maybe you won’t either. But…

HubSpot’s “flywheel” won’t fly before you’ve got some traction.

 Now for those cold outreach stats…

Cold Outreach Stats (email & direct messages)

1. 79% of salespeople who use social media as a selling tool outperform those who don't

2. The average open rate for cold emails is 23.9%

3. Social selling and multi-channel outreach have a higher success rate compared to traditional cold emailing and cold calling

4. The optimal number of follow-ups ranges from 5-8

5. C-level executives are 23% more likely to answer cold B2B emails than employees outside the C-suite

6. 98% of sales reps with more than 5,000 LinkedIn connections hit their quota

7. Messages with emojis in the subject line or preview can result in higher open rates

Thanks for reading. Please share Inbox Hacking with your people.  

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin of Inbox Hacking

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