Is Cold Emailing Effective?
In the past, I have talked a bit about how to market your services, find new clients, etc. Although I have never been one to use cold emailing in my freelance writing career, many readers have told me that I should give it a try. Personally, I have always thought that cold calling was a much better way to find clients. But since I have never given the email method a try, my assumption is a bit premature.
My main concern with cold emailing is that the recipient will think that I am nothing more than a spammer. Not only do I hate to find spam in my inbox, but it really slows me down due to the high volume of emails that I receive. How do some of you guys and gals get around this? Or don’t you worry if your recipient thinks of your mail as spam? Personally, the best way I can think to avoid this is to personalize the message as much as possible, including the subject line.
Over the next few weeks I am going to give cold emailing a try. If it works to my advantage, I will surely add it to my current marketing mix. On the other hand, if it is a complete failure or people begin to show displeasure with my unsolicited mail, I’ll back off.
In the meantime, if anybody has tips on how to achieve maximum success with cold emailing, leave a comment or send me a quick email. I promise I won’t call you a spammer!
February 18th, 2008 at 4:45 am
In that case, what do you do if there is a publication that you think you have perfect content for, but they have no stated freelance policy?
February 18th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I think cold emailing is a great way to expand your writer’s network.
I’ve come in contact with great editors, and received friendly and informative replies, by cold emailing. I tend to send out a “feeler” query first, which includes asking about the publication’s freelance policy or guidelines if they’re not stated explicitly on their site, and inquiring about their upcoming themes. If you don’t sound like spam, and include only a link back to your professional site and not a long list of blogs and samples, you won’t be treated like spam. Experienced editors will know the difference between a writer’s query and a spammer’s jargon.
I actually write quite often about cold querying editors, so feel free to have a look around my blog. Hope this helps
February 18th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Walton - Im not totally sure what you are asking, but in most cases I only query publications that I find in Writers Market. There are more than enough markets there to keep me busy!
Amanda - Great advice. Ill check out the tips on your blog as well!
February 18th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
I use cold call e-mail often. That’s part of the fun of it. Gotta market yourself, right?
I have a copy of Writer’s Market and between that and reading writer’s guidelines in publications I pick up that might be a good fit, I have had some success.
I got my blog job with a cold call e-mail, but I knew the party to whom I was pitching.
It is usually something as simple as
Dear Editor,
Attached is an article submission for Blah Blah Blah Magazine.
Thank you for your consideration.
February 19th, 2008 at 1:23 am
I hate cold emailing/calling/contacts - but yes I will have to agree sometimes these pay off because you never know who is looking for what.
Although, I still hesitate from doing it, just like you Chris, I am afraid they’ll think I am a spammer!
(Amanda I am about to go visit your blog now!)