For the umpteenth time today, I received a “cold call” email proposal from a company offering SEO services.
I don’t know why in this day and age of social media, companies still buy lists and send these emails out. This seems like a really dumb way to turn “leads” into sales. I can’t imagine their ROI is very good. In fact, I bet it’s less than 1 percent. Hardly worth the effort!
Just for kicks, I visited the website of this latest company to check them out. The website looked pretty slick.
But as I scrolled down, I discovered something that just made me laugh. Take a look at who their “clients” are and what they supposedly have to say:
Can you believe it? Jodie Foster, Bette Davis and Meryl Streep! Three Academy Award winning actresses are all clients of this company! Of course, Ms. Davis has been deceased for several years, but what does that matter?
Oh I know… these people really ARE clients, they just have the same names as these actresses, right? Yea… and I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn too!
Seriously though… if you are thinking of buying a list of email addresses to market to, think again. One of my clients is struggling right now because he is using a list of email addresses that was provided to him by the network marketing company he represents. I helped him produce a webinar and sent an email to the hundreds of contacts he has on his list. His open rate was 2.0 percent and NO ONE registered!
My next strategy is to help him set up a blog so he can attract leads from people who are truly interested in what he has to sell. Once he uses a lead magnet to attract email addresses, then he can start a true lead nurturing strategy.
If you’d like to generate more leads for your business, check out LeadPages. I’ve been using them for several months and they have helped me grow my email subscriber list.
That funny thing about all of this Gloria, is that they likely made some sales from their email blast – something very unlike what you do.
You claim to be an “internet marketing expert” yet you can’t even cloak your own affiliate links on your shitty blog that has no audience? But you’re going to build a “lead magnet” for someone else?
“expletive deleted”, please.
Oh, and chances are they emailed you after running a scraper (your email is all over this f***ing website) – nobody bought a list. But an expert like yourself knows all about this stuff, right?
Seriously lady, do this industry a giant favor and just f*** off.
Wow! I sure touched a nerve. I”m just surprised that you felt the need to use such vulgar language to make your point.
You are probably right about the company getting my email address from my website, instead of a list. But even if that’s true, they should have seen on my website that I offer SEO services, so I doubt that I’m their ideal client. I still believe they shouldn’t waste their time trying to sell me their services.
As for my blog not having an audience, well, I disagree. I do have an audience, which includes you! Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment. However, next time, please refrain from cursing in your comments. If you do that again, I will delete it. Thank you!
Gloria
Cold emailing with a well written non spammy email is a great strategy to get leads, and follow up with an appointment on the telephone.
I think the key Derek is that it must be “non spammy” and you have to include something of value in the email since it is a cold prospect.
Thanks for the information