{"id":2883,"date":"2019-09-05T11:22:23","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T16:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kmbrian.com\/?p=2883"},"modified":"2020-12-04T00:17:07","modified_gmt":"2020-12-04T06:17:07","slug":"firing-squad-cold-email","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/firing-squad-cold-email\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Lessons from Firing Squad on Optimizing Cold Email Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Firing Squad<\/a> is a B2B lead-generation service with offices in Cape Town and New York that recently made the transition from Reply to Mailshake.<\/p>\n

After 4 years and 140,000 emails sent personally and on behalf of his clients, Jason has been remarkably effective in his cold outreach. He consistently sees open rates of over 60%, and meetings-booked rates of over 10%.<\/p>\n

One of the things that\u2019s impressed me most about Firing Squad as they\u2019ve come on board is the organization\u2019s testing mindset<\/a>. They\u2019re always testing strategies themselves before rolling them out to clients \u2013 whether it\u2019s the way they tweak different message optimization strategies or add a new service, like helping clients land international speaking gigs.<\/p>\n

I sat down with Jason Bagley, Firing Squad\u2019s Founder, to learn more about the impact this mindset has had on their cold email campaign performance. Here are eight lessons from our conversation:<\/p>\n

Lesson #1: Subtle Changes Eliminate Friction<\/h2>\n

When Firing Squad first started reaching out to U.S. clients, Jason noticed a surprising reaction: as soon as he shared the company\u2019s South Africa website URL or sent emails with a South African address in the footer, interest was non-existent.<\/p>\n

The simple change? By adding a New York address to his email messages (using a WeWork office location) and changing his website to a \u201c.co\u201d URL, response rates soared. Even the smallest changes can reduce or eliminate friction in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n

Lesson #2: Every Person You Reach Out to Should Be a \u201cYes\u201d\"\"<\/h2>\n

When Firing Squad is running an outreach campaign for a client, they\u2019ll sit down and ask the client to manually approve every prospect they\u2019ve identified. That\u2019s because they believe that every person you send a cold message to should be someone you legitimately want as a customer.<\/p>\n

Jason believes the corollary to this is that if the prospect is really a yes, you continue to reach out until you hear a \u201cno.\u201d \u201cOur goal is to get an answer from every single one of them,\u201d he explains. \u201cWhy would we not? They fit your ideal client profile, so get an answer!\u201d<\/p>\n

Lesson #3: Don\u2019t Sell the Product. Sell the Meeting.<\/h2>\n

To get to that \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d answer, Firing Squad typically sends between 6-8 initial messages over a 2-3 month period. But they aren\u2019t using these emails to try to sell a product or service. The goal is just to get a meeting.<\/p>\n

In Jason\u2019s experience, shorter messages work better for this. \u201cOur clients say, \u2018Oh, we need to tell them a lot of things.\u2019 So I\u2019ll create a version that makes our client happy, but then I\u2019ll create a two-line or three-line version as well and A\/B test them. Often, the shorter email is the one that receives more responses – which is the point at which our clients start trusting us implicitly.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some instances, Jason will work the client\u2019s suggestions into the messages in order to build trust and strengthen the relationship. But once the data starts rolling in, clients are usually more than willing to trust his expertise.<\/p>\n

Lesson #4: Lower Perceived Effort Can Equal Higher Rates of Engagement<\/h2>\n

Jason and the team at Firing Squad try to get recipients to commit to meetings \u2013 not sales \u2013 because it requires much less perceived effort. There\u2019s less friction involved.<\/p>\n

But they see this benefit extending to other aspects of their email campaigns. As an example, Jason has seen that short subject lines tend to perform better than longer ones \u2013 especially if it looks like the sender didn\u2019t put much effort into it.<\/p>\n

One of his team\u2019s best performing subject lines? Simply, \u201cHey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lesson #5: Subject Lines Get You to the Next Stage\"\"<\/h2>\n

Despite how much effort goes into them, Jason sees subject lines as a means to an end. He explains, \u201cOnce a person’s opened the mail, they totally forget about the subject. It’s gone. It\u2019s not about tricking them into opening the mail, because they’re now going to be pissed off when they read the mail. The goal is to get them to open the email, and then forget about the subject line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Generally, Firing Squad aims for open rates of 50% and up; in fact, they\u2019ll only optimize the body copy of the email after hitting that metric.<\/p>\n

That said, one subject line in particular that Firing Squad stays away from is the popular, \u201cAre you the right person?\u201d In Jason\u2019s experience, \u201cWhat we found is that it’s not natural to have this email as part of a threaded sequence. Rather, we have it as a stand-alone email, to try and elicit a response. If we get no response, we\u2019ll start with a new thread of emails.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lesson #6: Get Personal<\/h2>\n

One of Jason\u2019s favorite places to personalize messages is the opening line, where he\u2019ll test including something from the lead\u2019s LinkedIn profile or company news.<\/p>\n

For example, rather than launching into the benefits of a client\u2019s product or service, he might open with something like, \u201cJust saw your company was recognized by [some award] \u2013 congrats!\u201d<\/p>\n

Lesson #7: Stick With It for the Long Haul<\/h2>\n

As noted above, Firing Squad\u2019s campaigns typically begin with 6-8 initial messages.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be respectful of people\u2019s time,\u201d Jason explains. \u201cSo we\u2019ll start with a gap of between 5-7 days initally and use that cadence for 3 or so emails. Then we\u2019ll probably do a bigger gap, between 14-20 days, then a month and jump back to a shorter time sequence. All the follow-ups are 2-3 lines max.\u201d<\/p>\n

But since the team\u2019s goal is always to get a \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno,\u201d they don\u2019t end after this initial sequence if they haven\u2019t yet received a response \u2013 and they stay away from the popular \u201cbreak-up\u201d emails many marketers use. Instead, they\u2019ll begin again with a new campaign.<\/p>\n

According to Jason, \u201cThe new sequence will be a completely different angle on the business. Sometimes the client has a different product or service they want to highlight. We’ll chat to the clients and ask, \u2018What can we say that\u2019s changed in the last three to six months in your business that we can go back to your prospects about? Are you running a special, have you improved your product or service or signed a new high profile client?’ We’ll then do a three or four email sequence<\/a> about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, Firing Squad turns to inbound. Jason notes, \u201cWe’ll take all the prospecting<\/a> data, and we\u2019ll then go and use it again to do an inbound campaign. So now we’ll use custom audiences on LinkedIn, and drive additional touch points by showing ads on LinkedIn to those specific prospects. Maybe that tips them over to generate a couple of leads through LinkedIn. We’ll use LinkedIn’s native lead gen forms or we’ll build out a very basic sales funnel with a landing page.\u201d<\/p>\n

When creating landing pages, Firing Squad connects leads to Mailshake via Zapier<\/a>\u00a0to allow personalized, yet automated email follow-up to form submissions.<\/p>\n

One tip from Jason on making this connection work for you: make sure you delay your automated responses. \u201cIt looks weird if a person has submitted a form and a personalised email fires in the next 30 seconds,\u201d he explains. \u201cPeople can sniff that it\u2019s automated\u2019 So I’ll normally put a 5-10 minute delay on that first email to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lesson #8: Don\u2019t Be Afraid to Get Your Hands Dirty\"\"<\/h2>\n

One of the elements that sets Firing Squad apart is the willingness of team members to jump on a screen-sharing conversation to offer advice \u2013 even before leads become customers.<\/p>\n

For instance, Jason regularly hears that prospects are already doing cold emailing<\/a>. \u201cThat\u2019s the best lead for me,\u201d Jason shares, \u201cis a person saying, \u2018I already do cold emailing. It’s working well for us.\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018That\u2019s amazing. I would love to just take a look at your cold emails and give you some tips and pointers if that\u2019s ok?\u2019 Then they send me their cold emails, and I guarantee you they\u2019re horrific.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that, Jason will offer to record on a screen share video to offer some pointers. \u201cI need to get in front of them,\u201d he explains. \u201cIf I write them a long email with feedback, it isn\u2019t going to have the biggest impact. So I\u2019ll give them feedback in a video, and I\u2019ll say, \u2018Guys, this sentence isn\u2019t great. There’s no call to action here. You’re just saying contact me whenever you’re ready. Change that to this.\u2019 In the video, I’ll even copy and paste some of their content, put it in a Google doc, and start fixing their copy in real-time. I\u2019ll send it through to them, and what I\u2019ve now done is I\u2019ve gotten them to see me, hear my voice and most importantly, show them how good we are. \u2018These video reply emails convert into clients like you won\u2019t believe!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It requires more effort up front to provide this level of service to a prospect who isn\u2019t even a client yet. But it can\u2019t be beat in terms of building rapport<\/a> and establishing the perceived authority that\u2019s going to eventually turn into paid contracts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Firing Squad is a B2B lead-generation service with offices in Cape Town and New York that recently made the transition from Reply to Mailshake. After 4 years and 140,000 emails sent personally and on behalf of his clients, Jason has been remarkably effective in his cold outreach. He consistently sees open rates of over 60%, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/i2.wp.com\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/8-Lessons-from-Firing-Squad-on-Optimizing-Cold-Email-Performance-Header-1.jpg?fit=1138%2C493&ssl=1","yoast_head":"\r\n8 Lessons from Firing Squad on Optimizing Cold Email Performance<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/kmbrian.com\/blog\/firing-squad-cold-email\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"8 Lessons from Firing Squad on Optimizing Cold Email Performance\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Firing Squad is a B2B lead-generation service with offices in Cape Town and New York that recently made the transition from Reply to Mailshake. 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