Cold pitching strategies are an important way to land new clients. Especially, if you are a freelancer or a new business. It can be difficult to consistently find new clients solely through job boards because those posts go to thousands of applicants, which makes the sea of competition extremely fierce. If you want to maintain a stable income by closing more sales, you have to actively cold pitch clients.
Cold pitching can seem intimidating though because you are risking your vulnerability by trying to make contact with someone who may not want to hear from you. Yet, if you want to grow your business, this technique of landing clients cannot be ignored. Most often, clients need services they aren’t aware of to grow their business. Cold pitching strategies are as much of an art as they are a science.
If you want to close more deals through cold pitching, use these strategies:
Find the right decision-maker for your pitch
Chances are that you are pitching to a company that has many key decision-makers for different departments. Find the right person that is relevant to the product or service you are pitching. Don’t just fire off an email or phone call to a customer service rep. You can often find contact information of senior staff members on the “Our Team” page or through a quick LinkedIn search. Also, keep your first email short because remember that your message is going to land in someone’s inbox unannounced. An inbox is essentially akin to a person’s digital home, so be aware of that and don’t take too much of their time with a long, convoluted email.
Personalize your pitch
Let’s be honest. We don’t expect you to craft a new email for every single company you pitch to. Otherwise, you would be crafting and sending out hundreds of them. You may be using a template, but there are things you can still do to personalize your email to each recipient. Like, use their name or the company’s name and add a few lines about how you can help. For example, if you are a web designer, you can tell them you have visited their website and you have some ideas on how it can be improved. Be friendly, casual, and personable because the recipient is a human after all. Don’t make your pitch all about your skills and talents. Instead, tell them how your product or service can help their business.
Use social proof
Cold pitches can naturally come across as spammy, so you should do everything you can to add credibility to it. It is very likely that your prospect has no idea who you are. To show them you aren’t a scammer, you should include some kind of social proof. This can include the names of influencers who have endorsed your work, testimonials from your old clients, and even links to your previous work or social media pages. Don’t send your sample works as attachments because people are suspicious about opening documents from those they don’t know. Plus, it could go right to junk mail.
Follow up
No, don’t repeatedly send them emails or phone calls right after the first one. Wait 5-7 days and then follow up with another message. Sometimes, emails can accidentally get buried among hundreds of other emails. They can also very easily be forgotten because your client may be busy with a lot of tasks on their to-do list. Politely follow up with them to ask if they had time to review your offer. If you still don’t get a response, then move on.
Make your pitch compelling
From your subject line to the body of your email, keep it concise, relevant, and compelling. Make them an offer they can’t refuse. Depending on your service, this could be a free trial or consultation. Make sure that your message isn’t too wordy. Keep the opening interesting and without hype. Try to not sound like an advertisement. Spend extra time on crafting an attractive subject line. You can make it a question, or a benefit-driven headline. Keep it relevant to the body of the email and not gimmicky. If your subject line doesn’t match the pitch, then your credibility will be tarnished. Your prospect might feel betrayed and you will end up losing business.
Cold pitches can be scary to do, but they are incredibly effective and often help you land high paying clients that are potentially better than the ones you will find on job boards. Make each pitch seem unique and specifically tailored to your prospect. Their business is special to them, so have your pitch treat them as special too.
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