How to Write a Cold Outreach Email that Generates Replies FAST: the ‘VCR’ 2024 Technique
Updated: Sep 5
How to write a cold outreach email and actually get replies from busy influencers? Does cold email outreach still work today? Short answer is Yes not as it used to!
How?
Hello and welcome to my blog (simonzaku.com/blog). Today, I will show you exactly how I reach out t Locial media influencers and get them to reply my mails or DMs.
I'm Simon, and today I want to teach you some of the best strategies to be able to get on an influencers radar, even if they're super busy.
Now you see, I've been reaching out to tens of thousands of people over a decade now throughout my career as a content marketing specialist to promote my content.
In fact, there was a time I reached out to over 1000 people in less than 30 days.
And guess what?
Not a single one of that reach out. Got a reply back.
At that point, I knew I needed to change my approach. I knew I needed a better strategy to reach out to social media influencers.
I understood that reaching to people who didn't know me or didn't even know my name or my brand.
But in the long run I started trying new strategies and my to my greatest surprise, I was able to get replies from influential people, influential brands.
I started doing collaborations with influencers, experts in my niche.
In fact, I've been getting several great replies from people saying they just replied by because my reach out is very effective and is very genuine and is very good and I'm going to share this with you now.
As a result I started paying attention to the details.
I used a few tools to help monitor my email reach outs.
(There are tools that you can use to see who has viewed your e-mail when the person has viewed. If the person has viewed clicked an e-mail, you would be able to see).
I use these tools to track every email reach out and then I implemented some really effective strategies I'm going to share with you quickly in this short article.
Let me explain what a cold email reachout is.
What is a Cold Email Outreach?
A cold email reach out in simple terms, is an e-mail, a text or call whereby a party is getting in touch with another party that is not necessary familiar with them.
To start a connection with which might be beneficial in the long run.
Why is it called cold email?
If you're reaching out or emailing a business owner, a person that does not know you, then that is called a cold email reach out, or a cold, DM, or call.
What is a warm email in marketing?
On the contrary, a warm e-mail is a reachout that is sent to someone you've already built a relationship with. And that is where the secret lies.
It's easier to get replies from people who already know you than people who do not know you, so unlike cool reach out.
So unlike a cold reachout, this is you sending an e-mail, DM or whatever to someone who already knows you or is familiar with your brand.
My cold reachout strategy involves a couple of things on social media like Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etcetera.
Before emailing that particular brand or influencer, I hit the or influencer on either Twitter or Instagram.
You could also follow their brand on LinkedIn, you could reply to some of their tweets repost their Instagram posts and tag them.
Do you get the idea?
Now let's move to some of the popular myth surrounding cold e-mail reachouts even as we approach 2024
3 Most Popular Myths Surrounding Cold E-Mail Outreach.
To be able to understand why people do not reply to your emails, you need to know that there are lots of myths that are surrounding cold reach out now what are these myths that people believe and even experts teach people now.
MYTH #1: Cold E-mail Reachouts No Longer Work
The first is cold reachouts no longer work.
Does cold email outreach work?
Now this is the first myth surrounding cold reach out and it is so popular people still believe e-mail reach out does not work.
People assumd people do don't reply to reach out anymore, but people actually do reply and I can tell you that yes, if you do it the right way, people will reply to your reach out.
What people don't understand is a lot has changed in the past.
But I'm here to tell you that they still work and but it just depends on yout strategy and the approach you use.
All you need is a strategy that works perfectly for your specific startup or brand
MYTH #2: You Can Buy a List of 200 Leads for $5 on Fiverr and Get Results.
The second most popular myth I see on the Internet is about cold reach outs is that you can get good results from paying for random leads from $5 freelancers on five hour or Upwork or freelancer.com or People per hour or any of those freelance sites.
Now I myself have fallen victim of this myth. When I got started, I would I used to think I could get random leads from freelancers.
That is, I thought I could get my target audience from Fiver and just begin reaching out to them. Now that is a wrong approach.
As a marketing brand, that is the wrong approach as a startup.
You see Fiverr is a great marketplace for a ton of services like social media management and thereabout, but not for generating leads or cold leads for cold emails or cold calls.
On Fiverr you can hire freelancer to get you. Let's see, a list of 100 leads that fits your brand. But then I wouldn't advise that.
I see thousands and thousands of brands doing this and sending spammy emails to people who don't even know them.
And they don't even know where they got their e-mail addresses from. This is a popular myth that marketers should stop believing.
Here's the thing;
You can actually make use of Fiverr freelancers to generate leads for your specific brand, startup or agency.
But what I always advise my content clients is when paying for leads on market places, you should be detailed and include things like social media handles for each lead.
This way you can build rapport or build sort of a relationship with that brand or influencer you want to reach out to.
This way you build rapport and then they kind of know you even before you send your cold e-mail or pitch.
In fact, let me show you how I do it.
Here's how to get b2b leads from Fiverr (the right way).
Step 1: Log into your fiverr account and ensure you are on the buyer's profile.
Step 2. Search for leads using the search bar. Select the perfect freelancer and interview.
Step 3: Award the project to a Freelancer.
Step 4. Give the full details you want. For this you should include the name of the lead, the name, URL, e-mail, LinkedIn URL, Twitter handle, company size.
That's employee size, Instagram handle, revenue, etc. Websites
Step 5. Follow the strategy I'll be explaining below to do your reach out now.
MYTH #3: Using Templates Do Work! (they actually work and save a lot of time)
The third myth surrounding cold e-mail reach out is that having a unique template that you work with does not work.
You see, till today I still use a few templates, but what I do is I edit it and make it fit every lead I am reaching out to.
This means you need a unique template that is powerful for your type of brand.
In fact, I've been using a specific template for more than five years and it still works.
All I do is I constantly update the template to suit the audience, the market and the economy at the time.
Now if you pay attention to this guide you will see the exact template that I use. You'd also see how effective these templates are.
What I do is I write two or three template samples that I want to use for my particular email reach-out campaign before I even begin sending from there.
What what I do is I switch the names, include the company names, go through their company profiles, and ensure my email reach outs are specific to them.
That is specific to each lead, which makes it actually genuine and not smart spamming. But the baseline is I am working with one or two templates to save time and energy.
Let me reveal to you my five step strategy or hack to an effective code reach out campaign
5-Step Hack to a Powerful Cold E-Mail Outreach Campaign that Actually Gets Results
Step 1: Make Your Email Reachout List.
You can do this manually or on Fiber manually.
You can go to Google and search for example top real estate agencies in insert your location and you can manually build your list that way.
Or you can go through fiber and outsource this to a freelancer that is able to generate. Good lease for your business.
Step 2. Build Pre, Reachout Rapport.
Now to build this your list has to include the social media handles, that is Twitter and all of that so you can be able to reach out to them on social media and create rapport before even emailing them.
Step 3: Create & Find a Perfect Template
Now step three create and find a perfect template. You can do two to three or two to five and keep. Switching between
Step 4: Reaching out start, reaching out using my unique strategy
Step 5: Follow-up After 3 to 5 Days.
Step 1: Make Your Cold E-Mail Reachout List
Can cold emails get clients?
At some points in my digital marketing career, I decided to reach out to 1000 businesses to pitch my social media marketing services.
But thing is, even after reaching out to over 1000 businesses, not a single. One of them turned to be a client. I didn't even get a single client.
Yes, I was able to turn, I was able to get replies from a few of them, but none of them not. That campaign never yielded money.
it was not profitable and there was no RY from that campaign.
Now this made me realize that your reach out list matters a lot.
Even if you have a great reach out template and strategy, if you do not have the perfect lists or leads that is perfect for your business or your type of product, then your reach out would produce. Minimal to 0 results now.
When I was doing my campaign, I went on the fiver and I paid a freelancer to get me thousands of random leads with their e-mail addresses which was spammy for me to reach out and that was the reason why I wasn't able to convert even a single client because that is spammy.
And I do not recommend you doing that, but I have a strategy I'll be revealing to you on how you can get client leads that can actually convert.
I've actually done this from Fiber or Freelancer. But now how do you actually get leads here? Is it?
There are two ways you can do this manually or you can use the fiber strategy I'm going to show you now. By doing this manually, you can go on Twitter, Instagram, blogs, Korra forums, communities and find organic leads to reach out. Now let me use myself.
For example, this is a Korra hack. I call it the Korra hack.
I use Quora. Now what I do is I head over to Quora.com and log into my free account. What I do next is I find keywords that my target customers are searching for on Cora.
Quora is a platform that allows people Internet users ask any questions and get answers from experts on the platform for free now, for instance, since I'm looking for businesses that are in need of content writing.
And marketing services I could search for.
Should I hire a content freelance writer or freelance content writer for hire?
Or what are the benefits of writing or of hiring a content marketer?
Things like this will get me to people, real life Internet users that are looking for my services.
Now this way I could even know their pinpoints and I can easily reach out to them through their social media platforms.
Next step?
Now the second we is on Fiverr, the next thing I do is I get the names of the users asking these questions on Quora or these community forums and I try to find a little more information about them.
What I do is I export this to excel. Excel lists and then I do this continually until I get 30 to 50 leads.
This way I have an organic leads list that is that is most likely going to convert or I'm most likely going to be interested in my freelance services.
Content writing services since they are already asking questions around there.
Now what I do next is I get freelancers for $5 to find their social media handles, their Instagram, their LinkedIn and etcetera and e-mail addresses.
This way I can begin building rapport. This leads us to the next step.
Step 2. Build Strategic Personal Rapport with these Influencers.
This is very important and crucial because this is what will help you increase the chances of getting a reply from influencers and this reduces the chances of you getting deleted and marked as being spamming.
Now with my strategy.
You can almost always guarantee that you will get a reply.
Now this may not convert, this may not convert to sales, but at least you would most likely get a positive reply from this influencer, this expert or this brand.
Because this will this step will help you build a rap pool and before reaching out, you will no longer be coming in.
Or reaching out as a total stranger but someone did already know who are familiar with at least now building this rapport is very important and I use social media networks most times to build some sort of relationship or acquaintance with these influencers before I begin reaching out for my services.
You see with platforms like Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc, you can easily build a connection or friendship with anyone on your pre reach out list that you made in the previous step.
But how exactly do you do this? How exactly do I do this?
Here is my strategy.
Well I simply have a plan that you can follow.
Step 1: Now step one. Follow the influencer or brand on Instagram and comment on their recent posts.
Step 2: Follow their feed on LinkedIn and send a connection request.
Step 3: if connection request is accepted, send a warm Halo and let them know who you are. And don't forget, do not let them know what you do yet.
Step 4: Ask for their permission to contact or e-mail them.
Step 5. Request for the best way to reach them. That is, request for their e-mail address. Now I try not to rush this.
This five step plan is something I do in one to two weeks. I try to follow the brand on several social networks. The influencer and social networks.
I follow their feeds. I drop comments I like. I retweet if. I send them a hello. I introduce myself not as someone who wants to pitch and then I ask them for the best way to reach out to them for an idea.
Now the next thing is the next step is to create a perfect template for your reach out.
Step 3: Create or Design 2 to 5 Templates that Work
Now this is where it gets tricky. Getting the perfect template you can use can be a bit challenging but if you understand the concept of reaching out.
To influencers and busy people, then it becomes a little bit easier to understand.
I mean, if you can keep your template short, concise and straight to the point, then you're definitely on the right track.
But here's the thing, I'm going to give you a killer hack or strategy that you can use that almost always works.
Just continue reading.
Now influencers barely have the time to check and read long emails.
That is why long emails do not work. I do not advise anyone to use long emails. I mean they get dozens and dozens of emails every day.
So yours has to really stand out from the pool of emails.
You see, the first thing to understand is the concept of titles, headlines, subject lines.
If you can get the influencer to open your e-mail. You have just a few seconds to grab your attention and do not worry, I'm going to show you a very effective plan that I always use.
Now here's the template that I use Simon inside a template here.
Next, like I've mentioned, keeping your e-mail short, concise and straight to the point will increase your chances of getting the increasing your open rate from this. Reach out and getting a reply from them now.
This leads us to the next step which will actually show you the exact way to reach out and actually get them to reply.
Step 4: The Reachout Stage (the VCR Technique).
With a perfect template, a great list and a pre reach out relationship or a pool, this shouldn't be a problem most times.
The problem here is getting the influencer's primary e-mail address.
You can easily get any details like the person's location, brand name, social media handles, etc. But when it comes to getting the ideal e-mail address addresses of these influencers, most marketers get stock.
Now here are two basic ways I get the primary e-mail addresses of busy influencers and experts.
One I asked them directly on social media. I just showed you how to do it previously 2 freelancers. I use freelancers on fiber.
Now asking them directly has a better effect because they would at least be expecting an e-mail from you.
What I do is you could send a tweet to them. Like hey I have an idea I want to share with you. What e-mail, What's the best e-mail to reach out to you?
At least they know they are familiar with your name and they will be expecting an e-mail from you.
I also use freelancers on fiverr to get these e-mail addresses and this saves a lot of time and energy from my end.
Now after getting my this e-mail addresses you can talk about, you can move to the next step which is sending the reach out emails.
This is where the VCR strategy comes in.
This is where I review the hidden strategy.
Now how do I reach out and get positive replies and sales so easily through cold e-mail Reachout?
It is simple, yet a lot of marketers ignore it.
It is called the VCR strategy.
It is called the VCR strategy.
What is the VCR cold email Reachout technique?
Well, I know you are thinking here is another confusing strategy.
On the contrary, that is not true. Here's what the VCR strategy means.
It means the video 'Video Cold Reachout' hack.
Not so confusing right now.
Here is what the video cold reachout hack (VCL strategy) means.
It simply means creating unique personal videos for each lead and sending them links to watch through instead of.
Think about it...
Sending long emails or short emails explaining your services.
Why not record short selfie videos or short audios audio recordings and send them links to listen to them?
This way, they would trust you faster.
If you get this, it means you would create videos rather than writing long emails which may end up in the spam folder.
I got this strategy from Brian Harris of VideoFruit and this turned out to be one of the best email reachout strategy I have used over the years.
For instance, let's say, I want to reach out to Brian Harris for my content writing services.
What I'll do is shoot a 20 to 60 seconds video on how I can help his company or startup leverage content marketing to generate more traffic leads and hopefully convert them into customers.
Do you get the idea?
So rather than sending random texts in form of e-mail, you show yourself and explain what you can do.
This way people will easily trust you and reply you.
Even though it may not immediately turn to sales, you will most likely get replies which is very powerful because:
You show yourself,
You physically explain your work,
You avoid long emails
Get more opens.
Avoid being sent to the spam folder because you look legit.
Now here is This leads us to the final step which is the follow up.
Step 5: The Final Step, the Followup Stage.
You see, I've made good return on investment just by following-up to potential leads that I have reached out to who may have not opened my emails or haven't replied back.
Now I use a free email tracking tool that tracks e-mail opens and e-mail clicks to find out who has opened my emails, who hasn't clicked my links and all of that.
What I do is I find a great title and resend a great subject line and resend a follow up e-mail after three to seven days per lead.
And to make this even more efective, I do this with another video.
Now here is the thing...
if you're not comfortable making videos, you can make audio recordings as well.
I also use audio recordings and they work really well.
You just need Google Drive and make a recording or even your iPhone and make a recording and send a link to the influencer to seee how you can help them.
I do this with another video saying something like;
What is cold email example?
"hey, I noticed you haven't opened my last e-mail. I know things can be overwhelming sometimes and you might be caught up with work and busy but I'll deeply appreciate if you spared 30 to 60 seconds to check this video that I made for you. Thank you so much and I hope to hear back from"
This usually almost gets a reply every single time that I do it. You could use videos, you could use audios as well. All works.
Like I said, I usually do this after three, five or even sometimes two weeks before I send this follow-up emails or follow-up videos. As I know influencers are busy.
Don't forget to always keep your emails really brief as you do not want to to bug them into thinking you are spammy.
Get the idea?
So I've come to the end of this article and I hope that you've learned a thing or two that will improve your cold email reachout campaign. Be it for clients, customers or partnerships.
And if you are stuck on time or have a startup that you want me to plan a content marketing. Reach out strategy reach-out strategy for your brand. You can reach me via my contact page or you can send an e-mail via simonzakucom@gmail.com and I'll get back to you within 24 hours.
Now if you are an agency or a startup that wants that leverage email reachouts to get traffic, leads, or customers, I'm inviting you to work with me to plan out an effective email reachout strategy for your brand.
What I'll be doing is I will study and research your brand.
I would craft the reach out strategy.
I will craft the reach out templates for your campaign. This way you will just need to change a few things.
And reach out to them then using a unique strategy (I'll be generating) that will be creating for your specific brand and then I'll also be take charge of following up after these.
This way your cold email reachout campaign provides the best return on investment.
Hope to see you inside and if you need have any questions feel free to reach out to me in the comments below.
And if you need a content writer for your business or startup or agency, feel free to reach out to me as well and I'll get back to you very fast.
Cheers,
Simon Taki Zaku