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Tips, Tricks, & Advice

You're doing it wrong...Part 6 - Know your prospect

You're doing it wrong...Part 6 - Know your prospect

by john roman

A year ago


Do some research.  I get about 4-6 of these emails a week.  I am including 2 examples since I received 1 yesterday and 1 today.

Low barrier to entry in the agency space

This is part of the problem. Anyone can start an agency so prospecting outreach can quickly become amateur hour.  I am not sure if the 2 prospecting emails I will review in this post are amateurs or not, but there are some learnings and teachable moments from both regardless.

James - The TikTok Expert

James TikTok Expert

James starts off with a dumb question.  Pro Tip:  Don't start off with a dumb (rhetorical) question.  This first sentence might be the only thing the prospect reads so make it count! Next, he leads with an example of a brand he grew.  I love this!  Probably should have been your first sentence.  There is, unfortunately, one major problem. You are pitching a brand that has accomplished significantly greater than you are boasting as your big win.  Did you do any research?  Don't get me wrong, I am all about taking shots at higher weight classes, but you have to be able to get a shot off.  Using your example from a lower weigh class is NEVER going to get this done.

Second paragraph confirms again that they are not in the same weight class at all.  James references their sweet spot by defining a company revenue range.  Again, did you do any research?  We are a healthy multiple over the top of your ideal customer revenue range.

Some tweaks could make this email so much better.  Lead with your second sentence.  If you want to keep your story of success and your ideal customer revenue range, that's fine, but then target the correct audience.  You should be reaching out to customers that have about $1M-$2M in annual revenue.  I don't know your pricing, but would imagine, companies with less than $1M in annual revenue would struggle to justify your costs.  If you want to take shots at companies in a higher weight class, you need to make some major changes and will likely still fail.  Maybe save those shots for brands that are just slightly out of your weight class.

If you want to continue to use your success story, you need to articulate how (with examples) something you did with your brand would translate into something the prospect is not doing.  This is still a major uphill battle.  You have to remove the revenue range as this pretty much solidifies and calls out that you are fighting outside of your weight class.

YouTube Expert Wants To Share

Carrie YouTube

This one is similar to the previous except we have a YouTube Expert this time.  I don't hate the first sentence, minus her referring to our channel by it's URL.  Unfortunately she then leads with her success story which is tone deaf.  Again, did you do any research?  You are touting a win of 10,000 new subscribers over the course of publishing 60+ videos.  If we are not adding double that in new subscribers in a month, we are having fire drills internally.  She then somehow references that taking the brand from 15k subs to 25k subs made them a household brand.  I think this email might be effective but when targeting brands with 5,000 - 17,000 subs, but not sure it will work in any other segment.

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Other Articles:

You're doing it wrong...Part 1
You're doing it wrong...Part 2
You're doing it wrong...Part 3 (Right Edition)
You're doing it wrong...Part 4
You're doing it wrong...Part 5
You're doing it right...
You're doing it wrong...Referencing Your CEO or Boss in Sales Outreach 

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