Anytime the online prophets say “cold outreach is DEAD” they’re 1) missing the point and 2) trying to sell you something
Truth is:
cold outreach is very well alive for myself and client teams booking appointments that go from zero to -> let’s work together without sending hundreds of messages per day…
Before you ask HOW the key question is to ask WHY
WHY does cold outreach fail for some and not for others?
1 – Your industry is a factor
If you read into the prophets online, they’re usually in high-volume, high-churn or high-tech industries where they have to come up with the latest tactics to stay ahead (or create some odd reality star persona to be different) because their markets are jaded. That doesn’t mean yours is.
2 – Creativity
Most (if not ALL outreach sitting in my inbox) lacks creativity
there’s no personalization outside of basic custom fields
there’s no unique offer or value given in exchange for me to talk to ‘em
Takeaway: you have to craft a unique viral offer that gets my attention and that I would love to share with a friend or offer to solve an open loop problem Im facing right now…
Which leads to the final point:
3 – Human first
With the rise of sales tech + AI, most outreach is just noise since it lacks proof of humanity.
All outreach has to prove humanity while at the same time solve a problem for me.
I don’t care if we went to the same high school, if you’re offer sucks or is plain vanilla copy/paste entrty fields, it’s doing to get deleted.
TLDR
1 – know exactly who you’re talking to and what frustrations they’re facing (beyond surface level)
2 – direct your outreach based on the mediums they expect it in (LinkedIn and email) and possibly unexpected (mail and phone call)
3 – build a bridge to address you understand their world and might have something that can solve their current, pressing, open loop problem and offer them the opportunity to explore that possibility.
Or you can simply believe the lie that outreach is dead.