[HN Gopher] The Cold Email Handbook
___________________________________________________________________
The Cold Email Handbook
Author : baxtr
Score : 329 points
Date : 2024-12-08 14:16 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.za-zu.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.za-zu.com)
| handfuloflight wrote:
| Would anyone like to share cold email war stories of success?
| parpfish wrote:
| Id rather hear Cold War email stories
| einpoklum wrote:
| One winter, it was snowing real bad where I was living. So I
| sent my landlord an email complaining about how the heating was
| malfunctioning. At first he wouldn't budge, even as I decried
| the cruelty of his cold, cold heart.
|
| Well, after more repeated nagging, he relented and fixed the
| heating!
| kstrauser wrote:
| Sure! I get a ridiculous number of cold emails to my personal
| address, and I've trained my spam filter to flag and delete
| nearly all of them. Success!
| cookiengineer wrote:
| I've been receiving hundreds of these emails per day, and they
| were hard to filter due to them being ChatGPT generated (also
| in native language/s).
|
| But I started my own spam filter that filters out the rotating
| networks of those companies, due to them having multiple ASNs
| and multiple load balancers that they rotate on a daily basis
| to avoid being filtered by e.g. spamhaus.
|
| If they use a public email service and fake gmail addresses,
| they are blocked via domain due to gmail itself stripping out
| the relay trace of IPs :( other than that my inboxes are now
| super clean and I love it.
|
| If you don't want this type of spam, or if you want to give me
| spam samples to filter out, this is the repository:
|
| https://github.com/cookiengineer/antispam
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Spam from a company teaching you how to spam.
| johnea wrote:
| In decades to come this will join the likes of "would you like
| to buy the brooklyn bridge" in the ranks of classic ripoff
| strategies...
| holden_nelson wrote:
| > The inbox, though, is still at least a little bit sacred.
|
| > Email is still your own little corner of the internet.
|
| I love that the author can say something like this and then
| provide a guide for ruining the last sane piece of the internet
| any of us have left.
| Avicebron wrote:
| Welcome to HN, enjoy your stay, might want to take the email
| out of the prof.
| ipdashc wrote:
| Yeah, I also found that very ironic. And the amount of detail
| it goes into on spam and abuse detection systems before
| shamelessly telling you how to get around them. I kinda have to
| respect how blunt it is, honestly.
| pluc wrote:
| 1. Don't fucking do it
|
| 2. See #1
| pain_perdu wrote:
| There is a lot of great content here though I worry some of it is
| quickly becoming outdated. Every three months google has been
| updating their spam filters and making it harder and harder
| deliver sales emails at scale.
|
| As evidence of this, look at Rift.com a YC/Sequoia-backed sales
| email tool that closely followed this same playbook but was
| forced to kill their service as Google made it increasingly
| difficult to deliver sales messages at scale.
|
| Conversion rates use to be 1-10% from email to meeting booking.
| Now I believe most teams are seeing significantly below 1%.
| bhaney wrote:
| > updating their spam filters and making it harder and harder
| to deliver sales emails at scale
|
| Good
| 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
| Maybe partly because everyone wants to "meet" or "have a quick
| chat" now. Used to be novel if they just wanted to chat not
| straight sell. Now we've wised up
| sksrbWgbfK wrote:
| > sales emails at scale
|
| That's a great definition for spam.
| a_t48 wrote:
| I'm in the position of needing to do a lot of outreach to find
| our first customers. If this is actually what I have to do, I
| refuse. I'm sure there's some good advice in here, but most of it
| seems gross. I don't want to send "Personalized Outbound at
| Scale".
| bko wrote:
| You're just communicating your offering directly to people that
| may be interested. I don't see why that's gross. It's not
| deceptive or manipulative. There's a cost to search and
| sometimes targeted offerings that come directly can be very
| helpful.
|
| Direct outreach is pretty much the only way to get your initial
| customers. If you have warm connections, use those, sure. But
| those can be a false signal as warm connections tend to talk to
| you or feign interest just to be nice. A cold contact owes you
| nothing, so if they do take the meeting or engage in your
| product, that's a lot stronger signal.
|
| Anyone have a business they built without using direct cold
| outreach? Would love to hear alternatives
| MrVandemar wrote:
| > You're just communicating your offering directly to people
| that may be interested.
|
| I have a brimming spam folder full of people who are "just
| communicating their offering directly to people who may be
| interested."
|
| Sometimes these people are apparently elderly or alzheimers
| sufferers who don't have the cognitive ability to distinguish
| spam from official sources, and are easily exploitable.
|
| I imagine the worthless specimens sending these emails have
| intricately woven strands of faecal material in their cell
| nuclei instead of DNA.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| > Sometimes these people are apparently elderly or
| alzheimers sufferers who don't have the cognitive ability
| to distinguish spam from official sources, and are easily
| exploitable.
|
| Is everyone who sends cold email seeking to exploit this
| group? Is everyone who sends cold email seeking to exploit?
| MrVandemar wrote:
| > Is everyone who sends cold email seeking to exploit
| this group? Is everyone who sends cold email seeking to
| exploit?
|
| Clearly not. That is why the sentence begins with
| "Sometimes".
| gwd wrote:
| > I have a brimming spam folder full of people who are
| "just communicating their offering directly to people who
| may be interested."
|
| Right, but the people who sent those mails -- what reason
| do they have to think that you're interested in <checks
| spam folder> orthapedic multizone mattresses, Microsoft
| teams room equipment, or a talk about Amber Engebreston's
| transition from Supply Chain Manager at Chipotle to her
| current role?
|
| (OK, that last one was a weird.)
|
| If, on the other hand, you've posted a job opening for
| someone to do direct marketing, there's a good chance your
| company sends cold emails; in which case, maybe you'd like
| to outsource some of that work to make it more effective.
|
| The thing I dislike about spam is the offloading of
| filtering from them to me. But if someone has actually put
| in effort to figure out what I personally might actually
| want, I'm a lot more willing to take a look.
| a_t48 wrote:
| I'm not opposed to cold outreach, we've done that plenty,
| though without much success. I'm opposed at the scale where I
| need to have "warming tools" for my email address. It's very
| possible that it makes me a bad founder, though.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| > I'm not opposed to cold outreach, we've done that plenty,
| though without much success.
|
| What kind of campaign messaging? How did you define
| success? Were you getting no replies at all?
| a_t48 wrote:
| Just cold emailing for companies that might be interested
| in us. No replies. My cofounder did some research on what
| best to do for cold outreach and did end up getting some
| replies, after. I have better luck talking to people in
| person at networking/industry events (or messaging
| relevant people via HN connections). We'll go back to
| emailing at some point.
| gwd wrote:
| Yeah, "Try to make sure the person you're emailing is
| experiencing pain that your service relieves" is good, and
| if every cold email I got was that targeted I wouldn't mind
| at all.
|
| "Use a VPN and inbox warming techniques to hide from Gmail
| the fact that you're doing bulk emailing" is pretty scummy.
| a_t48 wrote:
| Precisely.
| makerdiety wrote:
| Someone (a mark?) getting through the filtering (sales?)
| funnel's first stage is a strong signal for what? That
| someone _period_ is interested in your product /service
| you're offering? Or that this particular person, the one who
| reaches the second stage of the funnel, is a possible lead
| (or _exactly_ a lead)? Likely the latter.
|
| Because you can skip the scientific/investigative validation
| of the hypothesis that there is someone that wants what you
| offer/sell/provide. That is, you should assume that there is
| someone out there (a small number of people at least, really)
| that wants to pay you for what you provide. I know this goes
| against common startup wisdom. But there's a massive cold
| outreach campaign type that needs to function and it needs to
| function with some confident assumptions within its
| technological engineering implementation. I guess.
|
| I'm just speculating on some theoretical startup founding
| that doesn't suck.
| ttul wrote:
| Deliberately circumventing email security controls, automation
| detection, and abuse prevention systems of email service
| providers constitutes a violation of 18 U.S.C. SS 1030 (the
| Computer Fraud and Abuse Act). When done as part of a business
| operation with intent and at scale, this behavior meets the
| criminal threshold of intentionally accessing protected computer
| systems without or in excess of authorization and impairing their
| integrity and availability. Anti-abuse mechanisms are security
| controls under CFAA. Knowingly subverting them is criminal, not
| civil.
|
| I don't know who runs "za-zu.com", but they may wish to take down
| their handbook lest they capture the interest of law enforcement
| agencies who are working with Google and others major email
| services ongoingly to locate and take down spamming groups.
| dannyobrien wrote:
| Are there examples of prosecutions of this nature?
| ttul wrote:
| Yes, there have been notable CFAA prosecutions involving
| spamming activities. One significant case involved Power
| Ventures, which faced prosecution for both CFAA and CAN-SPAM
| violations. The company was sued by Facebook for sending
| promotional emails and messages through Facebook's platform
| without authorization[5][6].
|
| The Department of Justice has recently revised its CFAA
| prosecution policies, particularly following significant
| court decisions that have narrowed the statute's
| interpretation. The DOJ now focuses on more clear-cut
| violations rather than mere terms of service
| violations[2][4].
|
| For CFAA prosecution to proceed today, prosecutors must
| typically demonstrate that:
|
| - The defendant was aware of specific access restrictions
|
| - There were clear technological measures attempting to
| prevent unauthorized access
|
| - The defendant knowingly circumvented these measures[4]
|
| The cold email handbook clearly demonstrates how to
| circumvent Gmail's limitations and the author is clearly
| aware that doing so violates their terms of service. So I
| would argue they are at risk of being prosecuted.
|
| And as someone who runs a large email filtering service, I
| can tell you with some authority and confidence that the
| industry really loves helping law enforcement go after these
| groups.
|
| Sources [1] CFAA Cases - NACDL
| https://www.nacdl.org/Content/CFAACases [2] Hacking the CFAA
| - Infosecurity Magazine https://www.infosecurity-
| magazine.com/magazine-features/hack... [3] The Most
| Controversial Hacking Cases of the Past Decade - WIRED
| https://www.wired.com/2015/10/cfaa-computer-fraud-abuse-
| act-... [4] DOJ Revises Policy for CFAA Prosecution to
| Reflect Developments ...
| https://newmedialaw.proskauer.com/2022/05/24/doj-revises-
| pol... [5] Lessons from the Power Ventures Case Include
| "Terms of Use Can ...
| https://www.hoganlovells.com/en/publications/lessons-from-
| th... [6] 9th Circuit Weighs in on CFAA and CAN-SPAM - Cyber
| Report https://ilccyberreport.wordpress.com/2016/07/21/9th-
| cir-weig...
| justtocomment wrote:
| > [...] but they may wish to take down their handbook lest they
| capture the interest of law enforcement agencies [...]
|
| I wonder if I'm oblivious to some kind of sarcasm in your
| comment, because if I take what's written at face value, it
| sounds like you advocate for not getting caught in favour of
| not actually doing the criminal thing.
| ttul wrote:
| I'm not implying that. I'm hopeful they'll take down their
| handbook so that others don't follow in their footsteps. I
| also wish for their business to cease operating.
| justtocomment wrote:
| Thank you for clarifying! (I'm not a native speaker, so
| your answer is much appreciated).
| chuckjchen wrote:
| Not sure why cold emails are hated by some people. But this is
| the most comprehensive and actionable cold outreach techniques
| I've seen.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| You're not sure why people don't like unsolicited mail?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Please, feel free to post your email address then.
| 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
| Because y'all have ruined our inboxes. It used to be a place
| for things I actually wanted to read. Now it's a chore. Even
| when I try to let as little through as possible... It's all
| garbage. Bills, spam, and omg your server is blowing up right
| now alerts.
| jmduke wrote:
| The vast majority of commenters are being negative about this
| essay, and I agree with the negativity, because _automated cold
| emails_ are awful. (As are sequences, and mail merges.)
|
| However!
|
| _Bespoke cold emails_ are I think, a dying/lost art. I want to
| give an example of two cold emails that I (manually!) send a few
| times a month. (I run Buttondown, which is an email SaaS -- think
| similar to Mailchimp, ConvertKit, etc.)
|
| ---
|
| The first is to folks who have the following criteria:
|
| 1. they hit the front page of HN
|
| 2. they have a personal blog that isn't tied to a platform (e.g.
| they're using jekyll or something similar)
|
| 3. they have RSS enabled
|
| 4. they do _not_ collect email addresses
|
| The thrust of the email is this:
|
| ``` Hi! I'm the founder of Buttondown, a newsletter tool for
| technical blogs. I'm reaching out because:
|
| 1. You just hit HN front page! (Congrats and/or my condolences.)
| 2. You've got an RSS feed but are not capturing emails.
|
| My proposal: I set you up with a free (for life!) Buttondown
| account seeded with your blog's RSS feed. All you do is drop in a
| form tag or an iFrame in your blog and folks can sign up with
| their email address and get an email whenever you publish
| something new. I can handle the setup and then hand it off to you
| for perpetuity.
|
| If this is something you're at all interested in, please let me
| know! (There's no catch, and this isn't an automated email, so
| please -- I'd love to hear why not, even if the answer is simply
| "shove off, I don't care about collecting an audience, Twitter
| and Mastodon are sufficient"). ```
|
| (I tweak the language based on their own voice, mention what in
| particular I like about their blog, etc.)
|
| ---
|
| The second is to folks who fit the following criteria:
|
| 1. they're a technical newsletter publishing programming-related
| content
|
| 2. they're using a platform that I know to be particularly
| expensive relative to me (Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign are the two
| big culprits here)
|
| ``` hi there! I run Buttondown -- you may have heard of us, we're
| used by RELEVANT_CUSTOMER_1 and RELEVANT_CUSTOMER_2. I see you're
| using OTHER_PLATFORM; is there anything I could do to get you to
| switch to [us](https://buttondown.com/pricing?count=7500)
|
| (btw, this is a real email, not a marketing campaign. it's still
| early days for us, so tbh you telling me why you're _not_
| interested is just as valuable as getting to call you a customer
| :) ```
|
| Small sample size for both genres -- I've probably sent them a
| total of ~fifty times -- but the response rate is around 80% and
| conversion rate (though granted for the first genre "conversion"
| is more of a second-order effect, since I'm offering them a free
| account!) is ~25%.
|
| I say all of this because, as someone who a priori _hated_
| outbound and "sales stuff", I learned that at least for me and my
| business both the most palatable _and_ most effective method was
| just being earnest and helpful. It has been the single most
| useful non-technical skill I've gained over the past few years.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| How do you respond to those who call this spam?
| jmduke wrote:
| I think the definition of spam necessitates some level of
| bulk sending, and I struggle to consider ~fifty emails over
| the course of two or three years "bulk".
| handfuloflight wrote:
| So if the same qualitative factors were kept for your
| outreach, just an increase in the quantitative equation
| means it's spam? One discrete instance is not spam but the
| combination of all of them makes the whole spam, when
| certain thresholds are reached? If so, how do we define
| those thresholds?
| jmduke wrote:
| It's an interesting question! To me, an (or perhaps
| _the_) obvious threshold is once the emails become
| automated.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| Why does that factor make it spam?
| MrVandemar wrote:
| I'm quite sure you can do all sorts of mental gymnastics to
| avoid thinking of yourself as a spammer.
|
| Here's my basic criteria for spam:
|
| 1. It's unsolicited.
|
| 2. It's trying to sell something / exploit people.
|
| In my grading scale I classify you as a spammer. A
| "bespoke" spammer perhaps, but I still do not want to waste
| time reading anything you send me, or waste time even
| clicking "mark as spam", unless I ask for it. You would be
| stealing my mental CPU cycles (which are few and precious).
| handfuloflight wrote:
| > 2. It's trying to sell something / exploit people.
|
| Are these synonymous?
| MrVandemar wrote:
| No. I'm drawing a distinction between "I want to sell you
| something" and "click this link to a website that
| strongly resembles, but is not, YourBank to transfer all
| your money to us."
| 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
| I think / is usually reserved for synonyms. Should just
| use the word "or" if it's this or that.
| jamesfinlayson wrote:
| I remember an old boss launching a product this way - he
| read the spam law and while I don't remember the specifics,
| sending an unsolicited email to people whose emails you
| obtained legitimately was okay if you weren't explicitly
| selling something (which I think is very open to
| interpretation).
| handfuloflight wrote:
| > was okay if you weren't explicitly selling something.
|
| The CAN-SPAM Act does not forbid explicitly selling
| something. Rather it requires an opt-out mechanism and
| identifiers for who the sender is.
| jamesfinlayson wrote:
| Yeah okay - obviously varies by country although I think
| the opt-out mechanism is pretty universal.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Oh, it's absolutely spam, by definition. That said, that's a
| wide spectrum. I don't generally like TV ads, but the State
| Farm ones with Patrick Maholmes and Andy Reid are funny and I
| don't mind them. Kind of the same here: it's spam, but if
| there was ever one that'd get a response from me, that would
| be it.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| > Oh, it's absolutely spam, by definition.
|
| By whose definition? Source?
| kstrauser wrote:
| Here's the FTC's definition in a presentation to the
| House (https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/
| public_sta...):
|
| > Unsolicited commercial email -- "UCE," or "spam," in
| the online vernacular -- is any commercial electronic
| mail message sent, often in bulk, to a consumer without
| the consumer's prior request or consent.
|
| It's _often_ in bulk, but needn't be to meet the
| definition of Unsolicited Commercial Email, aka spam.
| reddalo wrote:
| >sent, often in bulk, to a consumer
|
| That's the key. The FTC defines spam as something sent to
| a consumer; in this case, the receiver is not a consumer
| but a business.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I'll lay it on the line. In the many years I ran
| mailservers for a living and for a hobby, I was elbows
| deep in fighting spam. One of the consistent patterns
| over the years was that spammers would go to elaborate
| lengths to explain why their spam wasn't spam. If it's
| unsolicited commercial email, it's spam.
|
| Again, there's a wide spectrum from v14gr4 p1ll5 to a
| legitimate vendor in my job space reaching out to me.
| They're not all alike. But if it's commercial, and
| unsolicited... it's still spam.
| reddalo wrote:
| I agree with you -- I don't like receiving cold emails on
| my work email address, and I treat such emails as spam.
| But I don't think it can be configured as spam from a law
| standpoint; but this is just my opinion, IANAL.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Here's a 2024 link from the FTC:
| https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/can-spam-
| act...
|
| > Despite its name, the CAN-SPAM Act doesn't apply just
| to bulk email. It covers all commercial messages, which
| the law defines as "any electronic mail message the
| primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement
| or promotion of a commercial product or service,"
| including email that promotes content on commercial
| websites. The law makes no exception for business-to-
| business email. That means all email - for example, a
| message to former customers announcing a new product line
| - must comply with the law.
|
| That doesn't specifically mention spam, but it does
| indicate how strictly regulators define what they
| consider to be commercial email. And if it's
| _unsolicited_ commercial email, i.e. UCE... it's spam.
| samwho wrote:
| Can confirm. Received the first email here from Justin and it
| worked on me.
| asynchronous wrote:
| See I like this, but because it's personalized. A human did
| this intentionally, in a way that does not scale.
|
| The author is advocating for nearly the opposite.
| bhaney wrote:
| I love when a marketing campaign email template contains
| something like "btw, this is a real email, not a marketing
| campaign"
| AH4oFVbPT4f8 wrote:
| Much like when a chatbot says, Real person here!
| meiraleal wrote:
| Great, you are spamming HN telling a story about how you spam
| HN
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| I'm so sad that this post is illustrated with stardew valley
| screenshots. I imagine this could be exactly the type of pain the
| protagonist lives everyday in the intro...
| jampa wrote:
| Let's not beat around the bush; mass cold emails are SPAM with
| another name.
|
| I receive about 10 cold emails a week, and most senders never
| give up on sending follow-ups. Those AI emails get worse every
| day, and the follow-ups become more and more passive-aggressive:
| "I guess you are not the person who can make this decision. Could
| you forward me to..." No, I am not doing your job for you. They
| try to make you angry to chase a reply at every cost.
|
| Here is a tip for people on the other end of this madness: If you
| receive Spam, mark it as such to blacklist the sender from Gmail
| and help others because Google is losing the war against Spam
| like they are with the SEO. Let them hang with their own rope.
| ttul wrote:
| I receive at least 10 a day.
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| > passive-aggressive: "I guess you are not the person who can
| make this decision.
|
| Maybe it's my ESL, but I honestly never really got the passive
| agressive tone from a phrase like that.
|
| I'm completely with you on the "could you forward" part though,
| but it just makes me chuckle before hitting the "delete
| forever" button.
| ChilledTonic wrote:
| It's extremely passive aggressive. I've gotten similar emails
| - if I'm not responding to you, take the hint - don't try to
| neg me into responding.
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| Oh, I can absolutely understand how one would perceive this
| as a passive aggressive statement.
|
| I guess the ESL part makes me read this literally and maybe
| have a passing thought in the vein of "I am not, so what".
| sakjur wrote:
| At this point, I just assume anyone cold emailing me is seeking
| to extract information around my employer's technical
| environment for malicious reasons. The questions they keep
| asking seem to indicate as much.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| Can we see a few samples?
| sakjur wrote:
| The other day I got a question that sort of went:
| I'm reaching out as I want to learn more about the database
| technology you're using, and if you're having any problems
| with it. Such as scalability, performance, data siloing,
| costs, etc. We're curious to hear from software engineers
| working with production databases.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| I'm not sure what attack vector they're going to uncover
| from knowing the database you use, given there is a
| relatively small number of databases anyway--they're
| already in a position to guess (brute force) themselves
| into your system if just knowing the database was enough.
|
| Maybe you think they are looking to get your guard down
| and then ask the juicier questions?
| sakjur wrote:
| In this case I'd wager they're just looking to sell to
| us. If they were malicious however, replying to the email
| would let the sender know about my position within the
| organization and how inclined I am to sharing
| information.
|
| At the end of the day there's no upside to either me nor
| my organization to respond to cold emails beyond
| politeness.
| edelbitter wrote:
| Its great, because it validates my new and innovative* principle
| of simply rejecting all mail of the [known]suffix.tld and
| prefix[known].tld sort. Not sure if microsoftstore.com was ever
| legitimately used for mail. Most of the other "wait thats a real
| company" cases were of the "but we don't want their mail anyway"
| sort.
|
| *) Of course, the "new and innovative" part was a lie. Its old
| and dead simple. I had many years ago been inspired by a well
| known large online payment provider deliberately sabotaging full-
| domain-keyed antispam measures. As far as I can tell they have
| discontinued playing around with domains indistinguishable from
| common phishing. I am assuming because phishing got out of hand
| and it is difficult to blame customers for not knowing the
| difference between ads@legit-brand-secure.example versus
| ads@brand-secure-phish.example.
| light_triad wrote:
| Most cold emails are terrible. However when done well it can lead
| to interesting results. Spam/scams is different from having a
| real product or service in which people you reach out to might be
| genuinely interested. By definition it doesn't scale all that
| well. If what you send is truly great then you will stand out
| handfuloflight wrote:
| I wonder how many of the detractors in this thread actually use
| cold email successfully and would have it in their best
| interests to badmouth it to reduce competition and hence
| effectiveness of the channel.
| jameslk wrote:
| Cold emailing isn't very popular here, and in general I don't
| know anyone who likes receiving cold email. I don't think the
| problem is cold emailing, but the way it's done. Most cold email
| is irrelevant and not helpful.
|
| Here's an example taken from this handbook:
|
| > _Hey Matt ---_
|
| > _Friend of mine told me about Za-zu last week. Congrats on the
| recent raise._
|
| > _Random, but noticed you 've got a few jobs open for SDRs._
|
| > _Reason I 'm reaching out is I run a cold outbound agency. We
| can send at 17x the volume of a typical SDR, and our emails are
| usually twice as effective. Have generated $1B in pipeline for
| companies like Angellist._
|
| > _Worth a chat this week?_
|
| > _- Person Who Writes Better Emails_
|
| I actually get emails like these _all the time_ and I mark them
| as spam. Because they 're spam.
|
| Instead of sending me this email, imagine instead I received some
| _actual_ leads from this agency in the first email. Like just 3
| companies that are a very qualified match:
|
| > _Hey Matt ---_
|
| > _Friend of mine told me about Za-zu last week. Congrats on the
| recent raise._
|
| > _Random, but noticed you 've got a few jobs open for SDRs._
|
| > _Here 's 3 qualified leads you might be interested in:_
|
| > _Company 1 and why it 's qualified_
|
| > _Company 2 and why it 's qualified_
|
| > _Company 3 and why it 's qualified_
|
| > _Those leads have expressed interest in your service. I run a
| cold outbound agency. Have generated $1B in pipeline for
| companies like Angellist. Worth a chat this week?_
|
| Now that's helpful. I actually know this company could provide
| some value. Maybe I'll actually respond because I want some more.
|
| Being relevant and very helpful is really hard to do at scale.
| You have to actually do some work to learn about the company, the
| person, and provide something tangible that's valuable. For some
| products/services, it might be possible to do at scale. Until
| then, it's really just spam by a different name.
| meiraleal wrote:
| For me, they are both spam
| jameslk wrote:
| The example email presumes the recipient who's getting it
| actually needs the service. I'd be happy if someone did free
| work for me. If you don't need the service, then yes it's
| irrelevant either way and effectively spam.
|
| But maybe there's some other reason you think the free work
| or email is spam?
| thereisnospork wrote:
| >But maybe there's some other reason you think the free
| work or email is spam?
|
| Is 'they are sending me a cold email' not enough?
|
| I'd trust the content of a cold email even less than info
| from car salesmen if that were possible.
| jameslk wrote:
| > Is 'they are sending me a cold email' not enough?
|
| Maybe you're accustomed to that feeling because you get
| so much irrelevant and unhelpful email? If you got less
| and it actually saved you some time instead of wasting it
| would you still feel that way?
|
| Another way to put it: would you turn down a stranger who
| noticed you dropped your wallet because you don't want
| them to talk to you?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Oh please, are we at the point now where we're thinking
| that a selfless act (somebody giving you your lost
| wallet) is analogous to someone _trying to make money_ by
| contacting you?
|
| People are sick of it not just because it's "irrelevant*,
| but we're tired of being sold to every waking moment.
|
| I am still sad at how this spammy article about spam has
| so many upvotes on HN.
| hanifc wrote:
| Some businesses try to make money by trying to make their
| clients money.
| meiraleal wrote:
| Yeah, nice use of the word try. You give me money, I try
| to help you make money.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Eh, I was with you until the wallet analogy. Returning
| somebody's wallet is just a pure favor. The second email
| isn't a favor really, it is still a pitch. It is a better
| pitch. But it is still a pitch.
| jameslk wrote:
| You're right. I didn't think that difference through
| enough. Bad analogy on my part
| meiraleal wrote:
| James, stop being a spammer. You are abusing the system,
| stop lying to yourself (and to us) to feel better.
| saxonww wrote:
| I think it's personality and experience.
|
| Agreeableness and openness to new experiences are 2 of the
| 'Big 5' personality traits. Some people are very likely to
| see everything as an opportunity, assume positive intent,
| and want to give someone a chance. If one thing doesn't
| work out, it was one thing, and the next thing is
| completely different. I imagine cold emails work very very
| well with these people. Lots of these people exist.
|
| I'm not on the same side of the spectrum for either of
| those traits. I usually see these things as a waste of time
| I didn't ask for. My own experience with sales people makes
| me distrustful of their intentions. If one thing doesn't
| work out, I think all the next things that look like it
| won't work either. Cold emails don't work for me; case
| studies, hands-off demos, etc. where I am researching you,
| I have approached you, and I feel like I am controlling the
| engagement with you, work better.
| keybored wrote:
| I don't feel open to this theory of yours.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> Agreeableness and openness to new experiences are 2 of
| the 'Big 5' personality traits. Some people are very
| likely to see everything as an opportunity, assume
| positive intent
|
| I'm naturally introverted, but I actively overcompensate
| for it. Over a decade ago, i tried to open my mind to
| chance conversations. I'd engage in any conversation with
| anyone -- cafes, grocery stores, etc. Unfortunately I
| ended up just getting invited to MLM meetings and
| occasional proselytization. Folks doing the
| proselytization were actually genuinely friendly, though
| I wasn't interested in converting. The MLM folks were the
| worst.
|
| Eventually, I ended up back where I started -- only
| taking random conversations at work or technical events
| or set social events (e.g., sports)
| jameslk wrote:
| I think you're right that personality traits could be a
| large factor to how someone perceives cold email
| skeptically and negatively. Some may be wary of it as a
| default and some may never allow themselves to be sold to
| no matter what.
|
| That said, I think cold email is often abused (like any
| selling, promotion, or advertising can be) where many
| actors take it too far. This is another factor that I
| think gives cold email a bad perception by default. It's
| just much easier to do things at scale and play the
| numbers game, so that's what gets us here.
|
| The first time I received one of these lead agency emails
| I was actually open to trying it and responded to it.
| After the thousandth time of receiving the same message,
| it goes to spam without a second thought.
| meiraleal wrote:
| > But maybe there's some other reason you think the free
| work or email is spam?
|
| I don't know you and never asked you for what you consider
| free work (which is basically some stupid script fetching
| data). Your trash isn't free work for me, just someone
| trying to make easy money.
|
| As a side note, most agreeable people trying to sell shit
| is a terribly rude buyer. If you don't believe me, start
| replying to cold emails selling something back to them.
| Even better, use a different email and send a cold email
| too.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Further, the free work is not free for me to take time to
| evaluate it. It's asking me to give up precious chunks of
| schedule to research it. I have other priorities.
| seanhunter wrote:
| They are both spam and you are making the world worse.
| Congratulations on being part of the problem.
| bjord wrote:
| out of curiosity, how do you feel about cold emails asking
| for a conversation?
|
| I am currently looking for a new job (potentially in a new
| industry), so I'm doing cold outreach to people whose
| experience seems relevant and/or interesting, asking for
| advice, and usually a phone call in which I can pick their
| brain
|
| would you also view my emails as spam? if not, would you
| bother replying?
| jen729w wrote:
| If you're genuinely interested in a conversation, I think
| that's different. If you're reaching out to someone who you
| admire/'know', that's you making an effort at a genuine
| human connection.
|
| What I get are emails that say 'I would love to write
| articles for your audience, please respond if you would
| like to see a sample.' My site clearly doesn't publish 3rd
| party articles. And if you were that keen, _just send me
| the damned sample_.
|
| You're okay.
| seanhunter wrote:
| I get those exact same article spam emails. I always
| wonder what the angle is there, whether they are farming
| SEO juice or what the deal is.
| timClicks wrote:
| I've always assumed that they charge you for publishing.
| seanhunter wrote:
| I always try to respond if I get an email in a personal
| capacity asking for advice and the person doesn't seem to
| be trying to sell me on something, scam me or otherwise
| ruin my day. Sometimes I'm a bit snowed under so it takes
| me a while to dig out my inbox and get to replying but I
| always try to.
|
| In your specific example I wolud absolutely respond if
| someone needed a bit of help getting a job or whatever but
| I would be wary. I have had people pretend that is the case
| and then they are actually trying to sell me some offshore
| development team or whatever. So sadly I have to be a bit
| more guarded than I would normally like.
| rekabis wrote:
| > I don't know anyone who likes receiving cold email.
|
| I enjoy submitting cold eMail to SpamCop.
|
| But beyond that, no.
| czhu12 wrote:
| I've noticed that the new form of cold emails is inviting you to
| a podcast. I've gotten at least 5 of those in the past month,
| hosted by companies that just so happen to sell software or
| services that are relevant in our industry.
| jameslk wrote:
| Probably this?:
| https://x.com/codyschneiderxx/status/1819807009635795405
|
| _podcasts are a trojan horse to talk to decision makers_
|
| _reach out linkedin saying_
|
| _Hey name_
|
| _love your content_
|
| _I want to have you on podcast xyz_
|
| _It gets emailed to list size 10,000_
|
| _and we give you clips for social_
|
| _you down?_
|
| _20% response rate_
|
| _friends_
|
| _money_
| welder wrote:
| Received one of these today of all days:
|
| https://imgur.com/a/hmBQgHH
| mv4 wrote:
| I like how it even has a fake internal email thread at the
| bottom!
| ipdashc wrote:
| This is... certainly something.
|
| There are some parts that are useful without seeming too scummy -
| the bits on tone and how to actually write a good email, for
| instance. But the bulk of this is just an outright guide on how
| to spam.
| somid3 wrote:
| I love this! Just signed up for your early access. All the
| material you write is spot on. We've had experiences with cold
| email and it works wonders, it is great to see someone tackling
| this head on.
|
| The real problem is that Google Ads and Facebook Ads are 80% bots
| that just click and leave. If you track the behavior of ad clicks
| it looks super bot-like. Email and other mechanisms to read your
| human audience are massively necessary.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I didn't realize cold emails were a thing until I started my most
| recent job.
|
| Our emails are first initial + last name @ business.com and I
| share the first initial and last name with someone in a different
| part of the company than me. Somehow I ended up with that email
| (no numbers) and I get emails constantly about stuff completely
| unrelated to what I work on. (He's a general manager at a large
| hotel property.)
|
| I've even started getting invoices for the laundry at the hotel.
| freetanga wrote:
| I delete without reading half my inbox.
|
| Eternal thread with me in CC so people can cover their asses?
| delete.
|
| Large commite minutes? Delete
|
| "Ok thanks" email? Delete
|
| All external mail go to a folder where if the company is not
| working with us, I delete.
|
| Easily 50% of my inbox (plus the 13-15% on top spam filters
| catch) never gets opened.
|
| A lifesaver but sad to see all that storage and electricity gone
| to waste
| shahzaibmushtaq wrote:
| Good irrelevant ads and well written spammy cold emails sent to
| the wrong leads yield no results, but this doesn't mean ads and
| cold emails are bad marketing ways.
|
| This handbook is all about using cold email marketing strategy
| right.
| ChilledTonic wrote:
| There was a startup about a decade ago when crypto was just kind
| of becoming a mainstream-ish thing, where if someone emailed you,
| it would intercept it if it wasn't on your contact list, and the
| app would automatically ask them for a bitcoin bribe to have you
| actually get the email to land in your inbox.
|
| I wonder weekly whatever happened to that company. I wish it took
| off.
|
| I get 100+ emails like this "handbook" a day and discard all of
| them. Want my attention? Spend your ad dollars on it, literally.
| avarun wrote:
| You're referring to Balaji Srinivasan's startup, Earn, right?
| It was acquired by Coinbase and became Coinbase Earn, at which
| point Balaji became Coinbase's CTO, around 2018. I believe it's
| since been shut down.
| csomar wrote:
| > In September 2024, Srinivasan started The Network School, a
| school for people interested in developing "network nations"
| and "decentralized countries." Located in Forest City, Johor,
| Malaysia, the school had an initial enrollment of 150.
| Students are required to have an admiration of "Western
| values," to believe Bitcoin is the successor to the US
| Federal Reserve, and to trust AI over human courts and
| judges.[21]
|
| From Wikipedia. Quite interesting. Will make sure to visit
| next time am in Malaysia.
| alexp2021 wrote:
| Won't be easy.
| https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/18/malaysia-china-real-
| est...
| dbspin wrote:
| > Students are required to have an admiration of "Western
| values," to believe Bitcoin is the successor to the US
| Federal Reserve, and to trust AI over human courts and
| judges.
|
| Faith based education alive and well. That final
| requirement seems... Interesting to say the least.
| guappa wrote:
| Ah slack promised me to send me some swag if I responded to a
| survey done on the phone by a real person.
|
| They never sent anything at all.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| Proof of work as a way of making spam expensive was literally
| one of the suggested applications of hashcash, the first proof-
| of-work scheme (no ledger yet), at the time of its announcement
| in 1997[1].
|
| [1] http://www.hashcash.org/papers/announce.txt
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Next year: Hashcash consumes a fifth of the energy in the
| world. Wonder if malware in that timeline would steal
| computing from victims to spam other victims.
| taz123 wrote:
| Great work there!! Bookmarked it!
| icambron wrote:
| Putting aside all the sleazy parts for a moment, there is some
| good advice on actually writing a cold outreach email. But this
| part seems mistaken, or at least would be if I were your outreach
| target:
|
| > My best rule for writing good subject lines is that they feel
| like they could be the subject lines of an internal email--this
| helps them feel natural in the inbox. For example, "Quick
| question", or "Idea for better outbound" are two casual, natural-
| feeling subject lines.
|
| I immediately delete any email with a subject line like "quick
| question". It does not give me any reason to think I will get any
| value from it, and what are the chances I will care about
| answering whatever the question turns out to be? I'm not sitting
| around waiting to answer questions from strangers, so an email
| subject line has to tell me what I'm being offered for me to
| invest that time. In fact "quick question" is already asking _me_
| for something ("answer my question") which just seems
| unreasonable from an unsolicited email.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Also, nobody uses my first name in their subject line except
| people trying to sell me something.
|
| And the only people using my first initial as my first name are
| people who scraped Linked-In.
| gus_massa wrote:
| I use the name in the first line when there is some people in
| the cc (or bcc :) ) but it's a request for someone in
| particular:
|
| > _Hi John!_
|
| > _Can you send me X for the Y project?_
|
| In particular when the people in the cc (or bcc :) ) don't
| have the info about X but is interested in Y.
|
| (I use also " _Hi everyone!_ " when I want to make it super
| clear that the email has been sent to a lot of persons.)
| liontwist wrote:
| > I'm not sitting around waiting to answer questions from
| strangers
|
| So you're not a subject matter expert for important business
| procedures or technologies?
| tgv wrote:
| Then the email address probably would have a familiar domain.
| nzealand wrote:
| I am. OP is correct. To get his or my attention, you would
| need to put in more significantly more effort than you are
| asking back.
| liontwist wrote:
| > significantly more effort than you are asking back.
|
| This is backwards.
|
| The transaction does not balance against an individual
| party. This is the double coincidence problem from
| economics.
|
| You're describing yourself as a net loss. I hope I'm not in
| your organization.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I somehow ended up on the spam list for the last election
| (funny, having never set my feet in the US) and it was
| painfully obvious that the goal of those headlines were to make
| people click them, thinking that it was a work e-mail.
| nzealand wrote:
| This is for startups who are looking for that one in a hundred
| person hungry for their solution. Enterprises who have already
| scaled use an entirely different cook book to get the attention
| of a VP like yourself. A well-targeted and personalized email
| has a much better response rate for enterprises with a proven
| solution and well known brand.
| josh_carterPDX wrote:
| The moment I started reading, "Set up multiple domains" I felt
| like I needed to shower. Sleazy indeed.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| I generally report emails as spam, and if I'm in a bad mood, I'll
| report it as terrorism
| skc wrote:
| We all hate recieving cold emails, yet there is likely a majority
| of us in this post who work for companies that rely on cold
| emails to get sales that ultimately pay our salaries.
| cpursley wrote:
| Yep, hn being engineer heavy, there's a strong bias against
| marketing and sales. But that is what actually pays the bills,
| at least for us non-VC funded companies slugging it out in the
| real world.
| guappa wrote:
| Big assumption to presume they do work.
| devjab wrote:
| When I worked in an investment bank 100% of the sales came
| from cold contacts originally. Some were calls others were
| emails. They work perfectly fine. Once someone was an
| investor they'd do repeat business, but they all started as
| cold contacts.
|
| I think one of the major issues with especially cold emails
| is that they extremely often reach the wrong people. Which is
| probably also why HN hates them so much. I've gotten so many
| of them when I was in no position to make any sort on
| decision on whatever they were trying to sell. Which is just
| a waste of everyones time. These days I just automatically
| delete external e-mails that aren't specifically whitelisted,
| but not everyone can do that for obvious reasons.
| QuadmasterXLII wrote:
| Right, but some of the rest of us have jobs that aren't
| maximally parasitic.
| liontwist wrote:
| the Nobel FAANG project manager vs the parasitic
| investment banker?
| devjab wrote:
| Well, we did build around 1000 solar plants globally with
| the invested money. I do wonder what you're doing on HN
| if you don't like investment banks though.
| skwee357 wrote:
| I don't understand how cold emails can work.
|
| I get a handful of cold emails with offers ranging from
| website/app developer (I'm a SWE myself, and never indicated that
| I need a website/app) all the way to "link exchange" (I have a
| SWE blog) with completely irrelevant content. I remember the most
| absurd one was when I got an email starting "I really liked your
| article about underwater welding" which was a response to my
| article about SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT. I mean, even GPT wouldn't
| hallucinate that hard.
|
| So the majority of cold emails are pure garbage, and this
| logically leads to the realization that good cold emails are ones
| that are very personal and targeted. Writing personal and
| targeted emails take a lot of time, and my understanding that
| cold emails are a number's game, hence you can't really
| personalize (beyond addressing the recipient by their name, which
| even this many fail to do).
|
| So how cold emailing still a thing?
| guappa wrote:
| My quess is that people need to justify their salary.
| liontwist wrote:
| Sales is primarily commission. There is no time to waste.
| guappa wrote:
| Yeah and capitalism works and private companies are very
| efficient -_-'
| liontwist wrote:
| What incentive structure have you found that makes your
| sales organization more efficient? What metrics indicate
| to you they are wasting time on cold emails that don't
| product results?
| elorant wrote:
| Cold emails are based on the premise that you have a large
| targeted list of B2B emails. You've scraped for example a whole
| category of from Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever. Then you
| cold email them. You aim for a conversion between 1% and 3%,
| and if you send thousands of emails it soon becomes very
| lucrative.
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| My hunch is that people like you and the HN crowd are the
| outliers. The majority of people don't actually hate cold
| emails or what we perceive as "spam".
|
| For example my wife and mother _love_ advertisements for
| discount deals. They actively look for them, and object when I
| try to clean their computer /mailbox from that sort of stuff.
| The last time I said this on HN, I received sarcastic mocking
| replies, which just prove the point that it's the HN crowd
| that's "weird".
| skwee357 wrote:
| I actually think that you are correct.
|
| I employ ad blockers, mass delete cold emails, and
| intentionally do not click "sponsored" links (even if they
| happen to be the one I really need). And yet, I had to
| "teach" my wife to avoid clicking ad links, and install ad
| blocker on her computer. And I assume most "regular" people
| are like this.
|
| And "our" mentality, at least in my case, makes it hard to
| run a business as I see cold emails and ads as scam.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| > and intentionally do not click "sponsored" links (even if
| they happen to be the one I really need).
|
| But why? You don't feel compelled at all to contribute
| towards the financial health of the free product you're
| consuming? With just a tap of your finger?
| handfuloflight wrote:
| I don't mind cold emails as long as they are relevant. Bonus
| points if I am going to learn something new beyond the pitch.
| liontwist wrote:
| I think these things always come down to marketing
| preference, rather than "just built different".
|
| People here spend an exceptional amount of time reading PR
| for startups and technology products in the form of "tech
| news".
| liontwist wrote:
| I throw away all the spam in my (home) mailbox without opening
| it. Then one day I start worrying that my tree is a little
| unkempt and I get a letter about a tree trimming service.
| Suddenly I'm at least willing to give it a read.
|
| Cold emails aren't trying to persuade people who aren't
| interested, they are trying to catch people at a time where
| they need that thing. Recruiters want to find people having a
| bad week at works
|
| Also when you run a business you often care less about spending
| money and more about solving problems and saving time. So a
| sales contact offering a solution is saving you the hassle of
| finding a vendor.
| billyp-rva wrote:
| If there were clearly better alternatives, then cold emailing
| wouldn't be a thing. Marketing is _hard_.
| netcan wrote:
| A lot of scandalized fainting and pearl clutching triggered by
| this.
|
| It's interesting what set of tactics do/don't trigger an
| instinctive "beyond the pale" reaction on HN.
|
| HNers seem to have a higher comparative tolerance for
| "marketing."
|
| Salesman stuff seem near the top of this list.
|
| For a lot of tactics, HN is more tolerant (less morally
| sensitive) than genpop. Eg optimizing user behaviour by embedding
| whole behavioural psychology lab in code.
|
| IMO, there is a "problem" in here somewhere. Competition for
| commercially relevant attention is extremely high these days.
|
| Sales, as a strategy, often lends really well to early user
| acquisition strategies. Often scales poorly, but that doesn't
| really matter.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Pearl clutcher here, reporting for duty.
|
| I consider this person's actions a direct threat to the health
| of the internet, and will expend a moderate amount of effort to
| ensure that his great startup plan falls flat on its face.
|
| For the same reason that I occasionally pick up trash in public
| and put it in a garbage can. It's not hard to do, and it makes
| the environment better for everyone else.
| dizhn wrote:
| I don't know if it's from this handbook but I've been getting the
| same kind of cold emails from a bunch of different companies
| (mostly IT) who are very peculiar in that they all keep replying
| to themselves constantly and wanting to "connect" like they are
| peddling some top notch shit that I'd be crazy to miss. All of
| them also have a weird bottom section where you have to reply
| "No. Thx!" or something like that to stop receiving emails. I
| never tried to do that.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Seems like a good way to get your whole domain blocked at my MX
| gwd wrote:
| That's why TFA recommends buying multiple domains. He
| literally has a formula: (Desired Daily
| Volume / 60) x 1.1
|
| He recommends that each domain have only 3 inboxes, and each
| inbox sends max 20 emails per day. So if you want to send
| 6000 emails per day, you should by 110 domains.
|
| So block away! Unless you're using regexes, it won't make a
| big dent.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Why doesn't he just do: (Desired Daily
| Volume / 54.54)
|
| Or even easier to remember: (Desired Daily
| Volume / 55)
| dambi0 wrote:
| Probably the same reason we write things like
|
| SECONDS_IN_DAY = 60 * 60 * 24
|
| The individual components have some meaning that loses
| clarity when we just write the result of the calculation
| blitzar wrote:
| I do that because I can't remember that there are 86400
| seconds in day so work it out from first principles each
| time.
|
| I also sing the alphabet song (in my head) when I want to
| know which is the 19th letter of the alphabet.
| dotancohen wrote:
| Alright, then. Let's assume that 1.1 is a safety factor.
| From whence 60?
| miklosz wrote:
| 3 sales representatives, each sending 20 cold emails per
| day. Yeah, it should be 3 * 20.
| dotancohen wrote:
| So if he adds more salesmen, he needs less domains? ))
| walrus01 wrote:
| They'll eventually run out of domains.
|
| This supposed email marketing genius has as his technique
| "use a bunch of VPNs to buy separate gsuite and office365
| accounts, and with these accounts, send from a bunch of
| similar sounding domains".
|
| I've just brought his name and business name to the
| attention of some people at Microsoft and Google who can
| get it into the right hands. I do not think this genius
| plan is going to work out well for him.
| blitzar wrote:
| That would be a juicy account, they are going to get
| their own VIP account executive and tickets to the
| superbowl.
| ljf wrote:
| I never unsubscribe (as I never subscribed in the first place)
| I just: right click > junk > block sender
|
| If I keep getting stuff from them/they mildly changed email
| addresses - I just block the whole domain.
|
| I suggested to our Cyber team that for the majority of people
| here we could just block all incoming emails from domains other
| than our own - and then operate a whitelist or holding pen for
| other incoming emails. In an average year, I can count on one
| hand the times I need to email externally, or am expecting to
| receive an external email - my roll (as many others) is inward
| facing.
| blitzar wrote:
| Presumably easy enough to filter the corporate inbox to have
| Internal and External views - properly executed would
| probably make a top 10 productivity hacks list.
| walrus01 wrote:
| From the page:
|
| > Buying and setting up adjacent domains.
|
| > Optimizing your domains for deliverability
|
| There's a term for this, it's called spam, and the specific
| method is snowshoeing
| openrisk wrote:
| Its a law in human network communications theory [1] that any
| channel will degrade to the point of being usable if there are no
| penalties to pay when abusing it.
|
| There are downsides to indiscriminately mailing, posting etc.
| peoples inboxes (e.g. reputational damage), but this applies to
| entities that already have a reputation to worry about.
|
| For entities operating in "do or die mode" or are very short-
| termist / opportunistic even very low success rates may be
| rational.
|
| [1] just made this up
| rapht wrote:
| CFO's perspective: wanna sell me something, anything? you're out.
|
| However well crafted your email is, you're an unacceptable
| distraction from the priorities that the company has set, the
| achievement of which is materialized by projects of varying size
| and scope. Upon starting any project of any size, people do due
| diligence: they assess what exactly it is they are looking for,
| and then research the market for it. For macro-projects,
| consultants may be hired to help with the process, which may lead
| to a proper tender.
|
| Either way, _the company contacts you, not the other way round_.
| blitzar wrote:
| You are going to go with IBM because _nobody every gets fired
| for buying IBM_.
| rapht wrote:
| I don't know what makes you say that. Requiring a bit of
| market research from project proponents does not mean
| excluding anything lightweight or just new. What you don't
| want is some company being contracted because it talked to
| you first by whatever channel rather than as a result of some
| reasoned assessment.
| blitzar wrote:
| How do you research something you don't know exists?
|
| > wanna sell me something, anything? you're out.
|
| Advertise? you're out. Have a website? you're out. Go on
| the Shark Tank? you're out. Do a "Show HN"? you're out.
|
| Reply to an open call to tender? you're out.
|
| > I don't know what makes you say that
|
| "CFO". IBM is the classic choice of the CFO class - they
| dont want to get fired so they a) dont make a decision or
| b) chose IBM because they were not "selling them something"
| (except for all the sales and marketting they do)
| billpg wrote:
| I feel the main problem with email is that it isn't default-deny.
| When I set up a mailbox, no-one should be able to send me
| messages until I pre-approve the sender.
| arkh wrote:
| > Email is where important conversations happen.
|
| More like Email is this thing you forgot to check for a month
| because every time you go there it is mostly spam.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| That might be true of devs who spend all day inside Slack and
| Jira at work and Discord/messengers at home.
|
| It's definitely not true of people with budgets to spend. Email
| is still king.
| blitzar wrote:
| > people with budgets to spend
|
| Flexing on linkedin is still king.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Ask HN: is cold messaging on LinkedIn comparable to or
| preferable to cold email?
| gdjskshh wrote:
| > Email is this thing you forgot to check for a month because
| every time you go there it is mostly spam.
|
| As a society, should we allow private entities to destroy
| valuable institutions?
|
| We used to have a technology (email) that increased
| productivity and added value to individual lives. That value
| has been eliminated by spammers trying to cold-extract money
| from everyone with an email account.
|
| Spammers killing email is an externality we shouldn't accept,
| similar to not accept Monsanto killing bald eagles by selling
| DDT.
|
| Don't get too comfy in your chats, spammers are coming for your
| discords and slacks next, and that wave will be lead by LLMs.
| anonu wrote:
| nice post - especially as it focuses on lots of the technical
| aspects.
|
| however
|
| > on track to generate $500M in pipeline for our clients in 2024,
| and we hit $1M in ARR
|
| sounds like a lot of spam - which carries with it varying degrees
| of illegality depending on the region.
|
| What's better than a cold outbound? A warm outbound...
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I get with cold email / cold calling, the line between SPAM /
| telemarketing can get kind of blurry.
|
| In this case, the multi-domain & multi email address technique
| puts this clearly on the SPAM side of the line.
|
| But it's good to know: Hopefully SPAM filters start looking for
| 3xx redirects and blocking all email that comes from a domain
| with a 3xx redirect.
| gdjskshh wrote:
| Can you define the line between spam and telemarketing?
|
| To me those terms are synonymous and both mean unsolicited
| targeted advertising.
| MeetingsBrowser wrote:
| I think of it as, "if everyone did this would it still work".
|
| If you are blasting out emails knowing most will be ignored,
| in the hopes that one lands in the right inbox, that's bad.
|
| If everyone did the same, no one would ever find the useful
| opportunities among the sea of irrelevant trash.
|
| If you are sending cold emails to people you know will be
| interested, that's fine.
|
| There is no upper bound on how many actually useful
| opportunities people are willing to receive.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| > If you are sending cold emails to people you know will be
| interested, that's fine.
|
| This is my rule. If I gave you my info at some time, and
| you have a new product you think could be relevant for me,
| fine. If you got a contact list from some convention, and
| are shotgunning it with "We sell X. If you're not in charge
| of Y, please direct me to the appropriate person", I'll
| report it as spam faster than The Flash.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Line between cold calling vs telemarking, or cold email vs
| SPAM.
|
| As far as what the line is, it's any _unwanted_ unsolicited
| contact, as _defined by the recipient, not by the party
| initiating the call or sending the email._
|
| IE, _there 's no universal set of checkboxes that a marketer
| can follow that magically make unwanted unsolicited email /
| phone calls not SPAM._
| gdjskshh wrote:
| Oh, I didn't realize that some people want some unsolicited
| advertisements. Am I an outlier for not wanting any?
| mlboss wrote:
| What if you had a some kind of urgent need
| health/business/personal ? You tried finding the solution
| but cannot find anything. And somebody reached out to
| solve exactly that problem. Will you still not be
| interested ?
| gwbas1c wrote:
| >> it's any unwanted unsolicited contact
|
| > unsolicited advertisements
|
| Note the critical difference of "contact" versus
| "advertisement."
|
| It's not just advertisements that are SPAM, it's
| newsletters, wrong email addresses, marketing. (For
| example, I've been subscribed to all kinds of weird stuff
| merely by attending political meetings. I once was sent a
| LinkedIn invitation to a party clown business because I
| attended my senator's information session on a bill he
| was promoting. Another time, I got a "guess" email from a
| high school kid trying to contact a school faculty member
| who had the same name as me. I've also had government
| demand letters for people with the same name as me, and
| COVID test results for people with the same name as me.)
|
| Some people don't mind this kind of stuff. (Edit: If it's
| not 100% clear, I really, really mind this kind of
| stuff.)
|
| > Am I an outlier for not wanting any?
|
| I doubt it. Spend some time listening to other people,
| though. Some people are more tolerant of it than we are.
|
| Personally, I think the way to reign it in is to ban all
| unsolicited contacts to email / phone and require that
| they go through a 3rd party mediator. (Kind of what
| happens with LinkedIn or Facebook Messenger) This way, if
| the 3rd party mediator sends you junk, you can cut them
| out.
| thornewolf wrote:
| Suppose someone called you and said "I would like to give
| you $10,000. Here are the private keys you can use to
| transfer to your wallet w/o me needing to collect any of
| your information."
|
| I want no unsolicited advertisements but I want that one.
| jameslk wrote:
| > But it's good to know: Hopefully SPAM filters start looking
| for 3xx redirects and blocking all email that comes from a
| domain with a 3xx redirect.
|
| I believe some already do. As a consequence, instead of doing
| redirects, the recommendation is now to use a landing page on
| the domains. I assume next the spam filters will start checking
| the quality of content of the domains, if they don't already.
| It's a never ending game of cat and mouse.
| keybored wrote:
| The nice thing about being a nobody: all unsolicited emails are
| spam by definition.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| FYI, AdGuard Blacklists the website
| https://reports.adguard.com/en/www.za-zu.com/report.html
| burnte wrote:
| It always astounds me that salespeople still rely on cold
| contacts. I have literally never once done business with a cold-
| contact emailer. To me it screams desperation, they have so few
| good ideas and leads that they're left with cold-contacts. I
| don't even know anyone who has bought from cold contacts.
| lazzlazzlazz wrote:
| > My best rule for writing good subject lines is that they feel
| like they could be the subject lines of an internal email--this
| helps them feel natural in the inbox. For example, "Quick
| question", or "Idea for better outbound" are two casual, natural-
| feeling subject lines.
|
| This strategy has been in use for years and I perceive such
| subject lines as an indicator that an email is probably an
| outright scam. All senders receive a silent and permanent block
| from me without exception.
|
| Maybe the author isn't aware of how much alienation he's creating
| for his brand.
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