Six Million Outbound Emails
An agency I used to work for merged with another. I say “merged” because that’s what the HR people said, but a better word might be “swallowed”. Either way, the firm we were now a part of had big reach and deep pockets.
With those resources, they were able to think about growth in a way that I hadn’t been able to at previous agencies. They could throw money at the problem.
Once our merger was complete and I formally joined the big firm’s marketing team, I was excited to see how they were using their big budgets to fuel growth.
But I was disappointed.
From what I could see, they chose to use those funds in the most direct way possible - an outbound lead generation team focused on cold-emailing prospects.
Coming from a small agency, I was used to one or two salespeople (or a founder) leading the new business process, and owning it from start to finish. Outbound was a part of that process, but I was expecting something a little more nuanced and sophisticated from this new, big firm.
Regardless, I was curious to see the results of this dedicated outbound spend. Lead gen firms had tried to sell me on their services many times before, but I had never worked with one. Now I got to see one up close.
Around the 15th of every month I would get a lead generation report.
Around the 16th of every month I would sit dumbfounded as I read the report.
After 12 months of reviewing reports, these were the results.
Number of emails sent: 6,000,000
Number of deals closed: 4
That is not a typo. Six million cold outbound emails were sent, resulting in four closed deals.
That’s a 0.00006% close rate.
Or, put another way, that’s one sale for every 1.5 million cold emails..
Crazy.
First off, I feel for the team that was executing this. Not only does the work sound incredibly tedious, I can only imagine that they were getting pressure about the results when they had very little control over the strategy.
Beyond that, here are two agency lead generation takeaways from seeing that .00006% close rate up close:
Inbound and Outbound Together
Guy Kawasaki once said, “If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing. If you have more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing.”
Agreed, Guy. But we’re lucky we don’t live in a binary world.
The six million emails above is a misdirection. The quantity of emails sent isn’t the problem, it’s the quality - and sending that many messages to cold prospects makes it very hard to create value in every inbox you touch.
The same goes for creating great thought leadership that nobody reads, that doesn’t create value either.
Picking up the phone or sending an email to a cold prospect is powerful and creates an opportunity. You make the most of that opportunity by having something interesting to say.
Quality beats quantity, but the more of it, the better.
There’s No Silver Bullet
The lead generation industry is growing and my inbox is full of messages from them, asking for my business. I will decline, then delete those messages. Almost all of the messages they send on behalf of their clients will be deleted too.
Lead generation firm or something else, if someone comes to you offering you a great reward without a great sacrifice, be very wary. There’s no such thing as a free lunch and the idea of fully absolving yourself of all lead generation responsibility while your agency grows is a fantasy.
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Your growth plan needs to set realistic goals and acknowledge the long sales cycles in the agency space. There is no quick fix, just hard work. Outbound sales tactics belong in that growth plan, but make sure to put in the content leg work so those tactics have the substance to drive results.
