How to Develop Motivation for Cold Emailing Prospects
Stop thinking about marketing as a complicated and scary process. If you’re a freelance writer, cold emailing is all that you need to do to find new clients.
In the beginning of your freelance business, you’ll probably spend an inordinate amount of time finding those first few clients. The problem often is that you know that you want to do the writing work, but you just don’t know how to get it.
Who do you reach out to?
What do you say?
How do you position yourself?
What do clients need?
How many samples should you have to share?
For many newbies, these little seeds of doubt and insecurity are enough to stop you in your tracks.
Marketing does not have to be complicated
Marketing can take on a lot of different forms: direct emailing, using paid ads, blogging, posting to social media, sending out newsletters, etc.
If you’re a new freelance writer, then your marketing efforts should be spent on one thing only: cold emailing prospects.
All of that other stuff doesn’t matter at first and, quite honestly, can be a complete waste of your time. If you need clients and paid work NOW, then cold emailing prospects is the only way to go. It is the most direct way to get new clients and can be quite effective once you get the hang of it.
Cold emailing doesn’t have to be so scary
I know the whole “cold emailing” thing can seem pretty daunting. One of our coaching students once said, “I am stuck on the emailing part. I know what to do but it's hard for me to do it because I'm scared. I'm scared I won't get any replies, or that I will get a reply!”
Our advice was this: just start. As with anything, the first few emails are the hardest. Once you get over that hump, it'll become easier and you'll get into a groove.
At first, it feels like you are sticking your neck out each time you send an email, but most medical communications agencies are used to working with freelance writers. However, because many of us come from a traditional 9-to-5 job, we’ve been conditioned to believe that work flows in a certain direction and that you only receive work from some superior.
But when you are a freelancer, the tables are turned. When starting out, YOU are the person to reach out and ASK if work is available. And no, you will not be viewed as some weirdo for doing so.
It’s that “ask” part where most people get hung up. It feels strange and uncomfortable.
But remember, you are simply asking how you can help the client achieve their goals, meet their deadlines, support their overworked in-house team, make their job easier, etc. Positioning yourself as the facilitator of those things is the key to taking the ickiness out of the ask process.
How much is cold emailing worth to you?
To help our coaching student visualize and become motivated about emailing prospects, I suggested this:
Think about how much each client could be worth. $10k? $20k? $30k? More? Each steady client could easily bring in $20k/year (and oftentimes more - no joke!).
So when thinking about it in that way, you probably only need 3-5 steady clients to bring in a decent income. And this is totally doable - trust me.
Need some help finding those first few clients? We’ve just released a new course about this super simple marketing strategy that outlines the cold emailing process. You’ll learn exactly what to say and who to say it to.