How to Get New Clients for Digital Agencies With Cold Email (With Templates)

During my time working in M&A (mergers and acquisitions), I sent over 3 million cold emails and added hundreds of millions of dollars in pipeline value. Now, I help companies (especially agencies) get more clients through cold email.

I’ll share with you what worked for me, but also what I see working for my digital agency clients.

Why Cold Email?

In my opinion, it’s the best single best way to grow a digital marketing agency. This is because:

• It’s Fast - You can get a list and send hundreds of emails in a matter of days.
• It’s Cheap - Purchasing a list and getting email marketing software costs pennies compared to Google or Facebook ads. Seriously.
• It’s Easy to Test - You can easily split your list and send different messages or subject lines. Then, do it again the next day and the next.
• It’s (Almost) Infinitely Scalable - Once your messaging is dialed in, send it to more leads.
• It’s Simple - Writing long-form content, mastering ads, or creating high-quality YouTube videos all have a steep learning curve. Email is simpler because there are only a few aspects to get dialed in.
• Everyone Uses Email - There won’t be a shortage of businesses you can message.

Let’s dive into what’s working right now in cold email.

How to Get Clients With Cold Email

There are four main parts of creating an effective cold email campaign that I typically share with clients.

1. Get Updated Information

The single biggest driver of your success is the quality of your list. I could send the same message to two separate lists and get wildly different results because one had better data.

For example, would you rather have your email sent to a general office email or the CEO’s inbox? Would you rather have your message go the secretary or the decision-maker? These are incredibly important things to know before spending money on a list.

In addition, you can use this data to personalize your emails. Subject lines with the prospect’s name drive a 26% increase in open rates—but if you try this with incorrect data, your engagement will plummet.

2. Provide Extraordinary, Personalized Value

Continuing the personalization theme, the American Marketing Association reports that well-personalized emails can increase revenue by 5.7 times!

Let’s talk about what that actually looks like in a cold email.

2 Most highly-effective cold email strategies for digital marketing agencies

The biggest key to providing a personalized experience is not to go halfway in your attempt at personalization.

Messages like “I was browsing your website” or “I loved your content” are inauthentic and obviously templated. Perhaps you point out an actual article you liked, but it’s often a cursory attempt at connection that does more damage than good. If you’d done your homework and had something meaningful to say, the person on the other end knows you would have said that in the first place, instead of blowing smoke. 

Almost all agencies today are offering lead generation via PPC ads or SEO, and you can use these two areas of your business to bring value to the person who’s receiving your cold email in a way I can guarantee your competitors won’t be.

Agencies Selling Lead Gen Through Ads

First and foremost, you need to figure out the right types of businesses to target. If you’ve successfully generated leads for real estate agents in the past, that’s an excellent market for you to continue targeting. If you need help with this targeting aspect, feel free to message me via email at matthew@coldlytics.com

The next step to boost your success is finding those real estate agents who already have an ad pixel on their website. This means that they’ve done ads before or are currently running them now—and likely doing it poorly. Use this to your advantage.

Remember, your cold emails are only speaking to those who should become your customers, not those who won’t. This means that it doesn’t matter if the company is successful in their current ads. Statistically, they’re seeing no ROAS and you can help them solve that problem.

So step into an industry where you’ve already mastered lead gen and your target audience is attempting to run ads.

This is a formula for success! Remember, you’re not looking for new clients. You’re looking for problems to solve, and people will pay you for that.

Now, let’s provide a valuable message that’s in line with this helpful approach.

Cold Email Template for Getting New PPC Clients 

Hi {{firstName}},

On your website I can see you’ve ran {{adPlatform}} ads for {{companyName}} and I wanted to send you an ad that really worked well for {{industry}} businesses that you can run as well.

The ad saw {{quantifiableResults}} and I can send you a copy of the ad over email if you’d like to see it.

Should I send it over to you?

{{signature}}

PS: People get new clients through {{adPlatform}} ads every day and it works when you know what you’re doing. I can show you how to do that on you own. If you decide it’s too much headache I’d be glad to help you run them as well.”

That’s just the bones of it—I’d suggest adding your personal touch and split testing your own variations.

Here’s why this works:

1. Addresses the person and their pain by name.
2. Starts by providing value rather than mentioning what you do.
3. Proves that you have experience and success running ads in their industry.
4. Makes it clear what you do and how you’d like to move forward.

That’s it! Short, sweet, but extremely valuable.

Agencies Selling SEO

Everyone seems to be selling SEO services, so it’s essential that you stand out. You’ll see that the example here requires a well prepared list for each email you send and that’s the key to success in a crowded market. 

Again, starting with an industry in mind is a great start, but we have to go deeper. 

You could target law firm websites that have slow page speed, meaning that they haven’t optimized their site for SEO yet. It’s easy to build a list of leads with slow websites and use that to your advantage.

Here’s what a message might look like here:

Hey {{firstName}},

I did a quick search for “{{searchTerm}}” and you showed up in position {{searchPosition}} which means people Googling to find you are seeing your competitors first.

One obvious thing jumped out at me that you can do to help fix this…

Your site loads in {{pageSpeed}} milliseconds which means Google will show your business to fewer people as part of their search results.

Reply back and I’ll be happy to share 2-3 site speed improvements that we use with other attorney clients. That will open the door for more of your ideal clients to actually find your website next time.

{{signature}}

Here’s why this works:

1. Addresses him by name.
2. Shows you did real research and identified the issue. (Hint: you can automatically get all of these variables from Coldlytics when you buy your list here.)
3. Demonstrates your experience with other clients in the same industry.
4. Provides a tangible pain point and solution that makes you their hero.

Again, your best results will come from A/B testing every cold email campaign you run. Testing variations on your messaging is a must in order to maximize the effectiveness of your emails.

3. Craft a Good Subject Line

There isn’t one silver bullet to give out when it comes to subject lines—but it’s worth the time to get it right.

With 42% of email recipients looking first at the sender's name, you’re starting from behind because they don’t know you.

The best advice is to start with something that you believe is good and then test, test, test. Here are a few best practices for good subject lines:

• No Tricks - Don’t promise something in your subject line that isn’t real.
• Don’t Sell - You won’t get opens if the subject line reads “Get discount SEO services today.” That doesn’t work from a stranger.
• Don’t Be Loud - No all-caps or 13 emojis. You can be interesting and have a personality without being overbearing.
• Be Specific & Personal - Mentioning their name and/or industry can go a long way.
• Pique Curiosity - “Quick question” or something similar can often get the job done.

4. Follow Up

Even an effective campaign can seem underwhelming if you only send one email. For example, Lemlist states that cold emails sent from their platform get 4.5% open rates. 

However, the second email gets 3.75%. By the time you’ve sent four, you’re at a cumulative 13% open rate—which is terrific for cold email.

Following up can also allow you to try a few different tactics. For example, email #2 can be “Hey, did you miss my last email?” Email #4 could be a hard sell, which might be off-putting to some people. That doesn’t matter as much with your final message, but it could bump some people across the finish line.

Whatever your chosen email strategy, don't stop after the first message—just sending an additional three emails can triple your results!

How to Build an Email List for a Marketing Agency

If you’ve noticed a theme, it’s that everything starts with having updated and correct data for the people you’re going to email. Your message needs to be addressed to the right person and sent to the right inbox—or it won’t matter how great your message is.

With Coldlytics, we can help you target the right industry and even layer in additional parameters, such as their site speed or whether they have a tracking pixel. Our data isn’t pulled until you request it—meaning nobody’s data is fresher. 

Try us out with a free account today and see how we can help build your digital marketing agency with hyper-targeted data.