I Made Warren Buffett 40-Million Dollars With A Single Email; I Can Make You Money Too.
There's nothing worse than getting a cold email, right? Agreed, if the email is shit, useless, feel spammy, or has zero value. But, if it delivers somet...
There's nothing worse than getting a cold email, right? Agreed, if the email is shit, useless, feel spammy, or has zero value. But, if it delivers something… It's AMAZEBALLS! 🤩
I get asked this question almost weekly, "Hey Spanky, does cold email work today?". Years ago, I would have said NO! But back then, I didn't understand the context and value of email. Even though I live in the marketing space, cold email felt invasive and wrong, so I allowed my personal feelings to cloud my judgment. Plus, I was being served lots of the spammy shit mentioned above.
So, does cold email work in 2022? It abso-freakin-lutely does!
Cold Email Is Like Going to the Gym
Sending a cold email is like going to the gym. You have to put in the reps to see the benefits. Buying a membership to a gym doesn't give you muscles, just like having an email list in an app doesn't give you results unless you work at it.
You might send 25, 50, or even 100 emails before you see the fruits of your labor, but if you work at it with any consistency, it will pay off. Remember, you're not in this for the short game.
6 Rules That Actually Work
1. Before you send email number 1, you need to make sure you have a list to send it to. What if you don't have a list? I knew you were thinking that. I'd purchase a list from a reliable company like A Type Data (not an affiliate link, but they are a client of ours). Sweat equity will get you there if you don't want to drop dough on the list. You can always scour LinkedIn to find your contacts. With tools like hunter.io, you can literally hijack the emails you want.
2. Emails are not a One-A-Day vitamin. You won't get results if you send one a day; you'll get frustrated and give up before you ever get rolling. If you can send 20-30 a day, do it. The results will come before frustration sets in if…
3. Your call to action is STRONG. Don't send a douchey email with a subject line like: "Hey, I saw you on LinkedIn and thought we should connect." or, my favorite, "I'd like to talk about our synergies and how we can help one another network and grow." In my head, I am yelling, "FUCK YOU" at the top of my lungs when I get those messages. Instead, write a strong, clear, memorable CTA and feature it in your subject line. I know you're thinking, can you give me an example? I did. Otherwise, you wouldn't be reading this sentence. Let me remind you what it said…
Subject: I made Warren Buffett 40 million dollars with a single email, I can make you money too.
4. Dear Mr. Ken. Huh? Dear Mr. Ken? What are you, a bot? We don't address people like this. STOP IT! Many of our agency and small business clients use apps like High Level for email automation. I recommend you pick one that fits you. Options like Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or Constant Contact, are fine. Personalize your emails with a few clicks. Look, I respond way better to Hey Spanky than Dear Mr. Ken. 🤣
5. Circle back. Lather, rinse, repeat. Just like the instructions on the shampoo bottle says, you need to repeat the process to get the desired outcome. You need three to five follow-ups, sometimes a dozen, before you get a response. Be persistent, but don't be an asshole. I tried that once, and it didn't work.
Years ago, I was frustrated when my cold email campaign didn't achieve the desired outcome I'd hoped for. So after sending only two emails and thinking, I'm the shit, of course, they are reading my emails, I sent a third and final email. In this email, I basically threatened to remove them from my mailing list. I was such an asshole. I threatened them with the thing they probably most wanted, to stop getting shitty emails from me. That email accomplished my desired outcome. It had a 95% open rate and almost 80% opt-out rate- Immaturity for the win.
Can't Write This Shit Yourself?
6. Remember, if you can't think of the words to write, if you're running into a brick wall of subject lines, or throwing your hands up in sheer frustration trying to write your email sequence, my team and I can help. You can have us craft an on-demand email sequence.
Purchase On Demand Emails
Or, if you need a long sequence and regular, ongoing email copy, become a monthly subscriber and we'll take care of the rest.
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Frequently Asked Questions
According to Ken, it abso-freakin-lutely does! He admits he used to say NO years ago because he let personal feelings cloud his judgment, but once he understood the context and value of email, his perspective changed completely. Just like going to the gym, you have to put in the reps—sending 25, 50, or even 100 emails with consistency before you see results.
Ken recommends sending 20-30 emails a day if you can. Emails are not a "One-A-Day vitamin"—if you only send one per day, you'll get frustrated and give up before you ever get rolling. The results will come before frustration sets in if you maintain that volume.
Ken's own subject line is the example: "I made Warren Buffett 40 million dollars with a single email, I can make you money too." He says to write a strong, clear, memorable CTA and feature it in your subject line—not douchey lines like "I saw you on LinkedIn and thought we should connect" or bullshit about "synergies."
You need three to five follow-ups, sometimes even a dozen, before you get a response. Ken emphasizes being persistent but not an asshole—he once threatened to remove people from his list after just two emails, which resulted in a 95% open rate but an 80% opt-out rate.
Ken recommends purchasing a list from a reliable company like A Type Data (which is also a client of his agency). If you don't want to spend money, you can use sweat equity by scouring LinkedIn to find contacts and using tools like hunter.io to find email addresses.
