Performing email outreach is hard work.
Getting people to reply to your emails is even harder…
Thirty-eight percent of salespeople say that getting a response from prospects is becoming increasingly difficult.
This is problematic as experts believe a response rate lower than 30% for cold emails is bad news.
But, what’s causing your difficulties?
Well, customer service or “info@” email addresses are often a black hole.
Whereas, if you email the right person of contact, they’re more likely to open your message and respond.
And more importantly, you’re more likely to achieve your goal.
Whether that’s prospecting for clients, networking, finding guest post opportunities etc.
So, here’s how to make sure you find the right contact every single time:
Your first objective is to find a real live human being.
So, head on over to the site’s “Team” page.
And if you have no luck there, visit their “About” page which should contain team info.
Then select the person with the most appropriate job title for what you need.
For instance, if you are prospecting for clients, you would choose the CEO or somebody in a management position.
If you’re performing blog outreach, then you would choose somebody with marketing or communications in their title and so on.
Hence, it should be your first port of call.
If there’s no email address, then at least you have information on the person you hope to contact…
And you can delve a little deeper.
Sometimes you’ve got to be like a private detective, digging up those dirty deets.
If you couldn’t find your POC’s email address on their site’s “Team”/“About” pages there may still be some information there that you can use…
You can simply search their name on Twitter, too, of course.
Moreover, your contact may have their personal blog or website listed on their social media page.
You know, then, that you can contact them directly through their personal site.
And if you still can’t find what you’re looking for, make a connection via social media.
Once you’ve slid into those DM’s you can ask for their email address, citing a quick (and appealing) reason why.
For example,
Hey, “Jane.” I thought your blog post on “Vegan Typewriters” was awesome and I’d love to drop you an email so we can chat more...
Note the personalization.
And a little flattery never hurt anybody…
Overall, social media is a great, easy way to find more information about a POC.
You’re not the first sleuth out there trying to find a prospective contact’s email address.
Therefore, there are many services and tools you can use to find email addresses.
Let’s take a look at popular tool Voila Norbert.
Your first 50 searches are free.
Norbert finds their email address for you and provides a percentage score as to how certain they are that this email is correct.
There are a number of similar tools on the market, such as:
Enter a domain name to find a list of email addresses for the company.
And you get 100 free searches per month.
Add the app to Outlook or Gmail.
You can look up a contact directly from your email dashboard.
You also get 100 free searches per month.
If you want to find a contact’s email address with a level of certainty then use an email finding service.
In any kind of email marketing, you need to appear authentic and genuine.
Naturally, you want to avoid looking spammy at all costs.
If your email is honest and genuine, there’s no reason for the recipient not to guide you in the right direction.
It’s a good idea to add a note at the end of your cold email that says:
Are you the right person to talk to about this? If not, I would really appreciate it if you could put me on the right track.
If in doubt, just be honest and ask if you have the right contact.
You’ve heard of six degrees of separation right?
A while ago, Microsoft tested billions of electronic messages and found that we are all indeed 6.6 degrees of separation away from one another.
The cool thing is, you’re probably closer to prospective contacts in your industry than that.
When you hope to reach out to the desired contact, look to see if you have any existing connections that can bring you two together.
It may take some time searching through email and social media lists.
But, it will be well worth it.
Because when you do reach out to that POC, you already have a personal connection.
Which makes them tons more likely to respond to your email.
Finding the right person of contact’s email address increases the likelihood of a response.
Thankfully, there are more than a few ways of doing this nowadays.
The first step is to check out a website’s information pages to find the right prospect.
From there, utilize an email finding service, social media, and your own ingenuity to dig a little deeper and find an email address you are confident reaching out to.
