Finding new clients and maintaining a stable income are two of the biggest challenges faced by remote workers. Contacting potential employers outside of your referral network often takes more time and energy than doing the actual work.

At some point, you’ll have to turn to cold emailing to add to your list of prospects. This is harder than most forms of communication because you have no existing relationship with your audience and lack verbal feedback. Failure and rejection is to be expected for these very reasons.

Added to that, the general rule is that the more you pitch, the more chances you’ll get hired. Sending hundreds of messages is a given, although overwhelming. You may find yourself alternating from desperation to insecurity to discouragement the whole time.

It can be an effective way to generate leads though—that is, if you’re strategic about how you pursue your prospects. To spend less time chasing after jobs and more time doing the work you love, consider the following tips.

Gaining More Clients Through Cold Emails

Tailor the perfect copy

Do your homework on how to market yourself to decision-makers. To craft messages that capture their attention and promote action, you must first learn their common pain points and needs.

What people often do is make a generic mention about a prospect’s previous work before launching into a request to enter a professional relationship. Not only is this tone-deaf but also unremarkable. The recipient has likely received dozens of these so will hardly notice a similar one.

Best practices for creating custom copy

• Conduct A/B testing through the use of templates.
• Study unconventional approaches of appealing to strangers.
• Find out common mistakes and how to avoid them.
• Read up basic psychological principles of effective conversation.
• Know how to write like a human rather than a robot.
• Understand the recipient to make the content more personal.
• Write subject lines that compel people to open your messages.
• Be clear why you’re contacting them over others.
• Ensure your request won’t be fulfilled any other way.
• Proofread everything before sending.

Promote the benefits they gain

Think about why they’d care about your email or why they’d take the time to respond to it. By clearly defining the value of your proposal, you’ll be able to keep their attention.

Don’t just quote statistics or accolades but show you’re credible and trustworthy. Remember that you’re a stranger in their eyes. Hence, they don’t know or care about you so you have to explain why you should matter to them in particular.

Best practices for benefit-driven emails

• Better your spelling, grammar and overall writing skills.
• Go from we-focused to you-focused messaging.
• Choose your words when talking about the benefits.
• Focus on the needs of the potential employer.
• Present yourself in the context of their niche.
• Mention any direct connections as social proof.
• Find a commonality like unusual hobbies or places visited.
• Provide relief or solutions for any major pain points.
• Offer to introduce them to someone they’d like to meet.
• Avoid random gifts that feel awkward or weird.

Make it short yet sweet

Entrepreneurs and managers receive hundreds of emails daily. If you were able to catch their attention with a catchy subject line, see to it you won’t scare them away with a really long message body.

Short copies are more likely to be read than long ones. Recipients don’t want to waste time absorbing every detail of a 500-word unsolicited message. Get to the point, make your request clear and specific, then send it off. Discuss the details in a follow-up or demo instead.

Best practices for stimulating yet concise copy

• Keep it below 10 sentences long, if not 5.
• Consider using other forms of media e.g. videos.
• Minimize the effort required to fulfill your request.
• Write the way you’d talk as if meeting in person.
• Read it out loud to check if it sounds natural.
• Inform them when you’re available for a call.
• Limit their options for replying to you.

Follow up over and again

Too many people give up too soon when contacting prospects. Continue to push while making sure that you aren’t being overly annoying.

If they don’t respond to your first message, send another after a few days. It may take up to 7 follow-ups before you get a reply but you can be sure that it’ll be worth it. Multiple follow-ups is key to boosting response rates so don’t give up easily.

Best practices for follow-up emails

• Make them as personal or tailored as your first.
• Keep it to a maximum of 8 follow-ups.
• Send breakup emails before abandoning prospects.
• Establish a system of following up for monitoring.
• Nurture relationships you’ve already invested in.

Automate the process where you can

Again, it’s a given that you’ll have to send hundreds of messages a day to get more responses. It’s hard to manage this as a self-employed virtual professional though.

The good news is that it’s possible to increase the number of emails you send without exerting additional effort. Doing so means you’ll be able to spend time responding to leads, personalizing your copy, and A/B testing your emails.

Best practices for cold email automation

• Schedule automatic reminders for sending follow-ups.
• Avoid templates from email marketing platforms.
• Research Chrome extensions for importing information.
• Use tools for finding contact information.
• Categorise the prospects you’re reaching out to.

Having a Hard Time Finding Prospects?

There’s no point in any of the above when you’re contacting the wrong people. Even the most compelling copy end up ignored if they’re sent to people who don’t need what you’re offering or don’t have a say in hiring remote workers.

Find the best prospects for your cold emailing efforts to get quality results. However, even this takes up a lot of your time, energy and resources.

Make it simpler to find your next client by working with us here at Remote Workmate. We’re connected to employers who are searching for online professionals just like you. You can even skip cold pitching altogether if you find work through us.