Warm Email Prospecting: How to Use Short and Simple Emails to Land Better Freelance Writing Clients

INTRODUCTION

This Is a Different Kind of Email Marketing

I call it warm email prospecting.

Mainly because it’s the opposite of cold calling. And it’s very different from your standard, generic email prospecting.

It’s not mass emailing. It’s not about sending newsletters or automating your prospecting.

It’s the opposite of all that.

Think of warm email prospecting as artisan prospecting. Each email is personally handcrafted and written for one person only.

When done right, a warm email positions you as a knowledgeable professional with a relevant and timely message.

It’s one of the quickest, most cost-effective ways to attract and land high-quality clients—without the unpleasantness of cold calling or the expense and time commitment of most traditional marketing tactics.

Why does this approach work so well? Namely because a strong, warm email leverages three key psychological triggers:

1. Personalization

2. Relevance

3. Brevity

These triggers increase your chances of getting a response from the prospect. And once you have a response, it becomes much easier to engage the prospect in a dialogue about your services.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to get that response.

Enjoy!

Ed Gandia

Atlanta, Ga.

Chapter 1:

Why I Started Prospecting with Email

It’s April 2000. A Friday evening. I’m 28 years old. My wife and I are having dinner with some good friends. And somewhere between the romaine salad and baked salmon, I realize I’ve made a horrible career decision.

I’d recently quit my job selling sewer pipe and fittings (which was every bit as glamorous as it sounds) and taken a new job selling professional information technology (IT) services.

Some of my friends were making a killing selling technology services and products, and I wanted in. Besides, I’d had quite enough of chasing down utility contractors with little more than a stack of business cards and a slap on the back.

Finally, I thought, "This is it. Information technology is hot. My customers will come to me."

There was only one problem: timing.

One week after I started my new job in IT sales, the tech bubble burst and the bottom fell out of the market. I barely had time to complete the HR