How to generate B2B leads

Implement a B2B acquisition strategy through Cold Outreach

Chapitre 1: Generate a prospect list 05

Chapitre 2: Find contact infos 07

Chapitre 3: Clean your contact list 09

Chapitre 4: Write emails that convert 11

Chapitre 5: Writing follow-up messages 16

Chapitre 6: Automate sending 18

Chapitre 7: Warm up the email address 19

Conclusion 20

Tools mentioned 21
Introduction

OUTBOUND PROSPECTING

There are lots of ways to generate a constant flow of new customers. Among these,

outbound often gets a bad reputation. Our prospects are bombarded with messages

every day... do we really want to contribute to this?

Yet outbound has many advantages over other acquisition methods. Unlike digital

ads, it does not require a large budget. Unlike inbound strategies, the

implementation and results of the strategies are relatively quick. Lastly, you don't

need to have a large network like with word of mouth.

If I tell you that you can implement an outbound strategy, without spamming your

prospects and that converts well, will you take my word for it?

WHY ONLY A FEW PEOPLE MANAGE TO MAKE OUTBOUND WORK?

Think for a second about the messages flooding your inbox. Most of the time they are

impersonal, irrelevant, badly written and far too long. You get messages that are not

relevant to you, not addressed to you, full of spelling mistakes and longer than the

last chapter of the book you are currently reading.

You don't want to read these messages? Me neither.

Now imagine being addressed personally, with a solution relevant to your challenges

in just a few lines?

Would you be more willing to read the message? I guess so. Even when you don't feel

like it, the fact that the message is so concise almost forces you to read the content

once you open it. Chances are that this is more effective than 99% of the messages

that creep into our mailboxes.

The challenge is, therefore: how do we identify prospects interested in our solution

and pitch it to them effectively in 5 lines or less?

THE ESSENTIALS

A good cold mailing campaign includes several essential factors:

The definition of a target audience to create a list of prospects receptive to our

solution.

Manual personalisation of messages so that each person feels individually

addressed.

Short but punchy copywriting that highlights our value proposition.

A case study to reinforce our pitch.

An automation solution that will allow us to schedule our follow-ups and

contact our prospects at scale.

Generate a prospect list

LET'S START FROM THE BEGINNING

Every cold email campaign starts with the creation of a list of prospects. To create

this list, there are several tools available depending on our targets. The easiest way

to build a list is with Apollo.io. You can use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find just

about any type of lead... and combine the platform with an email finder.

LINKEDIN SALES NAVIGATOR

Let's take the example of LinkedIn's Sales Navigator to understand how to build an

audience. Let's say you want to get in touch with e-commerces in the fashion industry.

The LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows you to fill in the following criteria:

Geography (e.g: United States), Industry (e.g: Fashion), Seniority (e.g: Owner)
CHAPITRE 1

Generate a prospect list

You can play with filtering criteria to build the audience you want. Once it's done, we

will extract your audience from Sales Navigator using Phantombuster.

I refer you to the following article to see, in detail, how to extract the relevant data

from your prospects into an Excel file.

Find contact information

There are several ways to find the contact information of our prospects. These

depend directly on the data we have collected beforehand.

Collection of information through LinkedIn

If you generated your list using LinkedIn's Sales Navigator, you should have collected

your prospect's first and last name and company name. Most email identification

solutions will allow you to find contact information using this data.

You can see on Anymailfinder that the full name and company name are required to

process your lead file.

Find contact information

For more details on how to use Anymailfinder, I invite you to read the following article

which explains in detail how to find the contact information of your prospects.

Collecting data from other sources

DOMAIN + TITLE

In other cases, you might only have the domain names of your target companies

available. With the help of tools such as Snov or Anymail, you will be able to identify

the contact information of your prospects by mentioning the domain name and title

only.

In short, you enter a list of domains and indicate in the tool that you are looking for

the contact information of the CEOs of the companies that own these domains.

Click here to see how it works in detail.

Clean your contact list

Whichever method you use to identify contact information, you should end up with

an Excel file containing, at the very least, the full names & business email addresses

of your prospects.

Making sure emails land in the inbox

identified email addresses. Despite the reliability of email identification tools, some

email addresses may not work.

EmailListVerify or Neverbounce

It is therefore recommended to process the email addresses found in a tool such as

Debounce or EmailListVerify which will check the deliverability of these addresses.

Clean your contact list

You may be tempted to skip the email verification step. Yet it is a critical step in the

proper execution of your lead generation system.

If you continually send emails to addresses that do not exist (i.e. that "bounce"), the

deliverability of your domain will be negatively impacted. Eventually, your emails will

systematically fall into the "Junk" folder of your recipients, rendering your

prospecting efforts useless.

Write emails that convert

PREPARE TO SEND

Here we come to the "abstract" part of the prospecting system. If the rules are strict

when it comes to building a list of contacts, the composition of the prospecting

messages can leave more room for imagination.

You will have to adapt the message according to the targeted sector, the service or

product you sell, and your price range... At ColdIQ, we work mainly with businesses

that sell B2B products and/or services priced between 2,000 and 10,000€. To

describe what constitutes a successful mailing sequence, we will assume that you

are selling a product or service at a similar price range.

Note that if your price ranges are higher, it is essential to allocate more effort to the

qualification and personalization of your prospects. On the other hand, for lower

price ranges, it can be worthwhile to reduce the personalization to focus on a higher

volume of people contacted.

Good practices
As we said in the introduction of this e-book, nobody likes to receive sales messages.

Even less when they are impersonal, long, poorly written and not very relevant.

To ensure that as many people as possible read our messages, we will therefore pitch

our offer in a concise manner, making sure to include the following elements:
CHAPITRE 4

Write emails that convert

A PERSONALIZED ICEBREAKER

How many commercial emails do you receive daily in your mailbox? How many of

them are addressed to you personally? When the emails we receive could have been

sent to anyone, we certainly do not want to answer them. On the other hand, when

these emails address us, we are much more tempted.

This is where the personalized icebreaker comes in handy. It allows us to create an

intimate rapport with the recipient without having to change the rest of the pitch.

We'll simply place this opening line at the beginning of our message to make them

want to read the rest.

How to write a good icebreaker?

Go to your target's LinkedIn profile or to their website. The goal is to mention a detail

that proves that you have researched them manually and individually.

You can, for example, mention an article written by your prospect or the latest

product launched on their e-commerce. There must be no doubt... this sentence

cannot have been addressed to someone else.

FOR EXAMPLE, for an online store that sells shoes, a catchphrase could look like

this: Love the design of your latest "Cellular White Care" model, the shoelaces layout is so

unique... I've never seen that before.

Even better you can send personalized icebreakers at scale by using AI

copywriting tools such as Smartwriter or Lavender.

Write emails that convert

A ONE-SENTENCE CASE STUDY

The goal is to convince our prospect that it is in his interest to read us. The best way

to convince our prospect of the quality of our service is to mention the results we

have obtained in the past. Even better if they were for companies similar to theirs

(hence the importance of a precise audience delimitation).

FOR EXAMPLE, if you offer Facebook Ads to e-commerces and have successfully

accompanied a shoe brand, you can contact other online stores and tell them:

We generated 16,000€ in sales by spending 3,500€ on Facebook Ads for Sportshowroom, a

brand that sells similar sneakers to yours.

If you have achieved good results for your previous clients, mentioning them will

always be a strong selling point.

A CALL-TO-ACTION

We need to lead our prospect to the next step. Make the sales process as simple as

possible. Despite a good sales message, you will still not have sold your product or

service yet. The purpose of the call-to-action (CTA) is to invite your recipient to

discuss with you by setting an appointment or a short call.

Write emails that convert

We want our inquiry to be as frictionless as possible. The goal is not to sell our

service but to start a conversation. Some offer a free audit, and some others ask for a

short call.

Here is an example of what your CTA could look like:

I have a few ideas to share with you. Do you have 5-10 minutes for a short call this week?

The goal is to make the benefit/risk balance attractive to our prospect. At worst, he

loses 10 minutes. At best, he gets a lot of advice that he can apply at the end of the

call. This is also why many service providers offer audits: they don't ask for any

commitment from the prospect but offer them a strategic plan.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Your prospecting template could look like this:

Hello {First Name},

Love the design of {mention last model/product}, the {product feature} are very original.

I'm {your name} and I {short description of your service}. I have helped {similar brand}

increase their revenue by {your method}. I would like to do the same for you.

I have some ideas to share with you. Would you have 5 minutes for a call this week?
CHAPITRE 4

Write emails that convert

To give you an example, here is an email I used in the past for a client who offers

Facebook Ads (I changed the name of the brand and the prospect)

EXAMPLE
Hello Armand,

Love the design of your latest "Cellular White Care" model, the shoelaces layout is so unique...

I've never seen that before.

I'm Michel. I have lived and breathed Facebook Ads every day since 2014. I generated 16,000€ in

sales by spending 3,500€ on Facebook Ads for Sportshowroom, a brand that sells similar

sneakers to yours.

I have some ideas to share with you. Do you have 5 minutes for a call this week?

Michel

CEO at ColdIQ

A bit more efficient than the spam that fills your inbox, isn't it?
CHAPITRE 5

Writing follow-up messages

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE 1ST MESSAGE?

Many prospects won't respond to your first approach. You can write the perfect email,

but you will inevitably come across prospects who are not interested in your

solution, who don't have time, who have not opened/seen/read your message or who

have more important things to do at that moment.

After all, you are looking to connect with successful people. These people are usually

busy. Keep in mind that a lack of response does not necessarily mean a lack of

interest in your services. Again, there are many potential reasons why you did not get

a response. To give you an example, at ColdIQ, we book more appointments on the

3rd follow-up than on the first message. It pays to push a little bit.

Writing great follow-ups

The follow-ups purpose is to address our prospects reasons for not responding. There

are several cases in which your prospects will not respond. The goal is to make sure

that the only reason for not getting a response is a lack of interest in our services.
CHAPITRE 5

Writing follow-up messages

THEY HAVEN'T REPLIED BECAUSE...

THEY HAVEN'T SEEN OUR FIRST MESSAGE

Many prospects will not respond for the mere reason that they have not seen or read

the message. Our first reminder is to make sure that they know about our offer. A

quick reminder is good enough:

{First name}, have you seen my first message? I was saying that (...).

THEY AREN'T READY FOR OUR SOLUTION JUST YET

You will come across prospects who are looking to implement such a solution but

are still evaluating their options and/or thinking about it. You should send them

material that will guide them in their choice:

{First name}, I wrote an e-book that explains how to do XYZ, would you like to receive it?

You shouldn't be afraid to explain your methods to your prospects. Many times we

are afraid that they will end up applying the explained methods by themselves. Most

of the time they will realize that they need an expert.

THEY AREN'T THE DECISION-MAKER (ON THE MATTER)

You may simply be talking to the wrong person. Ask them who's the appropriate

person to talk to.

{First Name}, could you direct me to the person in charge of marketing at XYZ if that's not

you?
CHAPITRE 6

Automate sending

SAVE TIME: AUTOMATE

Ideally, we want to set up an emailing campaign comprising 4 to 6 emails. Below this

number, we might miss out on some opportunities. Above, we might start pissing off

too many people.

To send such a campaign, we need to be able to send messages in a timely manner

and to send follow-ups separated by a few days each time.

We will need an automation tool.

TOOLS TO USE

There are several automation solutions that allow us to configure the sending and

the follow-ups, to A/B test our messages & objects and analyze our opening and

response rates.

Among these solutions: Apollo, Expandi & Woodpecker.

Note that Expandi also allows you to automate your LinkedIn Outreach.

These email senders allow you to automate and schedule all your messages and your

follow-ups and to apply conditions according to the actions taken. You can, for

example, decide to stop the sending sequence when prospects click on a link, or you

can decide to show a different message.

They are quite simple to use. I invite you to visit their websites. Note that Apollo,

Expandi & Woodpecker offer a free trial period.

Warm up the email address

ARE WE READY TO SEND?

There is one last thing to do.

Because of the amount of spam sent every day to our mailboxes, emailing platforms

have developed detection algorithms.

-> The goal: filter out messages that are not relevant.

-> The consequence: your prospecting messages could be judged as irrelevant.

The question is: how to show emailing platforms that OUR messages are

trustworthy?

EMAIL WARMERS

The solution: email warmers. These tools will simulate interactions between your

mailboxes and other mailboxes. Each time your emails fall into spam, they will be

removed from the folder and placed in the main inbox. These actions will contribute

to improving the deliverability of your messages.

The difference is that instead of having opening rates of around 50% for your

campaigns, you will reach 80-90%.

WHICH TOOL SHOULD I USE?

You can use the email warmer from Mailreach or Warmbox. Mailreach is the best, but

Warmbox is very efficient as well!

You now have all the tools in hand to successfully conduct your email prospecting

campaigns.

WRITE TO ME

If you have any questions about the process, you can email me at

"michel@coldiq.com"

LET ME HELP YOU

If you want me to look at and optimize your prospecting system, let

me know by email (michel@coldiq.com) or via the contact form of

my site: https://www.coldiq.com/contact

LEAVE IT TO US

If you want me to take care of your prospecting campaigns, send me

an email or use the form on the site. I will gladly talk with you.
Go further

The guide should have given you a good base to start your cold outreach campaigns.

If you want to become a cold outreach pro, you need to learn from the best. The below

course is my favourite and no doubt a great investment:

Cold Email Mastery - @blackhatwizardd

The gold standard of cold email courses. This is how I started getting

GREAT results with cold outreach. Get it here:

https://gumroad.com/a/818156659

COMING SOON - Michel Lieben (@MichLieben)

Learn to automate your entire sale process. I'm shooting a video

where I show you step-by-step how I run my own lead generation

campaigns. You'll just have to copy and paste. Make sure to connect

on LinkedIn & on Twitter to get notified.

Make sure to regularly check the roadmap including all the best resources on cold

outreach. This will continuously be updated with the latest techniques, good

practices, and tools...

Everything you need for outbound sales is here: https://www.coldiq.com/

LINKEDIN SALES NAVIGATOR

Define a target audience

PHANTOMBUSTER

Automate data extraction

APOLLO

Find prospects' emails & phone numbers.

SNOV

Find target emails using a domain name.

DEBOUNCE

Check email deliverability.

WOODPECKER

Automate sending.

EXPANDI

Automate Email & LinkedIn sending.

MAILREACH

Warm up your inbox.

For a detailed list of cold outreach tools, click here: