Instead of generating stable cash flow, lots of consulting firms struggle to find clients to sell their services to. That’s where cold email outreach comes in.
In this article, we’ve prepared a definitive guide that can help any firm’s target audience through cold emails. Here’s what you’ll learn:
- How to sell your consulting services
- Tips for finding the right prospects
- How to write an effective cold email pitch
How to Prepare and Sell Your Consulting Services
You can choose from several options when it comes to packaging your consulting service. This depends on the client, niche, and personal preferences.
That said, the two most popular consulting package models are the following:
Pay-Per-Lead - Services focusing on lead generation such as advertising or sales benefits from the “pay-per-lead” model.
As long as you can show clients tangible results, they’ll be more than happy to pay your consulting rates. Here’s an example of how you can package this to clients:
- $250 per lead generated from your email campaigns
- $30 per Facebook Ad lead form filled out
Retainer Model - Being on a retainer means getting a stable source of revenue for your firm. This appeals to clients as it costs less and can also be a sustainable way to grow their business. Here’s an example:
- $1,000 per month to book 15-30 meetings with warm, qualified leads
- $350 per month to deliver a list of 500 vetted cold prospects
How to Find the Right Prospects
Every consulting business needs to identify who its ideal clients are. Among the most effective ways of narrowing this down is creating certain criteria. The most common criteria are industry, size, and technology.
When narrowing down client lists, check if they’re in an industry you’re an expert in. In addition, research if their company size is something you can offer value to. Lastly, see if they’re lacking a software or tool that you’re proficient in that can help them streamline their business process.
Once you’ve had a clear image of who your clients are, creating cold email outreach campaigns becomes easier. But how exactly do you get the contact information of potential clients?
Getting Contact Details of Potential Clients
The most efficient and effective way of prospecting clients is through easy-to-use email outreach tools such as Instantly.
When prospecting for clients, it's essential to use tools that are omnichannel. This means having the ability to manage all communications in one place.
Consulting firms can also use personal email finder tools so you can send the right emails to a decision maker's inbox.
5 Tips for Writing an Effective Cold Email Pitch for your Consulting Services
Cold email outreach means reaching out to potential clients that know nothing about your services. For this reason, the sales pitch should be concise, worthy of attention, and provide value.
Here are five proven best practices in writing consulting pitches for cold email outreach:
Personalize Subject Line For Clients
The subject line is what prospects are going to see first. It should be attention-grabbing and personalized as each client has different needs. Also, personalized subject lines boost email opens by 26%.
Highlight the Value of your Service
This works best when thorough research is done on a potential client. Identify their pain points and offer services that provide solutions for them. As a rule of thumb, highlighting your value means proving your worth and not convincing clients to buy your service.
Have a Clear Call-To-Action (CTA)
A sales pitch is most effective when prospects have a clear idea of how to move forward. If the content resonates with your prospects, they’re likely to schedule a consultation.
Use The 3x3 Rule
A well-written sales email has a higher chance of getting responses. But, with an average open rate of 10%, follow-ups are needed after sending your emails to clients. To avoid spamming prospects, follow up a maximum of three times with a three-day interval after each follow-up.
Improve Cold Emails
Changes must be made if prospects still haven’t replied after following-up multiple times. Maybe the initial subject line of the email templates wasn’t attention-grabbing enough. Perhaps the emails didn’t highlight how you could provide value to a prospect’s business.
When this happens, it might be time to improve or optimize your cold emails. That’s where sales automation software comes into play. With the help of this tool, you get access to the following:
- Email finders
- Sales productivity tools
- Prospecting tools
- CRM software
- Sales engagement
- Sales calls tools
- Lead nurturing tools
- Sales intelligence tools
- Data enrichment & verification tools
- Social selling tools
Key Takeaways
Cold emails are powerful tools that could give any consulting business the exposure they need. But before investing the time and resources needed to start campaigns, here’s a list of things to keep in mind of:
- Prepare package models - Before sending out cold emails, draft a package model and personalize it to fit certain clients. The two main models are “pay-per-lead” and “retainer”.
- Use tools that help automate - There are tons of tools that automate the sales process from finding prospects to sending out emails. Use these to streamline the process to save time and money.
- Identify your target market - After identifying your audience, curate an email list of prospects. Find their pain points and offer personalized solutions for them. Different customer types also require a tailored sales pitch for it to be effective.
- Focus on emphasizing your value - Thousands of emails are sent with the intent of convincing leads to buy your services. Instead of doing this, focus on the value you provide as this is proven to convert more leads into paying clients.
- Look to improve content - It's likely for cold emails to not get responses. But if it keeps happening over and over again, there could be underlying issues in your content. Identify the possible issues and fix them before starting a new cold email campaign.
Still not sure where to start? Check out these free cold email templates!
