Charming cold outreach that gets results

About this talk

I used to run a digital marketing agency called Render Positive with my brother Gary, About a year in, all of our word of mouth leads dried up. We had just lost a few clients, and we had payroll to meet. I realised at this point that although I knew how to pitch and assist in closing deals, I had no idea how to generate leads.

At previous agencies I'd worked at, the business development folks did that. I always went along to pitches as the nerdy SEO / Social Media consultant. I was desperate for sales and I dealt with that feeling the only way I knew how to at the time.

I got hellishly drunk one night and wrote a completely absurd cold email. I was still tipsy the next morning and decided it was still a good idea to send it to pretty senior Marketing Directors at big brands.

I’ve used this same style to get senior editors at large publications to respond to me and publish my clients' content (with juicy links). I’ve used it to help my friends get as many job interviews as they want, and to meet people I really look up to.

In this talk, I will provide a line-by-line analysis of my original drunk cold email, explaining the joke formulas and persuasive devices at work. I'll also reveal the email I used to get our client, Symantec, featured on the front page of VentureBeat. I'll provide joke formulas that anyone can use to make their cold outreach copy more charming, entertaining, memorable, and effective.