How to Get Global Leads/Clients: Checklist for Cold Outreach

This guide offers unique strategies and insights to navigate uncharted territories, uncover hidden gems of potential, and ultimately secure the global leads and clients that will shape the destiny of your enterprise.

This is, by no means, an over-glorification of cold outreach. In fact, it is an easy, quick, and cost-effective way to generate leads. While it is important to have a social media presence, do not turn a blind eye to the dark horse: emailers and other methods of cold outreach. Here is a step-wise guide-cum-checklist of how to approach cold outreach– and master it.

Step 1: Preparing for Cold Outreach to Generate Leads

Clearly defining your target audience is a non-negotiable part of your preparation. Start defining your ideal client demographic: their age, industry, location, profession, and more. The more specific you are, the higher your chances are of delivering a campaign that feels tailor-made and exclusive. 

It is vital to know what your target audience prefers, but even more crucial is to know what they don’t like. What could their pain points be that are not getting addressed elsewhere? Look at competitors and try to figure out what they are doing wrong. Can you present them with a better solution and show how you would do things differently? 

Effective preparation for cold outreach also involves research and data collection. Sources such as LinkedIn can be a great way to look for potential clients, especially if you know how to use it. Use filters like industry, job title, and company to narrow down your search. 

Based on the data you have collected, you can now craft your messaging according to your audience’s liking. These messages can come from anywhere–be it cold emails or social media. 

According to studies, 78% of customers are aware that their data is used to make their online experience better, so appreciate and expect you to personalise your communication. Despite these numbers, a separate study suggests that only 30% of marketers use this strategy. Why not fill the gap yourself?

Step 2: Building an effective outreach strategy

Once you’ve decided what your message will be, start thinking about the medium. Every social media platform has its tone, and your message should reflect that. LinkedIn and email are formal, but any other platform leaves a little wiggle room to be casual. If you can add a tinge of wit to your emails, you might have some leeway to sound casual and approachable at the same time.

Avoid the generic. Using readymade text templates might be tempting because of their ease, but has anyone ever achieved exponential results by taking the easy way out? You can still use Canva, ChatGPT, and Bing AI to help create a skeleton of your messaging, but make sure you personalise at some level. 

Marketing legend Seth Godin while speaking about personalisation said that it is “a chance to differentiate at a human scale.” Let your employees know that in this age of AI and generative text, you still stand apart. 

With emails, personalised subject lines also create more impact than expected. 

Your emails have a 50% higher chance of being opened and received well if you have a better, personal subject line compared to a generic one. Again, only 2% of emails carry such subject lines.

Hiring a customer service team dedicated to scripting cold calls, and drafting cold emails will give your communication a personal touch. Furthermore, there are real-life testaments to this too: famous podcaster Jake Borgovan landed Fortune 500 clients using cold emails, and freelancer Laura Lopuch grew her business 14x through the same strategy. There’s no doubt: this area is brimming with opportunity. 

Step 3: Executing Cold Outreach

If you are unsure which targeted outreach approach works best for you, and you are in a position where you have to choose between formal and informal, personalised and professional, or long format and short format, you can use the A/B testing method. Also known as the split method, this technique involves splitting your target audience and using two opposite strategies to communicate with them over some time. 

Depending on which group is more receptive and engaging, you can pick a strategy accordingly. 

Another method is the quality and quantity approach. The quality approach suggests picking a smaller audience pool and aggressively directing your messaging towards them. The quantity approach is the exact opposite and suggests that the more people you reach out to, the more you are likely to get a response. 

No matter what your approach is, the CTA or call to action is what ties the email together. Ensure that you spend enough time on this one-liner because it is what will give your audience the extra nudge to click that link, respond, or sign up with you.

Finally, it is not the end of the world if you don’t get enough responses even though you’ve sent hundreds of emails and messages. This is where follow-ups come in. A thoughtfully drafted follow-up message including a reference to the previous email, reiterating your value proposition, and adding some additional benefits that your product will render for them can increase your email response rate by 7%.

Step 4: Building Relationships and Gaining Trust for Generating Leads 

You can only expect to build a relationship with your audience if you give them relevant information. Craft your communication depending on the industry of your audience. 

Are you reaching out to global leads working in software? Then quote studies in the field of software. If you are reaching out to management-level employees, include something about how your product will help make their operations more efficient. 

The headline is this: Give industry-specific information and insights that your targeted outreach group will remember you by.

Trust is another crucial factor. Ensure you reach out to your audience not just for promotion, but also for feedback. In consecutive emails, inform them how you have incorporated their feedback to make the customer experience better. American Writer Zig Ziglar accurately describes the importance of your customers’ trust and says, “If people like you, they’ll listen to you. But if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

Step 5: Tracking and Measuring Outreach Success

Hubspot’s study about CRMs revealed that an organisation’s sales can be increased by 30% and increase a sales team’s productivity by 34% by using a CRM. 

Zendesk, Salesforce, LeadSquared, and Zoho are some of the best customer relationship management (CRM) tools available in the market. Apart from getting a detailed record of your conversations and follow-ups, they also help with lead management, customer segmentation, email templates, sales forecasts, content management, and lead generation, among other things. 

CRM software helps you organise your business communication needs and analytics under one coherent platform. Using this information, you can monitor the effectiveness of strategies and make swift tweaks for better results. 

Conclusion

Global lead generation strategies and client outreach might seem like daunting processes, but with the right planning, strategy building and execution, any operation can nail it, no matter how big or small. Keeping your customers in mind is crucial; you must strive to improve their experience daily. 

Stay in touch with them as much as possible and always give them something new to learn and experience. Persistence and patience are the two Ps you should swear by. Add in a dash of updating your product through feedback and reviews, and you’re in the sweet spot with customer loyalty!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. How to generate leads or what is the way to do lead generation?

Ans: Employing effective lead-generation strategies is crucial. Utilize digital marketing methods, such as content marketing and SEO, to attract and engage your target audience. Implement lead magnets, like eBooks or webinars, to capture potential leads' information, and optimize your website for lead generation.

Q2. how can you improve sales lead generation?

Ans: Enhance your sales lead generation by refining your understanding of your target audience. Tailor your marketing for leads, employ data-driven strategies, and leverage social media for outreach. Regularly assess and adjust your lead generation techniques to align with market trends and customer preferences.

Q3. How to generate international leads from India?

Ans: To generate international leads from India, focus on digital marketing with a global reach. Optimise your online presence, use social media platforms, and employ targeted advertising. Consider partnerships, attend international trade events, and showcase your business on global platforms to expand your reach and attract diverse leads.