What's New: Is cold outreach obsolete in 2022?

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Original Article: What's New: Is cold outreach obsolete in 2022? Convert your long form article to podcast? Visit SendToPod Follow me on Twitter to find out more. ---- (from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter) How many indie hackers have done cold outreach? Many people see cold outreach as being spammy at best, obsolete at worst. Can a business be successful without it, though? Founders weigh in below! The average website conversion rate is 2-3%. If your rate is below average, you're losing sales. Dru Riley explains how to optimize your website to boost the percentage of people who convert. Founder Etiene Dalcol hit 20,000 downloads with Polygloss, her language learning app, without spending a dime on ads. Here's what's been working so far, and what she plans to implement going forward. Want to share something with over 100,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing by Sam Hartmann How many indie hackers do cold outreach? There are so many ways to do it, including: Twitter DMs. Email. Phone calls. Knocking on doors. Talking to strangers. Can any business be successful without cold outreach? Interested in hearing from other founders on this! Be clear on who you're serving RJ Youngling believes that cold outreach absolutely works, but you have to be clear on your ideal customer: When people say that cold outreach doesn't work, it's usually coming from engineers who look at marketing with disdain, then wonder why it doesn't work. The single most important thing with cold outreach is something that everyone skips: Your positioning! If you're sending emails out willy-nilly, don't be surprised at a lack of results. You won't sell your amazing beef burgers at a vegan conference! What very specific problem do you solve for which very specific audience? After determining that, you need to make sure that your solution comes at a price point that's either lower than the value gained, or lower than the cost of leaving the problem unsolved. Once you have those elements, the next step is to simply start talking to your target segment in your target market. Make your messaging clear and attractive. Here's more on nailing your positioning. Of course, cold outreach isn't going to work for everyone; that's just how marketing goes. Tactics are simply tools! Some tactics will work for some founders and not others. That being said, I suspect that a good majority of people who say that cold outreach doesn't work can make it work by implementing the elements above, in order. Cold outreach...in 2022? Ash Rahman thinks that cold outreach is obsolete: For indie hackers, cold outreach should be a last resort. Why? This is 2022! Nobody wants to talk to a salesperson. People like to discover things themselves, and purchase when they think it makes sense for them. Cold outreach is not scalable, and also consider the mental toll it takes to see all of the rejections. Angry prospects threatening litigation doesn't sound fun to me! I also believe that cold outreach has become too saturated to be a viable marketing tool anymore. I think that founders should only consider cold outreach when everything else has been exhausted. Go out into the wild and network with people in a meaningful way. Help your target users discover you organically. They should feel like they found you, not the other way around, and you certainly don't want them feeling like you've tricked them just to sell your product or service. Keep in mind that it's different if you have a dedicated sales team. Getting a "no" is part of the job for a sales team, but for a founder, it can ruin productive hours and motivation. Founders need to be creative with their time. Slam dunk Many founders swear by cold outreach! Onur Genes says that it has been one of keys to success for his business: I have sent more than 50K emails so far, and I've been able to close a lot of deals that way. I know that many indie hackers may see cold outreach as be...