What do you value your time at? (Sidenote: I recommend using this calculator if you haven't already)

My time is personally around $55 an hour. If it takes me a bit more than an hour to write and maintain a Boomerang-equivalent, then it's probably cheaper to pay someone for it.

Disclaimer: I don't use Boomerang, but I do use YesWare, which is a much more full-featured version for salespeople, and is essential in my daily workflow.

I think cold emailing to your niche is going to be your strongest avenue, especially as a part timer. Keep your website/web presence up to date with your latest work, and with each project try to stretch yourself a bit so you can expand into other verticals.

Other quick wins:

• I also always recommend raising your prices, makes you look more legit. You need examples though.
• Your close rate on cold emails is really low. You should send around 5-7 emails before giving up on a cold lead, and hopefully you can get closer to 1-5% (10-50 clients from 1000 contacts) depending on who you are going after, price point and relevancy to what they need. Template ideas: http://www.yesware.com/blog/cold-email/

Reading their blog, it sounds like this is exactly what I'm talking about. An embedded pixel or link that any self-respecting email server/client either deleted the email, or moves it to junk with no images allowed to load.

http://www.yesware.com/blog/2012/07/18/how-does-yesware-tracking-work/

If you read this, they basically outline just how many gaps there is in this method anyway. You can't tell who read it if there is multiple recipients. You can't tell who put it in SPAM, or never allowed images to load, or DID allow the tracking code to load but then promptly deleted it. Again, a read-receipt is asking enough.

Really, this is just false marketing anyway. In my personal opinion, it leads to false leads, bumbling about "hot" emails that could have a million reasons for being "hot", and ultimately can lead to your domain name being blacklisted, which negates ALL progress you've made. Try getting off SORBS when you've been shown to be an unsolicited spammer.

Now, that being said, it's also truly false marketing because if you're big enough to need this, then you should have your own domain name, email server/host and web server/host. On the web server, you serve up the content and use SQL or some "Commercial Off The Shelf" tracking software to parse logs, etc and do your reporting.

This is like paying Yellow Pages for their cookie cutter websites and re-sold Google advertising credits.

If you do this:

1. Use An Anonymous Gmail Account
2. Sign up for yesware (free) (a gmail plugin) and you will be able to track exactly who opens it.

(Full disclosure - I signed up, and liked it so much I bought the paid version)

You are welcome to add this info to OP

The first method I mention below (pre Seth Godin) has been successful for me:

• Find out who is most likely to make a decision about this partnership
• Find their email with voilanorbert or hunter.io

• Email them with using one of these methods: http://www.yesware.com/blog/cold-email/

• If this doesn't work you can use Seth Godins approach:

• Find the 3 most likely people to do something about your partnership

• Hand write 3 letters to (one to each person), referencing in the letter that the a copy has been sent to the other 2 people (highlight the other 2 names)

• Put the letters in separate envelopes with only their names on the front

• Call the corporate office, and find out the name of the person in the mailroom

• Put the letters in a manila envelope, and send it addressed to the person in the mailroom with a note to distribute the contents

• The 3 people you reach out to will be guaranteed to get the letters and will see the names of the other two people you sent it to

• These 3 people will contact each other to see who's going to handle your request

• You should hear back from the person assigned to handle the task

I had read this very long case study on how a copywriter was able to do it. I wish I could find the article but I never bookmarked it.

However, there has been tons written on the subject. Here's a thread from Quora that can help

And another article. It's very dense

There's alot to be said about this topic but in a nutshell what works for me; personalize it, be informal and casual, be concise, and speak like an actual human being.

Hope that helps

There's a great article on this from Yesware here here!

ps - I'm a sales and email geek. Founder of sellhack Holler back with specific questions. There are a lot of different methods to use for finding contact info.

YesWare does a lot of things. But the feature I'm finding most useful (and it's included in the free version) allows you to select from a number of scripted responses, so you don't have to keep typing the same e-mails over and over. Just select a response. Gmail has a feature that does this but it doesn't work as good.

http://www.yesware.com/product-tour/custom-templates

Here's ours:

Hi {{first_name}}

Congratulations on your recent round of funding from {{venture capital group}}! That’s no small feat. With this new funding, what projects are you looking to take on now? The world is your oyster!

We recently ran across a 50,000 person and 20 country survey called the Globality Study (insert link) which tracked millennial mentalities and it validated our hunch that the next generation of top coders don’t want to be locked in to corporate culture. Instead, they want to work on projects they are passionate about and value the freedom to work whenever and wherever they like. With my company, 10x Management, we are helping drive innovation by aligning the incentives of top performers and companies, making it easier than ever to drive innovation and build great technology. If you’re interested in learning more, check out The New Yorker’s article (insert link) featuring 10x.

If there is any way we can help you with your company’s critical projects and technical needs, I am happy to connect 1 on 1 and advise you on the ways we or our folks in our network can help you thrive.

We look forward to hearing from you.

To greater success,

ALWAYS PROVIDE VALUE. NOBODY CARES ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING, unless you provide significant value and address their primary concerns.

Also, read 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'

EDIT: check Yesware's article here: http://www.yesware.com/blog/2014/03/14/emails-that-get-replies/

Sign up for yesware (free) (a gmail plugin) and you will be able to track exactly who opens it.

(Full disclosure - I signed up, and liked it so much I bought the paid version)

Yesware is a good tool for this http://www.yesware.com/ It's got a really nice interface and gives a lot of info on delivery. Although a lot of our team have moved to pitchbox recently; seems to have a lot more functionality for outreach in particular

http://www.yesware.com/blog/cold-calling-strategies/

1 and #2 on this list work for me. Within thirty seconds or so, I can pretty much do anything.

If you are looking to become extra chatty, caffeine works wonders.

I have found that the Yesware blog is pretty consistently good (although when I used Yesware in a past role the software itself was hit and miss). This is a pretty good place to start but I'd have a look through the archive: http://www.yesware.com/blog/cold-email/

I actually think it's best to get internal help with an initial email if you're relatively new and the email is totally cold (that's what I did in my current role). And I'm sure some of the vets in /r/sales would tell you it should always be a call first so you've got something to talk about in your email but I think that depends on your job and who you're reaching out to.

People on the receiving end will always complain any unsolicited mail is spam. But truth is, they work at getting you in front of high value customers who may never find you on their own.

2 major parts to using it as a force for good:

• Set very strict search criteria so you only target highly relevant people (ones your product and service can help right away).

• Personalize each email. Not just with their names and company names. But explain how exactly your product helps that exact person achieve their goals (not general company ones).

  IE general company goal may be: protect my data. Specific person goal could be: save me from the nightmare of having to recover that data and everybody breathing down my neck to fix the issue.

Some good guides to reference to not sound like a mass robo emailer:

http://www.yesware.com/blog/cold-email/

http://www.artofemails.com/cold-emails

You should check out the Yesware blog (http://www.yesware.com/blog/). They are an email tracking company for salespeople and therefore have tons of metrics on how to send cold emails, which subject lines get opened, and which sending times get the best results.

It really depends on the person you're emailing and getting a sense for their workflow. Some people are slow and some people are fast. Yesware is a great gmail extension which lets you see when your emails are opened.

Personally, I like to send a followup email if I see they've opened it 3 or more times.

Yesware also offers link tracking, templates, and other analytics. The Free Tier gets you 100 tracked events per month.

• http://www.yesware.com/download?refer=ath4gbqj (referral link, get 100 extra free tracked events)
• http://www.yesware.com/ (non-referral link)