My YouTube channel has fallen into the range that is prime for being cold-emailed. I am approaching 20,000 subscribers, which is the perfect range of large enough to be making money, but small enough not to have a team. This is what all the freelancing gurus suggest you find. Therefore, I get multiple cold emails every week.

Up to this point, I have never responded to a cold email. Not because I am not needing their services or because I won’t respond to any cold email, but because the email contains every reason that I would want to work with the sender.

Unfortunately, I know they are writing these repelling emails because someone once gave them this advice or even a template. (Yes, I have received multiple emails from different people using the same template.)

So if you are thinking of cold emailing to find customers for your service, I am all for it, but I want to share some real information to help you get responses.

Don’t Lie!

The biggest tip that I can give you as a cold emailer is don’t lie. Typically, I see 2 main types of lies in a cold email: Familiarity lies and Work lies.

Familiarity Lies

Let’s be real. My channel creates content that helps academics and graduate students complete research. There is no reason a graphic designer or video editor has been following my content for years or even subscribes to my channel. That is fine! I don’t need a video editor to find my content useful.

Yet, every cold email I get starts with “A quick question from a subscriber” or “I have been following your amazing content for so long.”. The statements are always so vague that they become meaningless. Also, adding a random video I have published doesn’t help it seem like you are a fan.

This is only made better by also spelling my name wrong or saying my channel is about something it is not. The fact is that these emailers are going for quantity over quality. As soon as I met their criteria, they put my info into their template and sent it off. This is a great way to waste your time.