#186 · How to *Actually* Sell High-Ticket Retainers for Any Service
I first ensure the emails are good by running five to six thousand leads through a campaign and checking for a decent reply rate (around 3-4%). Only after confirming the emails aren’t trash do I add follow-up emails to the sequence, because adding them earlier would increase the chance of being marked as spam. I want to avoid spam as much as possible.
I start with two emails total (the initial plus one follow-up). Based on response, I add another follow-up if engagement is okay, and another after that if it continues to work. However, sending too many follow-ups risks being marked as spam, so I adjust based on how recipients react.
I start with two emails in total: one main email and one follow‑up. The reason is to put yourself in the shoes of someone reading a crappy email. Think about how many times you’ve opened a pitch email, marked it as unread, or ignored it. If the email isn’t good, a follow‑up makes the recipient far more likely to mark it as spam—about 100× more likely after the first follow‑up and a thousand times after a second. The number one thing we’re trying to avoid in cold email is being marked as spam. So, before you know your copy is good, do not add more than one additional follow‑up, spaced about 48 hours apart. Once your copy is acceptable—say a 3 % reply rate or a 0.5–1 % positive reply rate—you can add more follow‑ups. Adding them will raise your total reply rate, though the proportion of positive replies may drop, the absolute number of positive replies will still increase.
Hard to give an exact number, but as a rough rule: if you've sent about 1,000 outbound emails, waited a week, and gotten zero meetings, something's probably wrong. Your low volume slows down that read though — you don't have enough scale to make daily micro-adjustments the way people with bigger lists do. On follow-ups specifically: don't stack 5 follow-ups until you've verified your core message works — send just 1 follow-up until you're hitting something like a 2% reply rate, then add more. Right now, splitting low mailbox capacity across 6 total emails per lead (1 initial + 5 follow-ups) means your 'daily send capacity' of, say, 270 emails is really only about 45 *new* leads a day, since 5/6 of that volume is just repeat follow-ups to the same small pool.
I wouldn't use MailerLite; use Kit (kit.com) instead. Set up a sequence, keep the first email short with few links, and encourage replies by being personal. Aim for high open rates; improving from 40% to 60% can increase revenue. Follow examples like Jay Klaus's welcome email, which is straightforward and transparent.