At some point, your business’s organic growth will start to slow down. Word of mouth and regular blog posts won’t cut it anymore.

This is the time when you might want to consider partnering up with an agency to further drive your business’s growth.

You’ve been hearing about cold email from other businesses, but do you know exactly how to do it right? Even if you do, do you have enough time and manpower to run your own cold email marketing campaign?

Maybe you’re considering outsourcing your cold emailing to an agency, but it’s not always that simple.

There are some questions you have to ask yourself before you choose a cold email agency. Big business moves like this require much planning and contemplation, so let’s get to it. 

1. Is now the right time to partner up?

You’ve been playing around with the idea of outsourcing your email marketing campaign to an agency, but how do you know if now is really the right time?

Timing is important. Hire too soon, and you could be wasting money on a campaign that you didn’t even need yet.

You know it’s too soon if you still have no concrete idea about your target market or your buyer’s persona. An external emailing agency will not provide this data for you from the start.

Before contacting them, you must know this information because they will use that data to run your cold email campaign.

If you want the agency to do the research for you, you’ll end up spending more than you had to. And you don’t really need an email marketing agency to do that when you can do it yourself for less money.

Before you consider partnering with a marketing agency, you have to know your own market and audience first. 

2. Will you have your own cold email domain?

One of the goals of a cold email campaign is to maximize exposure for your business. To do this, you want your own domain so that the moment your recipients read your cold email, they instantly see your brand name.

Not all cold email agencies will want to use your own domain name. Some of them will insist on using their own domain. When this happens, they get the exposure for themselves, but you’re paying them to do it.

In some cases, you might find a cold email agency that can buy a cold email domain for you using your brand name, but they end up with ownership over the domain. You don’t want that.

You want the email marketing agency to use a domain name that you own. Fortunately, domains are relatively affordable nowadays, so you can buy one yourself and provide it to your email agency. 

3. What kind of leads will you be getting?

Not all leads are the same. Some leads open up conversations, while other leads already mean that appointments are booked. Email marketing agencies throw around the term “lead generation” all the time, but different agencies may mean different things.

Will the lead agency just get people to respond toy our business, or will they also communicate with the leads to book appointments?

What is the extent of the cold email agency’s communication with the leads? Will they also be sending follow-up messages, or will they pass the conversations your way as soon as they get a reply?

These are also the sub-questions you should be asking your prospective cold email agencies.

Remember, you will be shelling out your business’s money for this, so it is pretty important to be clear about all the terms of your deal upfront. 

4. Will there be a lock-in period?

Some cold email agencies will want a lock-in period for you. They might claim that results only show up after three months or six months. This means that you will be paying them for the duration of the lock-in period.

If you’re disappointed by the results after one or two months, that’s too bad.

A lock-in period is not a bad thing on its own, but you will want to know that before you sign any contract. Lead generation, in fact, starts to ramp up after three months, but it’s just important that you know what you’re getting into.

In fact, some cold email agencies don’t require lock-in periods, so you might want to consider that to give your business some flexibility.

Besides, the ideal situation from a cold email agency involves getting good results in just two weeks. If you’re getting zero results after a month, you’ll want the flexibility to end your arrangement with your agency. 

5. What will the cold emails look like?

The agency will be sending cold emails to leads using your business name, so you should know exactly what the emails will look like.

Will the cold email agency be using standard templates, or will they personalize each email? The latter option might cost more, but it could deliver better results.

If they use email marketing technology to automate their emails, what is that technology, and how does it work?

The agency will be acting in your name, so it’s always a wise move to be aware of what the leads will be seeing along with your name on those cold emails.

By answering these questions, you will have a clear set of expectations from the cold email agency. This will save you from a lot of disappointment.

The last thing you want to happen is to pay a hefty amount of money to a cold email agency, only to find out that you weren’t on the same page from the start.

Knowing what to expect before signing any contract is always wise for any business decision.

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