Tried cold emailing vs LinkedIn DMs for 6 months straight

Back in 2022 I was hot on LinkedIn DMs thinking they were the golden ticket. I sent around 300 DMs and got maybe 3 real conversations out of it. Then I switched to cold emailing my local commercial property managers here in Portland. First 50 emails got me 3 site visits and 2 signed maintenance contracts. It wasn't even close. Has anyone else found one channel just totally outshines another?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_joseph1mo ago

The numbers back up what you found. Cold email lets you actually pitch value without LinkedIn's algorithm burying your message. Portland property managers probably check their inbox more often than their DMs anyway.

-1

anthony_campbell881mo ago

Well I'll be honest, I was pretty skeptical about cold email going into this conversation but Claire Gibson's story really opened my eyes. Hearing that three managers responded within a week and one forwarded it to their whole investor group is impressive. I figured property managers would just delete anything that wasn't from a familiar name, but clearly there's something to catching them in their actual work inbox instead of social media. Might have to dust off my old mailing list and give this a try.

claire_gibson1mo ago

Right, exactly. I did the same thing with apartment complexes down in Eugene and had way better luck than LinkedIn. Those property managers get spammed with connection requests all day but their inbox is where actual business gets done. I sent a cold email offering a free weekend market analysis for their rental comps and got responses from three different managers within a week. One of them even forwarded it to their whole investor group. LinkedIn feels like shouting into a void sometimes compared to that.