Unpopular opinion: cold emailing still works way better than social media outreach

I keep seeing everyone push LinkedIn DMs and Instagram comments for B2B leads, but after running 3 campaigns last quarter, my cold email open rate was 42% compared to 11% on LinkedIn. My team tested both channels to a list of 500 local contractors in Phoenix, and the email pipeline closed 8 deals vs 1 from social. Has anyone else had way more luck with old school email than the trendy social stuff?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_elizabeth4d agoMost Upvoted

Totally get where you're coming from, I ran a similar test last year with local home service businesses and it was basically the same story. My cold emails had a 35% open rate and we closed 5 deals from a list of 200 plumbers, while social media gave us maybe 2 solid conversations and zero actual sales. I think people forget that email inboxes are still a personal space (unlike LinkedIn which feels like a giant sales floor) and contractors especially are just more likely to check their email at the end of the day. Plus with social you're competing with all their friends and funny cat videos, you know? Email feels more professional and direct to them. I honestly stopped wasting time on social outreach for local B2B completely after that.

bell.felix4d ago

Yeah that basically mirrors what I saw too. Emails just hit different for tradespeople, they treat their inbox like a work tool not a social feed.

the_christopher4d ago

Hey, didn't @the_elizabeth just say something similar though? I read a study once that said tradespeople check email 3x more than social media when it comes to work stuff.