Arvell Craig

Arvell Craig specializes in cold email prospecting for B2B companies. His campaign minimums are 40% opens and 5% replies. With success in a variety of industries including affiliate marketing, merchant services and real estate, Arvell has developed a proven and repeatable process known as the 10 Irrefutable Laws of Cold Email Prospecting.

Expert session

Tactic that has had the biggest impact on Arvell’s success

Writing an initial email copy that is “all CHEESE and no whiskers”

Result if you follow the steps in Arvell’s session

Get engagement (or replies) of approximately 3-5% of your total list

Full session with video, notes, audio and discussion inside EHQ Club. Learn more

Expert session snapshot

Transcript

So the idea of what I want to talk about is, there’s many different approaches to code email, how to reach people, you know, I’ll see a lot with humor that works out well, and there’s just different approaches.

And the approach that I found most comfortably, or least consistently, there’s this concept that I learned from Dean Jackson. He’s like one of the godfathers of internet who’s not a real guru in the front end like you don’t see him in the light of events but in the back end, he was, all the gurus follow his stuff.

But I heard this perspective, this concept of him about a year or two ago about, all cheese and no whiskers, was the concept of how to approach people, how to reach an audience, get their attention, get them to respond, without any, I don’t know, flags or concerns.

And the basic idea was that if you’re in sales or in marketing and you’re trying to reach your customer, the idea was that, imagine that you are a cat and your audience is a mouse, which you know, and so in order to get a mouse, you use cheese.

One thing about cheese is that a mouse doesn’t think about cheese. You know, there’s no decision-making faculty, it’s not going to pro you know, think about the pros and the cons about cheese. When you put cheese in front of a mouse, its body just automatically responds and goes after it.

But the issue is that if you show your whiskers, you’re a cat, right? If it notices those whiskers hanging around the side of the room, a flag is gonna turn on. So wait a minute, it might be a trap.

And so this approach to email or communication to any client, it’s about how can you put in front of them the very core desire that they want. But in that approach, you don’t show your whiskers, you don’t give any flags that you’ve got some hidden agenda, that you’re trying to get something from them. How do you communicate in that style?

And when I heard that method you know, it made perfect sense. And so I began to imagine what could that look like for various different industries. And I’ve tried it out in about, I don’t know, eight, nine different industries. And it works pretty well.

So that is the way I begin to structure, any type of cold email, copy content, everything is all about all cheese, all benefit, hundred percent benefit without any sign that I’ve got some hidden agenda.

All right, that does sound like it’s an email that I would want to open. If it’s all about the cheese, like, whatever, you know, that thing is that I really want to do, I need to make a decision on that’s going to be a really interesting email that I would do want to read.

So how do we, I mean, how do we structure this? How do we set it up? Where do we start?

Yeah. So again, it really, whenever when I work with a client, the main thing is, you know, figuring out their business, figuring out what they’re trying to offer what pain they’re trying to relieve from their prospect.

Get thinking about the process, what does the business run on? Because the goal is that your service is going to solve a problem. It’s going to meet a need that they have. And so everybody’s different.

So it could be as simple as, like, I do a lot of campaigns and in real estate, you know, real estate agents, what they want, they want customers. And so it’s like, how do I think about a realtor who has a listing? Who has, you know, they’re trying to sell a house, so, but again, has not to be too tricky, you know, I don’t want to lie. I’m not going to deceive them. But I want to ask a question that’s related.

So I may just send a realtor question because a lot of real estate agents only work for a couple of years. It’s a pretty interesting industry that people come and go, they think it’s easy. They think you can make a bunch of money real quick.

And so my email might say something like, Hey, are you still licensed in Arizona? Because I can’t sell them my product unless they’re still in business. So I might approach it as simple as that. Are you still licensed? Are you still in the business of real estate?

And their response, Oh, I didn’t, say I’m trying to, you know, their responses, oh, wow, this person wants a house. And so that’s going to get that initial engagement. And that’s what I want for someone.

So I get high opens and high replies, because I want that first engagement. I want to know that they’re willing to have the conversation. And that’s kind of how I do that.