3 cold-email strategies from small-business founders who used them to show off their work, land clients, and grow company profits

• Cold emailing can help small businesses reach prospects without adding to the marketing budget.
• Effective cold emails are brief and personalized, and they identify areas for improvement.
• If you don't hear back, you may need to follow up more than once.
• This article is part of "Marketing for Small Business," a series exploring the basics of marketing strategy for SBOs to earn new customers and grow their business.

Erin Derby, a commercial photographer, regularly sends emails to interior designers, home-decor brands, and magazine editors to introduce herself and show off her work. These cold emails have helped her land some of her best clients.

Cold emailing refers to reaching out to people or businesses that you don't already have a relationship with to sell your products or services. It's a marketing tactic that's helped Derby's business grow, she said, because she can home in on prospective clients that are the best fit for her.

"You can really make an educated, thoughtful decision on who you want to work with, and then you can give a personal approach to pitching yourself as someone worth working with," Derby told Insider.

Derby has been using cold emailing since she started her photography business in New York City more than 20 years ago. Cold emailing also helped her launch a second business three years ago focused on social-media marketing.

For small businesses with limited marketing budgets, cold emailing can be an inexpensive way to build relationships with prospective clients.

Here are three tips for effective cold emailing.

Take time to find the right contact

Researching prospects and finding the right person to email are the biggest challenges of cold emailing, Marshal Davis, an email-marketing expert and the founder of Ascendly Marketing in The Woodlands, Texas, told Insider. Ideally, you're targeting a decision-maker, such as a company leader.

Davis, whose company sends cold emails to gain business and handles other companies' email-marketing campaigns, usually targets chief marketing officers. He recently landed a manufacturing company as a client after a cold email reached the company's CEO.

"There's a little bit of tongue in cheek when we talk to someone because they're like, 'Does cold email work?' We say, 'Well, you responded,'" Davis said.

Executives' email addresses are often listed on a company's website. Derby said she also used Google, LinkedIn, and Instagram to find contacts.

Show your value to build relationships

To make a connection via a cold email, Davis said the message needed to be personalized and offer value.

"You're trying to solve whatever issue they're having," he said.

Or bring an issue to their attention by identifying areas for improvement and explaining what you can offer, Derby said. For instance, she may mention to an interior designer that they don't post on social media often and that she has a strategy to increase content volume.

"It shows that you've done your research, and people want to talk about what they need," she said.

Derby limits her cold emails to about five sentences and ends by asking for a meeting. She conveys her personality, sends examples of her work, and sometimes mentions other companies she partners with.

Be persistent with high-value prospects

Cold emailing is a "numbers game," Derby said. While it's helped her get many clients, she's also received plenty of rejections.

Derby tracks each email she sends out — ideally, a couple every week — and the type of response she gets. If she doesn't hear back after the first email, she follows up once or twice.

In some instances, a contact will respond a year later. "You do have to be patient," she said.

Davis said following up was crucial for him, too. About eight in 10 responses to cold emails he sends come after a second or third email follow-up. It's a time investment, he said, but if you're consistently emailing, personalizing messages, and contacting prospects that are a good fit for your business, you are likely to see a payoff.

"You're hitting the right person with the right message at the right time," Davis said. "There are few things that can do better than that."