Instantly.ai Offer and Niche Selection For Cold Email
Having a good offer and niche is a cheat code for cold emailing.
With a saturated offer you can try 30 different angles and still not get any results.
I know because I’ve done the mistake of onboarding clients with those kinds of offers.
In this document I’ll lay out the main things you should look for when selecting a new offer to sell via cold email or which kinds of clients to take into your agency.
Alex Hormozi wrote an amazing book $100M offers which I recommend reading after this guide, but there are some differences with cold email offers.
Because you’re coming in cold, the offer needs to be such a no-brainer that a stranger would like to jump on a 15 minute call with you.
The offer has to resonate, peak their interest and be top of mind to make prospects respond.
Once you have an offer like this – cold emailing becomes easy.
Almost every angle and copy you write, will bring results.
We’ve sent hundreds of thousands of emails and worked with tens of niches and trust me you’ll know right away if you find a no-brainer offer.
Let’s get started.
Anatomy Of A Good Niche/Offer for Cold Email
Experience and Domain Expertise
It Makes Money
Best offers will help your prospects make more money.
Every business’s goal is to make more money.
If you offer a service that can help you prospects make more money and get more clients – you’re going to succeed.
If you’re targeting SaaS companies, their main KPIs are MRR and Churn.
If you’re targeting Ecom Stores, it’s revenue, AOV, CLTV, Margins
Examples
Everything Sales Related
Ad Agencies
Conversion Rate Optimization
Email Marketing
It Saves Time
Time is one of the scarcest resources for a company.
If your offer will help them save time on something they’re doing right now – it’s going to resonate.
Important to note that saving time in itself doesn’t have much weight.
You want to save time so you can work on the things that really matter and move the needle.
Automating manual labor is one the simplest examples. If you’re still sending emails manually – start using Instantly, because we automate that process for you.
Examples
Automation Services For Agencies
Customer Support Chatbot
Automating Bookkeeping
It Saves Money
Who doesn’t like to save money on something that they’re already doing with a cheaper alternative?
If your offer saves money – that’s a good sign.
Examples
Cheaper versions of popular tools
Customer Support Chatbot (saving money on paying salaries)
Tax Services
Payment providers (save money on fees)
Is a Priority For The Company
Every business owner has a to-do list. Either physical or just in their head.
A no-brainer offer will help with one of the top 3 things in your prospects to-do list.
It’s closely tied to KPIs of a specific job position you’re targeting, so keep that in mind when crafting your offer and messaging.
Important: While CEO’s and Customer Support Managers priorities are different and you can craft offers for both, you’ll have an easier time with offers that move the needle most for the company.
Convincing a company to invest into sales (directly tied to company’s success) is much easier than getting him to invest into a mobile app for employee fitness training (can be important, but nice-to-have).
Examples
Churn Reduction for SaaS
Everything that increases revenue
Multiple Providers
Every successful company has a website, ads agency and SEO agency so you’re going to have a really hard time getting your foot through the door.
If your offer is something that isn’t limited to one provider – you’re going to get more calls.
This is a rare variable, but there are some offers that fit.
Imagine you have a really good sales team that is closing a lot of sales and you get an email from a new sales rep who says they’re going to work for you purely on commission. You’ll only pay them when they close AND they’ll get their own leads. What’s the downside for your company with this offer? There’s none.
This doesn’t guarantee response because there are many dumb business owners out there, but it greatly increases your options when your offer can be plugged into an existing process with ease on top of what they’re currently doing.
Examples
Commission Only Lead Generation
Commission Only Sales
Fast Results
The shorter the time to results – the more replies you’re going to get.
I can help you get 10 sales calls with your ideal clients in 6 months vs I can help you get 10 sales calls in one week. Interested?
All offers that require months to get results will be harder to sell via cold email. This includes but is not limited to SEO, Web Development & Web Design.
Examples
Email Marketing
CRO
Short Form Content Repurposing
Automation Agency
Clear ROI
It’s not enough to just move the needle and help companies make money, but you need to have an offer that clearly shows that they get more out than they put in.
If I can get you an extra $1M revenue, but you have to pay me $10M to get it, it’s not a good selling point.
But if I tell you I can get you $10M revenue for $1M investment, that’s a different story. At the very least I will hear you out and see how you’ll accomplish that.
Examples
Everything Sales Related
Ads Agencies
Email Marketing
Lead Generation
Emerging but Proven Market
You want to avoid saturated markets and offers people have heard hundreds of times (unless you have a unique advantage).
Good rule of thumb are offers that are no older than 3-5 years.
You also don’t want to use a niche that’s too young and unproven because that means more risk for the client.
Tip: Do a quick Apollo search for your niche to see if there’s at least 10K leads in your niche.
Imagine pitching TikTok Marketing 2 years ago when it was mostly a dance video app without any substantial marketing and ads platform.
It would’ve been too early. But TikTok started maturing, created a solid ad platform and now thousands of companies are successfully advertising on TT.
There’s still more companies that aren’t advertising there which makes it a good growing market to go after.
Keep an eye out on where people’s attention is right now and use those trends.
Examples
TikTok Agency
Short Form Content
Fast Growing Market
Avoid declining and stagnant markets.
I wouldn’t recommend selling Newspaper or Radio ads with cold email 😀
It’s similar to the emerging market so go for something that’s poppin, all over the media and only getting bigger and bigger.
Examples
TikTok Ads
Short Form Content
Experience and Domain Expertise
This is going to be personal to you.
If you choose a niche where you have deep domain expertise you’re going to have a much easier time getting your message across and closing the sale.
You also want to have at least 2 case studies in your niche to show it’s not a fluke.
Examples (for me personally)
Lead Generation
Sales
Done-For-You
Everybody’s busy.
If you tell me I can make $10K extra a month, but I’d have to put in 10 hours a week on top of what I’m already doing, into learning a course and committing to it for the next 12 months – I will say no.
Even if the ROI is insanely positive I will say no because I can’t be bothered to take something new on my table between all the tasks I’m already juggling as an owner.
But if you tell me I can make $10K extra a month without doing anything and you take care of everything for me – I will ask “how much?”. You hooked me and now the only question is what kind of money makes the ROI a no brainer for me to invest.
The more hands off you make your offer – the more appealing it is.
Examples
DFY Lead Generation
Short-Form Content Creation
Performance Based Offer
If you take a good offer and add “We work purely on performance” it’s going to be a no-brainer offer.
You eliminate the risk for the company and show you have some skin in the game.
Important: You shouldn’t blindly offer performance based pricing. It should make sense with our offer and the client needs to have strong proof and case studies.
If you offer a performance based model for a new company you’re going to be struggling a while before you see results, because it’s on you to figure out what works for them. With established companies with clear sales processes and numbers it’s much more reasonable to offer performance based pricing.
Examples
Performance based Ads Agency
Commission only Sales
Commission only Lead Generation
Guarantee
The biggest objection to overcome with cold prospects is trust. Guarantees help people trust you more because you have some skin in the game. figure out the best guarantee you can offer (it doesn’t have to be a money-back guarantee).
Deliverability based guarantee
If we don’t do X we’ll do X.
If we don’t increase your revenue in 60 days, you’ll get a full refund.
If we don’t increase your revenue in 60 days, we’ll work for no extra charge until we get there.
Asset based guarantee (If you do audits, setup etc)
We guarantee that you’ll have a new website in 30 days our you get a full refund
We guarantee we’ll set up your Facebook Ads with at least 10 ads in 30 days or you get a full refund.
Action-Based Guarantee. (best for courses and DIY offer)
If you follow all the steps in the action plan/course and you don’t see (result) in (timeframe) you get a full refund.
Niche & Offer Masterclass Video
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SL5dZBArLoseb3BgZ1X7trcCZp3tNMRr4Jgn-u3U9S0/edit?usp=sharingCold Email Offer Calculator
Use this calculator to see the score of your selected niche.
Cold Emails Offer Ease Ranking Cheatsheet – https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SL5dZBArLoseb3BgZ1X7trcCZp3tNMRr4Jgn-u3U9S0/edit?gid=0#gid=0
Important: Be honest when filling this in and rather be conservative than overly optimistic. Theoretically your offer can do a lot, but what has it actually done previously?
Once you fill it out use this ranking chart to see if your offer will work for cold email.
Cold Email Offers Ranking Chart
| Score | Verdict |
| 1-3 | Yikes. Avoid at all costs. |
| 4-7 | Meh. Use only with unique advantages. |
| 8-11 | Hmm. Good niche – Try it out. |
| 12-14 | Damn. This niche will make you money. |
| 15 | Unicorn. Don’t share with anyone. |
Select a Niche with 8+ score
After you’ve filled in our Niche Cheatsheet.
Choose a Niche with a 8+ score to be certain it’s going to work with cold email.
Cold Email Offers Ranking Chart
| Score | Verdict |
| 1-3 | Yikes. Avoid at all costs. |
| 4-7 | Meh. Use only with unique advantages. |
| 8-11 | Hmm. Good niche – Try it out. |
| 12-14 | Damn. This niche will make you money. |
| 15 | Unicorn. Don’t share with anyone. |
Get 2 Case Studies In Your Niche
Once you’ve selected a Niche your only goal is to set up your cold email engine with Instantly and send out as many emails as needed to get 2 case studies.
If you already have 2 case studies you can skip this chapter.
1 Case study can be a fluke.
2 Case studies show you can repeatedly get clients in this niche and you’re on your way to having a product-market-fit.
Here is an example script you can use to ask for a case study from the client you worked with:
Hi {{firstName}},
I’ve been thinking about the impressive results we’ve achieved together. Our work has led to some notable outcomes for both teams, and I believe it’s a story worth sharing.
Would you consider allowing us to feature our journey in a case study. Here’s what it would include:
Background: A brief overview of {{companyName}}, its objectives, and the challenges faced.
The Journey: the strategies we discussed, the solutions we implemented, and the teamwork involved.
Results: A showcase of the tangible results, backed by data, that we achieved together.
Testimonial: If you’re comfortable, a quote from you or someone on your team about the experience of working with us.
Not only would this case study be a testament to our shared success, but it could also elevate {{companyName}}’s visibility in the industry. And of course, you’ll have full review rights to ensure everything aligns with your brand’s messaging.
If you’re on board, we can set up a short call to discuss this further. Your insights and feedback will be invaluable.
Thank you for considering this, {{firstName}}. I truly value our partnership.
Best,
{{sendingAccountName}}
Company
