[patio11]

Different strokes for different folks, but I could count on one hand the number of business emails I've sent in the last four years that went to someone other than a customer, supplier, or "people I know well enough to invite out for coffee."

This might be a weakness in my skillset, but I tend to think that outbound marketing is a very time-intensive proposition, and as a sole businessman time is something I can never really have enough of. I don't want to do anything that has to get over a spam filter, a low-conversion inbox scan, and then a low-conversion salespitch for it to positively affect my business. (And, it goes without saying, spam is right out.)

I don't know what your personal threshold is for writing non-spammy email, but I personally can't put my hands on a keyboard and not type a hundred words. Even at ten emails a day, that is a thousand words. That could be an article, an interview, a blog post (that would be criticized for overlength), etc, etc. All things that I get to keep, that stay available on the public Internet, and that aren't strongly dependent on the reception of individual third parties.

I'd much rather write the thousand words and pull some folks to me. After that, perhaps we could do email and/or coffee.

[dpapathanasiou]

That works for you b/c your stuff is something an individual can find and buy/sign up for on your site.

If you were producing something more complex, such as software for companies or organizations, you would need a different approach.

[mattmanser]

But your product doesn't really suit that kind of marketing, your situation is very limited. Your product would actually become unprofitable if you had to spend face time convincing someone to buy it, most aren't.

One of pg's articles mentions that the successful YC's are ones where one of the founders is always on the phone, contacting people. That is the reality for a lot of business.

Bigger ticket items have to have some direct contact. Even trying out relatively cheap b2b software like redgate products gets direct emails (probably initially canned but I got a prompt human response to my reply to it). You will also find yourself in direct contact with Dell if you buy as a business.