Cold emailing studios: Sent 180 emails, got 12 replies, 0 gigs, and now I'm stuck in the spam folder. Help!
Hey everyone, I'm a motion designer that left my full-time job and went freelance. I've made a list of studios who work in the same field, found producers' emails and started cold emailing them.
In a month I've sent 180 emails to 100 studios and out of them I've got 12 replies. 5 of them added me to their freelance rosters, 1 almost booked me (project fell through) and others said they'll keep me in mind. I guess in terms of cold emailing this is a good result, even though I still didn't land a freelance gig.
The Problem:
Suddenly, all my emails started going directly to the spam folder
I have my domain on Namecheap and I've been sending emails via iCloud. A couple of days ago I moved over to Google Workspace, but the problem didn't go away. I've tried troubleshooting this problem with ChatGPT, but it changes the culprit all the time:
- First it thought the problem is that I had 4 SPF lines and it's bad. (fixed it)
- Then it said my Vimeo link is flagged as spam. (changed vimeo link to my website)
- It said my whole email template is flagged as spammy.
- I've used too many inbox placement tests and now Gmail thinks I'm a spammer (I've sent 12 emails).
- Didn't like iCloud, so I moved to Google
So, I really don't know what to do, how to reach out to studios anymore and now I'm not sure if cold emailing is a good idea in my field. I've tried a bunch of email spam tests and they all say everything is good: my IP and domain are not blacklisted, text is ok and not spammy, links are good, DMARC and other domain configs are good etc.
I don't understand how I could get flagged as a spammer with such a low volume of emails. I ran some tests with friends and all of my emails went to the spam folder. They clicked "not spam" and replied to me, but that didn't help much
My Email Template:
>Hi /name/,
/some personalization, I've used it in 10% of emails/
I'm a freelance motion designer. I do /this and that/, and I use /these software/
I've worked on commercials for /client lists/. Let me know if I can help out with any upcoming projects.
/link to my demo reel and portfolio website/
Best,
/My Name/
So, my question is how to fix this spam problem. Should I just get a new custom email, leave it untouched for 3 weeks and start over? Maybe I should focus on reaching out to producers on Linkedin? I would also appreciate any advice on cold emailing and finding freelance gigs, because I have no idea what I am doing. Thanks!