Yes, and it was a waste of time. Freelancing and consulting is a relationship business. It's hard enough to get a reply from cold emails (0.5–1.0% reply rates a

Yes, and it was a waste of time. Freelancing and consulting is a relationship business. It's hard enough to get a reply from cold emails (0.5–1.0% reply rates are typical), it's even harder to form a relationship that will result in high-value contracts. If you absolutely need to do it, make the emails highly targeted and personalized. For example: 1. Find 10 companies that are very similar to your last client. 2. For each of those companies, find the person with authority and budget to hire developer contractors. 3. Study them and their company and make educated guesses about their current needs or problems. For instance, if they just launched a new product, maybe it needs an API. Or if their product only integrates with X and Y, maybe they could use an integration with Z. 4. Write a very short and direct email explaining that you can help them do [need/problem from step 3], what you did for [past client who resembles them], and what was the business outcome of that project. 5. Follow up once at most. Don't be annoying.