It's kind of depressing to me that the most useful, and general quick and cheap, technique understanding your target was left out. Go and meet them in person.

It's kind of depressing to me that the most useful, and general quick and cheap, technique understanding your target was left out. Go and meet them in person. Please :-) Every single person I've persuaded to do this, rather than send yet another bunch of e-mails or yet another online survey, has told me they've gotten enormous value out of it. I know it's sometimes scary for tech folk to go out and talk to people. It scared me when I first started doing it. But the value is immense. By watching what real customers do, and encouraging and listening to their stories, you'll get a much deeper understanding of what they value and what their pain points are. Then you'll be in a much better position to start other ways of talking to customers like cold-emails - because you will understand them at a much deeper level. More often than not you'll discover that you don't need the cold-email campaign because by actually talking to people you would have discovered some early evangelists who will be forcing their address book upon you and recommending you to all their friends.