I happen to run a small company with a website built in PHP and I get several generic emails every couple of days from random individuals and fly-by-night "SEO consultancies", claiming that they "found issues on my website", "could help optimize website", "get us reach top Google positions" etc.
Most of this is auto-generated junk based on some keyword scrapping, but given the volume of it, I don't think it's possible to be taken seriously in that niche anymore.
I also get several "personalized emails" per week peddling software developers for hire, management trainings, factories in China, real estate investment opportunities and countless other junk, so I wouldn't count on that channel either. Anything that looks like a cold email goes straight to trash simply due to the volume of it.
IMO, a much better strategy would be to publish articles showing your expertise (i.e. comparing similar technologies, or sharing step-by-step instructions on accomplishing some familiar task), while mentioning that you do consulting in that area. People usually don't mind if you share them on Reddit/Linkedin/Twitter/HN and that can get a you a much better traction than cold-mailing people.
I'm in a very similar boat to you, I think I've deleted three messages this morning...
But it would still be possible to get my attention. The average message is something along the lines of Hi {name}. I was at your site {domain} and had some ideas. [the same copy every single person gets]
If instead someone emailed me something that showed that they not only knew what domain they were mailing but understood what our product offered and how maybe they could help I'd probably keep reading. For me that might look like:
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Hey Paul,
I love what you've built with WonderProxy, this GeoIP testing niche you've carved out is super interesting, I wish I'd known about it years ago! We had this horrible integration that refused to load in Germany but worked perfectly in our office, debugging over Remote Desktop at 3am still haunts my dreams.
Anyways i'm actually wondering if there's a way we can work together. I'm a senior PHP developer and I've got a lot of experience building OKTA integrations. It looks like you've started offering SAML, but let me tell you OKTA is like the secret sauce to get loved by IT departments. Your team is likely capable of building this in-house, but why spend tens or hundreds of hours learning the ins and outs of this stuff when I can build it in half the time with a quarter of the bugs :).
let me know if you're interested
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I'm not saying I'd hire that gal/guy, but if it was something I wanted we would at least have a conversation. I'd optimize for quality messages to qualified companies, rather than quantity anything.
Most of this is auto-generated junk based on some keyword scrapping, but given the volume of it, I don't think it's possible to be taken seriously in that niche anymore.
I also get several "personalized emails" per week peddling software developers for hire, management trainings, factories in China, real estate investment opportunities and countless other junk, so I wouldn't count on that channel either. Anything that looks like a cold email goes straight to trash simply due to the volume of it.
IMO, a much better strategy would be to publish articles showing your expertise (i.e. comparing similar technologies, or sharing step-by-step instructions on accomplishing some familiar task), while mentioning that you do consulting in that area. People usually don't mind if you share them on Reddit/Linkedin/Twitter/HN and that can get a you a much better traction than cold-mailing people.