Latest / The Marketing Career Podcast with Fexingo: Marketing Jobs, Skills, and Career Growth / How Mid-Career Marketers Use Cold Email to Land Interviews
Transcript
- Lucas: So I've got a theory that the most underrated tool in a mid-career marketer's job-search kit isn't LinkedIn — it's the cold email. Luna: Really? I feel like cold email has this reputation for being spammy or a total long shot. Lucas: It does, and a lot of people do it badly. But when it's done right — targeted, researched, specific — it can get you into rooms that job boards and recruiters can't. Luna: Okay, give me an example. I need to picture this actually working. Lucas: Sure. I was talking to a product marketer — let's call her Jenna — who was at a mid-sized B2B SaaS company, about 200 employees. She wanted to move to a director-level role at a Series C competitor. She couldn't get past the ATS on their careers page. So she found the VP of Marketing on LinkedIn, dug up her email through a combination of Hunter.io and a guess based on the company's email pattern, and sent a cold email. Luna: And she got the interview? Lucas: She got a reply in three hours. The VP said she was impressed by the research in the email. They had a call two days later, and Jenna made it to the final round. She didn't get the job — they hired someone internal — but she got four other interviews from similar cold emails over the next month. Luna: So what was in the email? That's the part I need to understand. Lucas: Three paragraphs. First paragraph: who she was, her current role, and a specific compliment about a campaign the VP had run six months earlier — a webinar series that drove three thousand leads. Second paragraph: a concrete idea for how she'd approach a similar challenge at the new company, referencing their recent product launch. Third paragraph: a clear ask — a fifteen-minute call to explore whether there might be a fit. No attachment, no link to her resume, just a signature with her LinkedIn. Luna: The specific compliment and the idea — that's the research part. How long did that take her? Lucas: She said about thirty minutes per email. She sent fifteen over two weeks. That's seven and a half hours of work. And the reply rate was about thirty-three percent — five replies out of fifteen. That's way above average. Luna: What's the average? Do we have data on this? Lucas: Yeah, Hunter.io did a study in 2025 looking at cold email reply rates across industries. For senior marketing roles — director and above — the average reply rate was four point two percent. But emails that referenced a specific metric from the recipient's recent campaign saw rates over eleven percent. Luna: So it's not just about sending more emails. It's about doing the homework. Lucas: Exactly. The volume game doesn't work for senior roles because those people get hundreds of emails a week. You have to stand out with something that shows you actually pay attention to what they do. Luna: And the subject line? That's the make or break part, right? Lucas: Huge. Jenna used a subject line that was basically a compliment plus a question mark. Something like 'Your Q3 webinar strategy — quick question.' The key is to avoid anything that looks like a template. No 'Marketing professional interested in opportunities' — that's instant delete. Luna: If these conversations have sparked something you've actually used — like you tried a cold email after hearing about it — then honestly, if today was worth a coffee to you, that's the link: buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: I love that. And it's a tiny gesture that genuinely helps us keep this ad-free and focused on practical stuff like this cold email breakdown. Luna: Alright, back to it. So we've got the email structure down. But how do you find the right person to email? You can't just email the CMO at a Fortune 500 and expect a reply. Lucas: No, you need to target the right level. For a mid-career marketer, the sweet spot is usually a director or senior director — someone high enough to hire, but not so high that they get five hundred emails a day. Also, aim for people who are one or two steps above your target role. They understand the gap you're trying to cross. Luna: So if you're a senior manager looking for an associate director role, you'd email a director? Lucas: Exactly. And you want to find people who are active on LinkedIn — they post, they comment, they share their work. That gives you material for your email. If someone hasn't posted in six months, they're probably not as engaged, and your email might not resonate. Luna: What about tools? Do you need a paid Hunter.io account or something similar? Lucas: Not necessarily. Hunter.io has a free tier — twenty-five searches a month. That's enough for a focused campaign. Also, many companies use a standard email pattern like firstname@company.com, so you can guess if you know someone's name. But the best approach is to combine a tool with some manual research. Luna: Okay, let's talk about the follow-up. Because one email often isn't enough. Lucas: Right. Jenna's rule was: send the first email, wait three business days, then send a follow-up. The follow-up was shorter — just a line referencing the first email and adding one new piece of relevant content, like a recent article she wrote or a conference talk. She'd send a maximum of two follow-ups, then stop. Luna: That seems respectful. I've seen people send five or six follow-ups — it feels desperate. Lucas: It does. And it can hurt your brand. If someone doesn't reply after three touches, they're not interested right now. Move on. The goal is to build a network, not to pester people into a conversation. Luna: So what's the biggest mistake you see marketers make with cold email? Lucas: Sending the same email to everyone. They find a list of fifty names, write one generic email, and blast it out. That might work for entry-level sales, but for senior marketing roles, it's a non-starter. Each email needs to feel personal. That means you can't send more than maybe three or four a day if you're doing it right. Luna: How do you scale that without spending all your time on email? Lucas: You don't. But you don't need to. Fifteen well-crafted emails over two weeks can yield more interviews than fifty generic applications on LinkedIn. It's a quality-over-quantity play. Luna: I want to push back a little. Doesn't this feel like hustle culture? Like, shouldn't your resume and experience speak for themselves? Lucas: They should, but in practice, the ATS and the volume of applicants mean that a great resume can get lost. Cold email is a way to cut through the noise. It's not about bypassing qualifications — it's about making sure the right person actually sees yours. Luna: Fair. And I think the research element actually makes you a better candidate — you go in knowing more about the company and the person. Lucas: Exactly. By the time Jenna got on the phone with that VP, she already knew the VP's priorities, her recent wins, and the challenges the team faced. That made the conversation much more productive than a typical intro call. Luna: So if someone listening wants to try this today, what's the step-by-step? Lucas: Step one: identify five target companies where you'd genuinely love to work. Step two: use LinkedIn to find the director or senior director of marketing at each one. Step three: spend thirty minutes researching each person — their recent posts, articles, interviews, or campaigns. Step four: write a three-paragraph email with a specific compliment, a relevant idea, and a clear low-friction ask. Step five: send it, wait three days, follow up once, then move on. Luna: And what about the email signature? Should you include a link to your portfolio? Lucas: Not in the first email. Keep it simple — name, title, company, LinkedIn profile. If they're interested, they'll click. Adding a portfolio link can feel like you're asking for something. The email itself should be the value. Luna: I like that. It's almost like a teaser for a longer conversation. Lucas: Exactly. And it respects their time. If they want to see more, they'll ask. Luna: One thing I've heard is that cold email works best for B2B roles because B2B marketers are used to getting cold outreach. Is that true? Lucas: There's some truth to it. B2B marketing leaders are more accustomed to receiving cold emails from vendors and partners, so they're slightly more likely to open them. But I've seen it work in B2C too — especially for brand roles where the recipient values creative thinking. The key is relevance, not industry. Luna: So if you're a B2C brand manager, you can still use this? Lucas: Absolutely. Just find a campaign they ran that you genuinely admire and build your email around that. The principles are the same. Luna: Final question: what's the best time to send a cold email? Lucas: Tuesday or Wednesday morning, between 8 and 10 AM in the recipient's time zone. Avoid Monday mornings — people are catching up on weekend emails — and Friday afternoons, when they're mentally checked out. Also, avoid sending right after a major holiday or during a conference week. Luna: That's practical. I think a lot of people will try this after hearing Jenna's story. Lucas: I hope so. It's not a silver bullet, but it's a tool that too many mid-career marketers overlook. And in a market where every edge counts, spending a few hours on thoughtful outreach can make a real difference. Luna: Alright, thanks Lucas. For those listening, we'll put a template in the show notes. Until next time. Lucas: Take care, everyone.