Cold Emails - How to Get Responses and Land Composing Work

[@ZachHeyde]

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[@alvarorodriguezfilmmusic]

Absolute gold. I also love the fact that you mentioned that there's only so much that's actually under our control (as cold 'emailers' I mean). Keep up the good work Zach. I love this kind of content!💪

[@ZachHeyde]

Thank you Alvaro!!

[@emanuel_soundtrack]

Really cool you showing your mails. My respect

[@jondaremusic]

Amazing. Thank you for sharing your cold email advice!

[@HeyItsPaul]

Perfectly said! I will add one thing to keep in mind. If you happen to be emailing to a music supervisor, they generally will as for no attachments as their inboxes get incredibly full. They generally will prefer an easy to stream service like box or dropbox. I agree that google drive is too much of a pain. This makes me want to go back and cringe over my emails from 10 years ago!

[@ZachHeyde]

Great tip Paul!

[@roger.escorsa]

Thanks again for sharing your experience and knowledge! Your channel is helping me a lot, you are sooo underrated! Greetings from Spain

[@vickychammah]

Thanks Zach! Super helpful! I am a songwriter specializing in a more singer/songwriter style of music, but I will adjust this email examples to my niche - It was very very helpful, thanks again! Greetings from Argentina!

[@stretchbatchelor]

Honored fir sharing. Brevity is always the best groove 💪🤠

[@blue-balance]

Thank you, Zach. Very much enjoying your outstanding content!

[@marialazarevamusic]

Great video! Much appreciated! Thank you for sharing in details your personal experience.

[@alexandervivian]

Thank you for video! Nice shirt, by the way... Oh, and... I appreciate your time... no pressure :D

[@ZachHeyde]

Thanks John 😁🙌

[@jeremyvelez9791]

Great advices! Thank you!

[@BigBrainCoding]

Accurate and pretty simple tips to follow, thanks a ton!

[@jordendavismusic]

Excellent video! I definitely struggle with brevity, so those reminders are especially relevant for me!

[@JDM_Score]

Great video, Zach! Lots of takeaways that I will definitely be implementing!

[@jamesthistleton]

Great video! This immediately encouraged me to reach out to a composer for assistant work. Thank you!

[@ZachHeyde]

Heck yeah!!

[@lownotesinc1962]

Thanks!

[@lownotesinc1962]

Absolutely, spot on! Thank you!!

[@ZachHeyde]

Thank you! 😁

[@iamfrankbiesta]

Thanks again Zach (hey - I spelled your name right! 🙂) for some very useful tips!

[@linusolssonmusic]

I'll a propose a topic. I am curious if you could talk about advice and tips on file naming and general folder organizing? preferably for the hobbyist. I ask in part cause it's a problem I am experiencing myself.

[@ZachHeyde]

Great suggestion--I actually talk about that exact subject in my Composition Hacks course! I'll link it below if you want to check it out 👍🏻 www.zachheyde.com/store/composition-hacks

[@rolfgustavsonmusic]

Thank you, Zach! What a great video on an important topic. How about subject lines? Do you have any specific thoughts regarding them? Or should this perhaps be the topic of my cold email to you? Kidding, of course!

[@ZachHeyde]

Haha 😂 Good question--personally I keep it very brief and to the point. "Composer reaching out" is one I use quite a bit, or "Following up" for a follow up. Sometimes I won't use a subject at all, but I have a feeling there's differing opinions on that.

[@astralhorizons]

nice... but what's a cold email?

[@Humcred]

So I had this guy respond to one of my question on reddit, I pm'd him with more details then he brought up how he works at a huge music library. He gave me his email and told me to message him some of my work, portfolio anytime. I'm still new to this and didn't have work at the time. Well that was a month ago. How do I go about emailing him? What should the subject line of the email be? I don't want him to think I'm spam or just another unsolicalted email.

[@ZachHeyde]

Good question! If I were in your situation I'd keep both the subject and the body super short. A subject like "Follow up (via Reddit)" should do fine, and the body can just quickly remind him who you are and throw a link to your reel. I'd also try and request a 10-minute phone call to ask him some quick questions (prepare those in advance, and ask good ones), and then leave it at that. No guarantees that there will always be work to follow, but wish you the best of luck!

[@ohno_notes]

Hey Zach I have a question? When you say to wait a month to send a second follow up do you mean wait a month after the first follow up? Or do you mean wait two more weeks equaling a month in total?

[@ZachHeyde]

Hey there! There's no hard and fast rule--I usually wait a full month before my second followup, because I figure if they didn't respond to my first then they may be too busy for me to contact any sooner. The full month may clear out their schedule a bit--but that's really up to you and case by case!

[@ohno_notes]

@@ZachHeyde So thats a month in total between the two follow ups potentially?

[@ZachHeyde]

That's right! Sometimes longer--I've sent follow ups a year later and found work from it 👍🏻

[@ohno_notes]

@@ZachHeyde Thanks Zach!

[@VillemR]

Otherwise great advice. But I've heard the exact opposite about sending mp3-s. These people might recieve 10-s of files a day and it will clog up their inbox. So people might not even open the email if there's an attachment or auto sort it to trash. From what I've heard everybody wants a link.

[@ZachHeyde]

That's totally fair and I could understand that perspective! And I think regardless of the method, the link or attachment should be tested first to make sure it opens smoothly--I got hit with a lot of 30 second ads on SoundCloud before I could listen to some applicant's submissions, which could be problematic for someone busier than me!

[@VillemR]

@@ZachHeyde totally agree, less clicks is definitely important for communication

[@aduaneicoplan2623]

send a normal (not so brief)e-mail = show that you don't respect other people's time? That's so picky. It just means the person wrote you a normal email, nothing serious...

[@ZachHeyde]

You can send an email of any length you like, but my point is that you're less likely to get a response from someone who has a very busy schedule--they just don't have the time to read through longer emails, and would much rather read an email that gets straight to the point.