Cold calling via phone is a not an effective use of a smaller team's time in my experience-- you will rarely reach the right person within an organization, there are lots of 'gatekeepers' for high level executives, and voicemails just don't generate responses. You can only make so many dials per day, and it is exhausting getting rejected all day. Where I've seen it become more effective is for larger inside lead gen teams for products like credit card terminals, or energy efficiency services where a quick pitch can be made to almost any business person who picks up the phone.

Email however, when done correctly (and legally!! don't spam!!) can be very effective. Instead of focusing on making a sale via an email, try instead to focus on getting a referral. Consider it a "win" when you get a referral to someone in the organization with whom you can have a "warm" conversation.

If you are honestly looking for feedback on your product/service, the sales will come. Your cold email will get forwarded to the right person and you can get some conversations started. For us, these campaigns have been extremely low cost and have yielded some great partnerships and repeat business in our niche industry.

A couple rules we laid down:

1. No attachments, no pricing, no selling

2. Make no more than two attempts over 30 day campaign

3. No more than 5-6 sentences with 1 embedded link and a clear request for a referral

Some recommended tools and resources include:

http://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices...

http://www1.toutapp.com/

http://www.data.com/