Two years ago I received an email from a business professional in a related industry to which I am in. The email went something like this:

Good day Tino, I happened upon your website and I really loved what I saw. It's a great site with great information. I found it very useful. I work in XYZ industry, which is related to what you do. How can we work together?

I normally dont respond to unsolicited emails. My inbox is full of spam. But this email was different; it was unsolicited but I did not consider it spam. The person that sent the email did three things that were important:

1. He knew what my business was about because he read through my website. Spammers that send bulk emails have no clue who they are emailing. This email was personal. He knew me and he knew my business.
2. He complimented me and my business. Spam emails go right into a sales pitch.
3. He asked me how we can work together. This was a "call to action" and the ball was in my court. And, it was a great call to action. Spam emails will always state that they can help you. This one asked how we could help eachother. The odds of a response with this are much greater.

This was one of the few emails that I did respond to. This business professional was looking for ways to get business referrals, something people usually do at business networking functions. Co-operation between related businesses is always better than competition.

Using email is also, perhaps, an alternative to cold calling as a tactic for prospecting for sales leads. You could use the same guidelines as the above email. Look at your prospect's website, compliment him, and ask how the two of you can work together. This will always be better than a direct sales pitch. Not only that, with cold calling you get a lot of rejection and nobody likes rejection. You won't get any rejection with via email marketing because if a prospect is not interested he just simply wont respond to the email. That means you dont have to listen to a direct rejection over the telephone.

Of course, you must be very careful with email marketing. Never send unsolicited bulk emails because that is considered spam. Email prospecting for sales leads can work for you if you do it correctly.