As a former 10 year corporate salesperson, now a small business owner, here are my thoughts.
100 emails is a very low sample size, “rookie numbers” as they say. Bump that out reach up. Mailchimp or others can help. Learning sales skills and researching like a salesperson would will help immensely.
I recently launched a website, wanted it to look very professional. Don’t care if others think my website/logo/etc is too fancy, it attracts a premium clientele (I.e. bigger jobs, commercial jobs, etc.) I paid 2k for it with another relatively new design agency.
Here’s an idea. You want to customize your approach to people you’re reaching out to to a degree, but don’t want to spin your wheels on too much work on individual cold leads that often don’t bite on your offering.
Would it be too difficult to build a few fictitious websites with your unique design, branding, etc. for different industries you’re targeting? Build a sick construction website, painting website, etc. and give them a demo link or something to show them what you can make their site look like.
Another idea, target new businesses. You’d have to research how to find them but I bet there’s a public record database for new businesses that will usually need a website, so get in first and not necessarily with people that are booked for months or whatever other objections you’re running into.
Hang Christmas lights. Actually appears to be decent money in it. That’s generally a secondary business though due to the seasonality of it. Could definitely profit 30k with a fifth of the starting capital, but you’ll be busy as hell for 60ish days.