Who this is for
B2B businesses selling a considered service or product where you can name the companies you want as customers: agencies, software, professional services, manufacturers and outsourcing providers. It works when the offer is specific and the list is small and well chosen. It does not work as a volume game, and I will not build a system for sending thousands of untargeted messages, because the result is a burned domain and a spam reputation that follows you. This sits within marketing and business automation.
Deliverability is the whole foundation
Before a single message goes out, the technical work has to be right, or the campaign is invisible regardless of quality.
- A separate sending domain. Never your main domain. A cold outreach domain that gets flagged should not take your company email with it.
- SPF, DKIM and DMARC configured correctly on that domain, which is what mailbox providers check first.
- Warm-up over weeks. A new domain sending fifty messages on day one is filtered. Volume ramps gradually while engagement builds.
- Volume limits per mailbox, kept low deliberately, with several mailboxes rather than one sending heavily.
- Plain text, no tracking pixels, no link shorteners. Each of those raises the spam score, and open tracking is worth less than the deliverability it costs.
- Monitoring. Bounce rate, spam complaints and reply rate watched continuously, with sending paused automatically when they move the wrong way.
What the work includes
- List building and verification. Targets identified by firmographic criteria you define, then every address verified before sending, because bounces are the fastest way to damage a domain.
- Sequence design. Three to five messages, each short, each adding something rather than repeating the ask. The follow-ups produce most of the replies.
- Personalisation that is real. A line that shows you looked at their business, generated from data you actually hold. Mail-merge personalisation that reads as automated performs worse than none.
- LinkedIn alongside email, where a connection request and a comment precede or follow the email, within LinkedIn’s own limits on automation.
- Reply handling and routing. Replies detected, sequences stopped immediately, and interested replies routed to a person with the context attached. This is the part most setups neglect and the only part that produces revenue.
- CRM integration so every contact, message and reply is recorded rather than living in a sending tool: see CRM setup and integration.
The rules and the limits
Different markets treat unsolicited commercial email differently, and the rules that apply depend on where your recipients are rather than where you are. Common requirements include a genuine unsubscribe route, accurate sender identification and, in some jurisdictions, prior consent for certain recipients. If you are emailing into Europe, the UK, Australia or Canada, get your own legal advice on which regime applies to your list before sending; I build the system to honour opt-outs and identify the sender correctly either way.
Practically, the constraint that matters more is reputation: a list of two hundred well-chosen companies with a relevant message outperforms ten thousand strangers, and does not cost you your domain.
How a build runs
- Target definition. The firmographic criteria, the job titles, and the specific reason each type of company would care.
- Infrastructure. Sending domain, mailboxes, authentication records, and the warm-up schedule started.
- List build and verification, in batches rather than all at once.
- Sequence and copy drafted with you, since the offer has to be yours.
- Reply routing and CRM wired up before sending, not after.
- Launch small, monitor, scale. A first batch to test deliverability and reply rate, then gradual increase while the metrics hold.
What you receive
- A configured sending domain with authentication verified.
- A verified target list matching your criteria.
- Written sequences with the personalisation logic documented.
- Reply detection, sequence stopping and routing into your CRM.
- A deliverability dashboard covering bounces, complaints and replies.
- Documentation so your team can run it without me.
Pricing is per build and is on request; ongoing management, where you want it, is a monthly fee. See packages.
Next step
Tell me who your ideal twenty customers would be on the contact page. If you cannot name them, outreach is the wrong channel and I will say so rather than build it.