This is the campaign structure I use across almost everything I run, helping me scale to 10k cold emails a day. Let’s start with follow-ups. The data is clear: Most prospects don’t convert on the first email. They need 3-5 touches, spaced over 2-3 weeks. What doesn’t work: • 2 emails over two weeks • 8-10 emails fired off in a few days What does keep working, across industries: Email 1 Plain text. No links. No tracking. Emails 2–5 Short follow-ups. One link max. Timing Business hours only. Always in the prospect’s timezone. That’s the whole structure. This is the same 3-part setup I reuse again and again. Now, replies. A few rules I never break: • Don't forward replies to a separate inbox (that’s an easy way to trash deliverability) • Use saved snippets to answer fast Speed to lead wins deals. • Tag interested leads immediately And most importantly: Set all of this up before the campaign starts. Otherwise, it'll get hectic. Take a few minutes and clean this up in your setup. It makes everything downstream easier.

If I hired you as CMO for my PR agency and gave you 5 minutes… What cold email would you write? Most people default to something like: "Hey [Name], we help people get more exposure for their brand/get featured in Forbes/etc. Interested?" That’s exactly what we used to send too. And our reply rates were trash. So we stopped pitching PR. Instead, we flipped the role completely. We stopped reaching out as marketers and started reaching out as journalists. Same inbox. Totally different psychology. The message shifted from: “Buy our service” to: “We’re covering a story.” Example: "Hey [Name], we're working on a story about [their industry]. Saw your [specific achievement] and thought it'd be perfect. Got 15 mins?" That one change removed resistance instantly. They’re not thinking: “What do you want from me?” They’re thinking: “Why me?” And the numbers backed it up: • 1.26% reply rate (vs ~0.6% industry average) • 67.6% positive replies** (2 out of 3 responses were warm) • $141K closed from a single campaign When they got on the call, we actually talked about them. Their story. Their positioning. Their goals. Rapport was already built. The PR pitch came naturally. The real lesson: Most industries get stuck doing the same thing… …and then wonder why results flatten. “Industry average” is average for a reason. Everyone’s zigging the same way. We zagged. Took market share. And when this stops working, we’ll zag again. That’s the game. Take this framework and ask yourself: 👉 How could I reposition my outreach so it doesn’t feel like a pitch at all? Or let us do it for you. Comment “Strategy” and we’ll show you how we’d structure this for your industry and campaigns.

Cold email copy lives in a weird dilemma. You want: • opens • replies • booked calls But you also need to: • avoid spam • not sound salesy • not trip deliverability Most people overcomplicate this. After sending hundreds of thousands of cold emails, and helping 1,281+ people write cold email copy that actually gets replies, I simplified everything into a 3-step framework. Step 1: Bait the Open Before anyone reads your email… they decide whether to open it. That decision is driven by: • the subject line • the preview text (first sentence) Together, they must spark curiosity and stay relevant. They cannot sound promotional. The goal is simple: Make it feel like it could be from a colleague, client, or vendor. If it sounds like marketing → spam risk goes up. Step 2: Win the 3-Second Impression Once the email is opened, you have about 3 seconds. Your first 2–3 sentences should do three things: 1. Surface a real problem they recognize 2. Hint at a solution 3. Establish quiet credibility Not a pitch. Not a bio. Just enough context to make them think: “This might be relevant.” Miss this window, and the email is dead. Step 3: Get the “Yes” Cold email is not about closing. It’s about starting a conversation. The easiest way to do that? • Ask a clear, low-friction question • Make the reply effortless If they can respond with a simple “Yes”, you’ve done your job. Everything after that is sales. By the way, I’ve got something that makes this entire process much easier. Comment “Cold” and I’ll send it over.

Hey everyone! After getting amazing advice from @Max Khalus and other members of the community, including Jay, I've completely rewritten my cold email draft. Hey {{firstName}}, Was digging into {{companyName}} and something stood out. You’ve nailed acquisition but... What happens after someone buys for the first time? We’ve seen wellness brands struggle with retention not because of product quality. But because buyers didn’t fully understand how results happen. That reminded me of a system that Noorbru used to boost reorders by over 15 percent. It’s called the Educational Retention System. If this is something you’re seeing, happy to share how others have been tackling it this quarter. – Lucas

This is one of the cleanest lead signals I’ve ever used. Every day, my inbox fills up with bad cold emails. Wrong setup. Poor deliverability. No awareness. I don’t delete them because they are my signal. 👇 People who are sending cold emails but landing in spam. I don’t chase random prospects. I don’t pitch people who don’t know they have a problem. I go after people who are already trying… and failing. So I scrape my spam folder every minute, and then I email them back, with this energy: “Hey, your email landed in spam. Here’s why. And here’s how to fix it.” That’s it. No convincing. No educating them on why cold email matters. They already believe in it; they’re literally using it. The results? • ~13.5% reply rate • ~82% positive replies • Zero resistance Because these people are pre-qualified: They have the problem. They know they have the problem. They’re already spending time and money trying to solve it. All I’m doing is showing them: “I can fix what’s broken.” So here’s the real takeaway: Stop asking, “Who might need what I sell?” Start asking, “Who is already trying to do this… and messing it up?” That failure is your signal.