Cold Outreach
Outbound is the fastest way to start conversations with exactly the people you want to work with, as long as you respect deliverability, targeting and the person reading. These playbooks cover all three. I use them for my own products, and I built Sendrise around them.
What you'll learn
- Set up sending domains that protect your main one
- Build lists around triggers, not job titles
- Write short cold emails that start conversations
- Run LinkedIn outreach without getting restricted
Start with these
How to use these playbooks
Outbound works when three things are right: your email lands in the inbox, it reaches the right person, and it gives them a reason to reply. The cold email playbook covers all three in order, starting with the infrastructure most people skip.
LinkedIn is the second channel. LinkedIn outreach without getting restricted shows how to stay inside the limits and still start real conversations.
The order I'd do it in
- Buy two or three sending domains and authenticate them with SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
- Warm up the mailboxes for two to three weeks.
- Build a small list around a trigger: hiring, funding, launching or expanding.
- Write an email under 100 words that asks an easy question.
- Follow up three or four times, adding something new each time.
- Reach the same people on LinkedIn so it feels like one conversation.
What good looks like
On a cold list, a bounce rate under 2% and a positive reply rate of 1 to 3% is healthy. If you're below that, fix the list before you touch the copy.
A note on tools
I built Sendrise to run this workflow in one place, so I'm biased. The playbooks work with any tool, though. Discipline matters more than software.
All Cold Outreach playbooks
Questions people ask
In many countries, yes, with conditions. In the UK, emailing people at limited companies about something relevant to their job is generally allowed if you identify yourself and offer an easy opt-out. Rules differ by country, so check yours.
Use both. Email scales better and LinkedIn builds familiarity. A connection request plus a cold email to the same person usually beats either channel on its own.
I stay around 30 to 50 per mailbox per day, with two or three mailboxes per sending domain. For more volume, add mailboxes rather than pushing more through each one.
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