Cold email outreach
Outbound without the spam.
Clean data, well written emails, and deliverability that’s checked regularly. This means better deliverability, perception and results.
The difference
You’ve had this email
What lands in most inboxes
Hi JOHN,
I hope this email finds you well! I was doing some research on YOUR COMPANY LIMITED and I was really impressed by what you guys are doing in the space.
Would you be open to a quick 15 minute chat this week or next?
Kind regards
Adam
What I’d change
Nobody believes you researched them, and “in the space” tells them a template did the writing. It’s just insincere and lazy.
Most people understand that they will be marketed to. If you’re honest and decent about it and you have something that they need, you’re more likely to get them to drop their guard so you can start to deliver your message. Then they can make a decision on whether to engage with you.
Not YOUR COMPANY LIMITED. That single detail is what gives most campaigns away in the first line and gets your email sent to the bin without your message being seen.
An easy way out gets more replies than a request for fifteen minutes, and the ones you get back are worth having.
Add a proper footer with your details, include your office or registered address, and provide an easy opt-out link.
Process
How a campaign is put together
Work out the target
Sector, size, geography and the sort of client you actually enjoy working with.
Build the list
Targeted searches, cross-checked, then every company name read by a human.
Set up the sending
A domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC in place and warmed properly. Never your main domain.
Write and send
Short emails that sound like a person. Replies come to you, not to a dashboard.
Targeting
Not any old data. Data chosen for you.
If you have ever bought a database you will know the feeling: someone scraped the internet and put it in a spreadsheet. Before a campaign starts I spend time working out exactly who you want.
Then I run targeted searches, cross-check the results and build a list that fits. Fewer wasted emails, more replies from people who could actually buy.
Compliance
Legal, and also just decent
I only use data with a legitimate interest basis. In plain terms: the people I contact are ones you could genuinely help, and there is a real business reason to write to them. I do not buy dodgy lists.
It is not about bending rules. It is about reaching out in a way that makes you look like a business worth talking to. If you have had cold outreach yourself and want out of these databases, there is a guide for that here.
Two sets of rules apply to B2B outreach in the UK. UK GDPR governs how the data is handled, and PECR governs the sending. Between them they are less restrictive for business-to-business than most people assume, but they are not optional, and the parts that get skipped are usually the visible ones.
Written down before the campaign, not reconstructed afterwards if someone asks. It records why these particular businesses would want to hear from you.
One click, no login, no “manage your preferences” maze designed to wear people down. Tested before sending, because an unsubscribe link that quietly fails is worse than none.
Registered name, company number, place of registration and registered office address. A UK company is required to show these on business email under the Companies Act, and most cold outreach simply doesn’t.
Suppressed across every future campaign, not just the one they replied to, and not at the end of the month when someone gets round to it.
Named people at limited companies and LLPs, which is where B2B outreach is permitted without prior consent. Sole traders and personal addresses are treated differently, and are left out.
If there is no plausible reason a business would want the email, it does not go. That is both the legal test and the one that actually gets replies.
Business contact details, held for as long as the campaign needs them. No indefinite archive of people who have already said no.
None of this is legal advice, and I am not your solicitor. It is how I run campaigns, and I am happy to walk through any of it before we start.
Next step
Tell me who you want to reach
Twenty minutes on the phone is usually enough for me to say whether outbound will work for you. Sometimes the answer is no, which saves us both a lot of effort.