How to design your outreach strategy

Cold outreach still works. What no longer works is the spray and pray approach of dumping a template into a list and hoping something sticks. Prospects ignore noise. Platforms penalise senders who blast without direction. A campaign built on guesswork goes quiet fast.

A proper strategy fixes that. When you know exactly who you want to reach, the single action you want them to take and the value you can deliver in the first touch, every message feels relevant. Clarity keeps you out of spam folders, protects your domain reputation and fills the calendar with real conversations instead of vanity metrics.

This chapter walks you through a simple plan. You will lock in a high-fit account list, write one outcome-driven call to action, pick the channels and formats that match your persona and set deliverability guardrails. Finish the steps and you will have a one-page blueprint that makes configuration, list building and copywriting almost automatic.

A narrow target list lifts reply rates. Decide on two things before you send a single email.

1. Choose the ideal customer profile (ICP): the type of company that gains the most from your product.
2. Pick the persona inside that company who owns the pain you solve and can act on it. If you have not set these yet, read my guide on market, ICP and persona.
   

Outreach works when each message talks to a problem someone needs fixed right now. Scan your possible personas and select the group with the most urgent pain.

Example: LastPass

Let’s take LastPass, a password-management tool, as an example for deciding on the targeting.

ICP

Let’s say we are deciding who to target for the LastPass cold-outreach campaigns and we can choose between two company types.

First, a small e-commerce store run by a husband-and-wife team. They share passwords informally, sometimes written on a note beside their desks so the need for a password manager is low.

Second, marketing agencies that often work remotely. These agencies must keep multiple client logins organised and safe, especially when team members work from different locations. The urgency for secure password storage is much higher here, so marketing agencies are the stronger ICP.

Persona

Within that marketing agency we still need to choose who receives the message. If we target everyone, junior marketers are included, yet they focus on creative tasks rather than security. To hit the real pain, we should focus on higher management, specifically an operations manager. They are responsible for protecting client credentials and feels the problem directly.

Targeting operations managers at marketing agencies gives LastPass a clear audience with a pressing need. By narrowing the ICP to marketing agencies and selecting operations managers as the persona, LastPass creates a focused list for effective outreach.

The days of strangers booking a demo straight from the first cold email are gone. People guard their calendars and inboxes. Your job is to lower the barrier until a reply feels effortless.

Start by asking what you really need. If the ultimate goal is a demo, offer a short video walk-through instead of forcing a meeting. If the endgame is a full trial, invite the prospect to share how they handle the problem today. Each step down is a smaller ask that builds trust for the next.

This approach means doing things that do not scale, at least not yet. Record a quick, personalised video, reference a recent post or comment, write a line that proves you visited their site. These manual touches feel human because they are human. Everything repetitive, like the polite “just checking” bump two days later, can be automated. That mix is called human-in-the-loop: humans handle the first impression, software handles the routine follow-up.

A real conversation does more than move the deal forward. When prospects hit reply, spam filters see engagement and lift your sender reputation. Fewer messages land in junk, more land in the inbox and the loop strengthens itself. One clear, low-friction call to action opens that loop.

Pick the channel

A good outreach plan starts by choosing the place where your prospect is most likely to notice and trust you.

Email outreach

Email reaches almost everyone and scales well. Personalisation tokens drop straight into a template, attachments travel safely and every open or click feeds back into your CRM. The downside is deliverability. Cold domains need warming, authentication records must be correct and regional rules restrict who you can contact. Long or cluttered messages are skimmed, so clarity and brevity are essential.

LinkedIn message

A LinkedIn DM carries instant context because the recipient sees your face, role and mutual connections. Conversation threads stay visible, so follow-ups feel natural, and there is no spam folder to dodge. Limits on connection requests and daily messages hold volume down, and busy users often ignore unfamiliar DMs. Links sometimes expand into previews that push the call to action out of sight or demand extra clicks.

WhatsApp or SMS

Mobile alerts boast very high open rates and feel personal. They work well for quick confirmations or gentle nudges once a prospect has shown interest elsewhere. A message to a private number can feel intrusive if trust is not yet established. Formatting is minimal, long URLs look awkward and many regions require explicit opt-in, which shrinks the reachable pool.

Choose a format

Channel decides where the message lands; format decides how the idea is delivered.

Text only

Plain text is quick to write, easy to personalise and renders perfectly on every device. It keeps file sizes small, which helps deliverability. The trade-off is that without visuals it can feel generic, and complex ideas often need extra explanation in later emails.

Personalised video

A thirty-second screen share or face-to-camera clip proves there is a real human behind the reach-out and can double reply rates for technical tools. Recording takes time and some recipients hesitate to click video links from unfamiliar senders. Always include captions so the point lands even when the clip autoplays in silence.

Choose the mix that matches both your persona’s habits and your own capacity. You might open with a short text email, follow with a LinkedIn DM and reserve video for prospects who engage. We will map these touches into a full multi-step workflow in the sequencing chapter.

A cold outreach plan is useless if your messages never reach the inbox. Follow the practices below to keep domains healthy, preserve reputation and give every email a fair chance to be read.

Daily send limits

New domains should start at no more than 25 cold emails a day and grow to 150 over four weeks. Gradual, predictable volume reduces the risk of automatic blocks caused by sudden spikes in activity.

Warm up your domain

Send low-volume, genuine emails to friends, colleagues or a warm-up service for ten to fourteen days before launching the first campaign. Replies signal to mailbox providers that real people value your messages and raise your reputation score.

Deliverability checklist

Add SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, use a branded sending subdomain and avoid free addresses. Scan templates for common spam words, keep images below 30 % of total content and link to hosted files instead of attaching large documents.

Target benchmark metrics

Monitor opens, replies and bounces on a rolling seven-day basis. Healthy campaigns stay above 40 % opens, above 8 % replies and under 3 % bounces. Pause the sequence and check list quality or cadence if any metric drifts below these lines.

Honour unsubscribes

Move anyone who opts out to a suppression list and never contact them again. Ignoring opt-out requests invites spam complaints, hurts domain reputation and can breach compliance laws.

Rule of thumb for the first touch

Offer value, not a hard sell. Ask for a small next step, such as feedback on a two-minute video. Every genuine reply counts as positive engagement and lifts future deliverability.

These guidelines protect your sender reputation and keep the line open for meaningful conversations. When deliverability is stable you can start raising volume and refining copy rather than firefighting spam complaints.

You have now chosen your target accounts, defined a clear call to action, selected the right channels and formats and put deliverability safeguards in place. Together these decisions form a one-page outreach blueprint.

Next, begin warming your domain with the daily limits outlined above. Once the warm-up period is complete the account will be ready for configuration, list building and your first live sequence. Moving forward, each chapter will build on this foundation without risking the reputation you have just secured.