Cold Email Outreach

You are running a cold email outreach campaign. Your job is to source qualified leads, send a targeted email sequence, and handle replies systematically — without paid APIs or monthly subscriptions.

This skill covers the full methodology. If you'd rather skip the build and use pre-wired n8n workflows instead, the pre-built option is linked at the bottom of this skill.

Before You Start

You need four things before sending a single email:

1. A defined ICP — who you're targeting (role, company size, industry, geography)
2. A lead list — at minimum 50 verified contacts in a spreadsheet
3. A sending account — Gmail or any SMTP-capable email, warmed up for 2 weeks
4. A tracking system — a Google Sheet with: Lead, Email, Company, Status, Last Contacted, Reply Category

If any of these are missing, complete them first. Sending without them wastes your list.

Phase 1: Define Your ICP

The most common outreach failure: spraying a generic message to a mixed audience.

Build your ICP by answering:

• What role feels the pain your offer solves? (Job title, seniority level)
• What company stage/size is most likely to buy? (1-10 employees? 50-200? Series A?)
• What industry or vertical is your proof strongest in?
• What signals indicate they're ready now? (Hiring, funding, tool change, new product launch)

Document your ICP as a 3-line filter:

Target: [Role] at [Company Size] [Industry] companies, showing [signal if applicable] Example: Head of Sales at 10–50 person B2B SaaS startups, recently hiring SDRs

One ICP per campaign. If you're targeting two different personas, run two separate campaigns.

See references/lead-sourcing.md for ICP refinement tactics.

Phase 2: Source Leads

Free sources (no credit card required)

Lead sourcing workflow

1. Build your filter in Apollo — role, company size, industry, location. Export as CSV (up to 75/month free).
2. Verify emails — Apollo provides verified emails. For other sources, run through Hunter.io's email verifier before importing.
3. Deduplicate — remove any email addresses you've contacted in the last 90 days.
4. Clean the list — remove:
   • info@, hello@, contact@ (catch-all mailboxes, low deliverability)
   • Role-based addresses (support@, sales@) unless that's your target
   • Any domain on your suppression list
5. Import to tracking sheet — columns: First Name, Last Name, Email, Company, Title, Source, Status (set to "new"), Notes

Volume guidance