This cold email strategy books 100+ sales calls / month

In this article, I’ll show you the full end-to-end cold email system we’ve used to book 100 sales calls / month, which made just one of our software clients $5M in new ARR in just 11 months.

If you don’t know me, I’m Leon, the co-owner of leadarc.io. We’ve sent over 20M emails, done 100k+ cold calls and booked thousands of sales calls in 30+ different industries across software, physical products, manufacturing and other B2B services.

More Results:

• Dreamland (RE): 72 leads in 6 weeks
• Logistics SaaS: 300+ mid-market demos in 11 months
• Xenturo Strategies (Consulting): 75+ leads in 3 weeks
• ProfResults (Agency): 183 leads in 2 months
• Outbound Consulting: 180+ meeting ready leads / month
• Checkout Creatives (E-com): 124 leads in 4 months

This works.

In this article:

• Setup and Infrastructure
• Scripts and copywriting
• How to book in positive replies

Setup and Infrastructure

Let’s look at a conservative funnel for cold email:

So in order to book 105 calls / month, you need to send 350,000 emails per month.

Every contact gets 2 emails, so you need 175,000 contacts, and about 58,000 companies.

>> This is based on conservative numbers.

How do we send this volume without landing in spam?

Deliverability at this scale is complex, but I’ll simplify it as much as possible.

Deliverability

You can send a max. of 20 emails per inbox per day. Which means, for 11,666 emails per day:

• 583 inboxes
• 194 domains (connecting 3 inboxes to one domain)

Never send from your main domain!

Make sure to warm-up the domains for 2 weeks before sending anything, and slowly ramp up volume. Or just buy pre-warmed inboxes.

Other deliverability tips:

• Verify every email address before you send
• Buy high quality domains and inboxes
• Use high quality data to increase response rates (Combine different tools to enrich)
• Keep emails short and simple
• No images, links or embeds
• Keep subject lines between 1 and 3 words
• Check performance daily and troubleshoot / replace domains if needed

What else you need:

• Sequencer (EmailBison)
• Data Tools (Prospeo, BetterContact, Pitchbook, Clay and more)
• SDRs and reply handling
• AI to manage infrastructure

And more. It comes out to about 15-20 cents per email (or 5ct if you do it with us!)

Scripts and Copywriting

People overcomplicate this a lot.

Copywriting Frameworks

• Read your emails out loud. If you wouldn’t speak like that to a stranger, it won’t work.
  • E.g. just say “Hi / Hey name” instead of “Dear Mr. John”
  • E.g. say “Worth a chat?” instead of “Would you be interested in exploring this opportunity further?” and so on.
• Write in 3rd to 5th grade reading level. Simple copy works. Complicated copy just confuses people. And confused people don’t reply.
• Cut the fluff. Read your scripts multiple times and think “Does this word add value?” If no, remove it. Every character you add requires more attention, which you don’t have.
• WIIFM. What’s in it for me? Everyone who ever sees any sort of marketing asks themselves this question subconsciously. Talk less about yourself, and more about what they will get.
• Keep it casual. Across every single industry, with every level of buyer, casual emails worked better. Don’t be too formal, it’s not trustworthy and as important as you think.

^ If you follow these, it’s hard to mess up.

Let me give you some frameworks so you can start.

Cold Email Frameworks

We’ve sent 20M+ cold emails, these are one of the best performing scripts.

Framework 1: One-sentence email

Hey <name>, if we did <specific service> and get <outcome> <risk reversal>, would that be worth a quick chat?

Optional:

P.S. - Recently did this for <social proof>

Framework 2: Relevant pain point

Hey <name>, saw you <personalized AI statement that is relevant>.

Are you currently dealing with <pain you solve>?

If so, we’ll do <service / product> to get you <outcome> in <time> + <risk reversal>.

Recently did this for <known company> and got them <result>.

Interested?

Framework 3: Case Study

Hey <name>, recently got <client> <result> by doing <service / product>.

Confident we could do the same for you. You’d only <risk reversal>.

Want me to send over the case study?
Worth a chat?
Want to see the case study?
Interested?

Framework 4: Signal-based

Hey <name>, saw you guys are hiring <relevant position>.

I’ll do the same job, with <main USP> and <risk reversal>.

Already doing this for <client1>, <client2> and <client3>, getting them <outcome>.

Worth a quick chat?

These seem quite simple, and they are. That’s why it works.

Still, you need to keep split testing different frameworks all of the time.

Cold email is not a set-up-once-and-forget type of outreach channel.

It requires daily effort, skill and experience to get it right profitably and predictably.

Which is also why most companies end up saying “this doesn’t work.”

It does, you just need to do it right.

Booking Positive Replies

This is where a lot of people mess up. You get a bunch of leads and end up booking 5% of them onto an actual call.

As soon as we get a new positive response (within 5 minutes):

1. iMessage: A simple “Hey, it’s <name> from <company>.”
2. Call (Double Dial): Referring to the email they just received.
3. Respond via email
4. Connect on LinkedIn

>> This gives people multiple options to reply, and you continue the conversation there.

⚡ Speed to lead: Messaging / calling back leads within 5 minutes increases booking-rates by 391% (According to a Harvard study). Waiting an hour or longer drops it to 20%.

This is one of the easiest levers to pull in outbound and can 4x your results.

We do this for all of our clients because it is so effective.

From there on, you follow-up 7-12 times across 30 days to book them in. Follow the same copywriting principles for your follow-ups as well.