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Cold email for content marketing agencies.

This is the cold email plan we'd run for a content marketing agency that serves one industry. This page is about content that helps a company sell. Guides and reports and case studies and the pieces a sales team sends to buyers. It is less about rankings and more about trust.

Part 01

Is this for you?

Part 02

Your market.

Your market is every company in your industry that sells on expertise. Buyers take a long time to decide and they want proof the company knows its stuff before they talk to anyone.

The signals are all on their website and their LinkedIn pages.

  1. 01

    No case studies

    Their site lists clients and shows no stories about them. A company with happy clients and no case studies is leaving its best proof unused.

  2. 02

    An empty resources page

    A resources page with two old PDFs or no resources page at all. Buyers doing research find nothing to read.

  3. 03

    Experts who speak and never publish

    The founder spoke at a conference or went on a podcast and none of it made it onto the site. Listen Notes shows the podcast appearances.

  4. 04

    Good posts on LinkedIn and nothing on the site

    Their people write good things on LinkedIn. None of it lives anywhere the company owns.

  5. 05

    A launch with no launch content

    A new product or service on the site with a single paragraph describing it. Nobody wrote the guide that explains why it matters.

  6. 06

    A growing sales team

    Several open sales roles on LinkedIn or Indeed. New reps need material to send and someone has to write it.

Part 03

Segments.

  1. 01

    No case studies

    Lead with the client logos on their own site and the stories missing behind them.

  2. 02

    Speakers with nothing published

    Lead with the talk or the podcast episode and the article it could become.

  3. 03

    New launches

    Lead with the launch and the guide a buyer would need.

  4. 04

    Growing sales teams

    Lead with the open roles and the material those reps will ask for.

  5. 05

    One sub-industry at a time

    A report for wealth managers and a report for payroll software buyers answer different questions. Keep them in separate campaigns.

Part 04

Lead magnet.

  1. 01

    The report outline

    An outline for a research report they could publish by surveying their own clients. The chapter titles and the survey questions and the headline finding the survey is designed to test.

    It works because a report is the kind of thing buyers save and share. The survey and the writing are the job.

  2. 02

    The case study questions

    The interview questions you'd ask their best client and the outline of the story that comes out of it.

    It works because they can picture the finished piece with their own client in it. The next step is booking the interview.

Part 05

Front end offer.

  1. 01

    One case study written free

    They make the introduction to one happy client. You run the interview and write the story and design it. They pay nothing.

    It works because a case study is proof they can send to each new prospect for years. It also shows them your whole process from the first question to the finished piece.

    Deliver it within two weeks of the interview.

Part 06

The emails.

  1. 01

    The missing case studies email

  2. 02

    The talk email

  3. 03

    The direct email

    Swap {{proof_line}} for one real result of your own. A piece a client's sales team used to close a deal. If there is no result yet then leave the line out.

  4. 04

    The follow ups

    • Follow up one. Share the angle. "The headline for your guide would be {{guide_title}}. It answers the question buyers ask before they call."
    • Follow up two. Offer the case study. "Still happy to write your first case study free. You'd just introduce me to the client."
Part 07

The list.

At smaller companies the founder or the head of marketing decides. At bigger ones it is the content lead or product marketing.

Part 08

After they reply.

How much to expect.

Results depend on the offer and the list. Three outbound agencies that publish their own numbers land between one booked meeting per 1,000 people contacted and one per 2,000. One of them also tested 650,000 cold emails with a plain offer and got about 3 to 6 interested replies per 10,000 people.

Those are other people's numbers and not a promise about your market. Your market's number only comes from testing it.

Want this run for you?

We build and run this campaign for one agency per industry.

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Thirty minutes on your market and how we'd reach it.

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