This is the cold email plan we'd run for a firm that rents senior marketing leaders to companies in one industry. The best signal is a company that knows it needs a marketing leader and doesn't have one yet.
Your market is every growing company in your industry without a senior marketing leader. Many have junior marketers and nobody setting direction.
These are the signals worth looking for.
A job post for a CMO or a VP of marketing on LinkedIn means the seat is empty. Senior searches take months and marketing still has to run in the meantime.
Look at who works there. A company with a sales team and a couple of marketing coordinators and no leader above them.
Crunchbase shows the round. Investors expect a growth plan and marketing is a big part of it.
LinkedIn shows job changes. A CMO who left last month leaves a team without direction.
A new CEO usually reviews marketing in the first few months.
Lead with the job post and an interim option.
Lead with the team they have and the direction it needs.
Lead with the round and the plan the board will want.
Lead with the gap the departure left.
Software companies and manufacturers need different marketing leaders. Keep them in separate campaigns.
A written plan for what you would do as their marketing leader in the first 90 days. Based only on what is public about them.
It works because it shows how you think before they pay for anything. The next step is putting you in the seat.
For funded companies. One slide on marketing for their next board meeting with the goals and the numbers to watch.
It works because board meetings come around fast. A ready slide solves a real problem this month.
A fixed fee project over two weeks. Review their marketing and interview the team and deliver a plan in order of priority. Credit the fee against the first month.
It works because they get a plan they can use either way. The best person to run the plan is the one who wrote it.
Start within a week of the call.
Hi {{first_name}},
Saw {{company}} is hiring a {{job_title}}. While the search runs someone still has to run marketing.
We provide part-time marketing leaders for {{industry}} companies. Wrote up what I'd do in the first 90 days.
Want to read it?
{{sender_first_name}}
Hi {{first_name}},
Congrats on the {{round}}.
Put together what I'd do with marketing in the first 90 days after a raise like yours. One page.
Worth a look?
{{sender_first_name}}
Hi {{first_name}},
We give {{industry}} companies a senior marketing leader for a few days a month.
{{proof_line}}
Worth a conversation?
{{sender_first_name}}
Swap {{proof_line}} for one real result of your own. A company whose marketing you led and what changed. If there is no result yet then leave the line out.
The CEO or the founder hires a marketing leader. At private equity backed companies the operating partner often gets involved.
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.
We build and run this campaign for one agency per industry.
Thirty minutes on your market and how we'd reach it.