This is the cold email plan we'd run for an SEO content agency that wins rankings with articles and guides for one industry. It covers the signals that show a company needs content and the offer that gets them to reply and the emails word for word. Run it yourself or have us run it for you.
Content agencies do well with cold email when these things are true.
Your total market is every company in your industry that sells something people search for before they buy. For a software content agency that is every software company in its category. For an accounting content agency it is every firm big enough to want clients from outside its own town.
Narrow that to your ideal client before you build anything. Write down their size and the services they sell and the ones they want more of.
Content agencies get one gift in cold email. A company's blog shows exactly how much effort goes into content and anyone can read it in a minute. These are the signals worth looking for.
The date on the newest post tells the story. A company that posted every week and then stopped lost the person or the budget behind it.
Put the blog into Ahrefs or Semrush and look at search traffic by page. A long list of posts with almost no search traffic means they write about the wrong things.
Run a content gap in Ahrefs or Semrush against their closest competitor. It lists the topics the competitor ranks for and they don't.
A blog full of award announcements and team photos is not built to rank. Nobody searches for those posts.
Crunchbase shows new funding rounds. A company with fresh money and a new product needs buyers to find it and search is where those buyers start.
A content writer job on LinkedIn or Indeed means content is a priority this year. An agency can start next week and a new hire takes months to find.
The person who owns content at a small company is usually the founder or the head of marketing. At a bigger one it is the content lead or the marketing director.
Ten article titles picked from the content gap against their closest competitor. Each title shows the search it targets and the monthly volume. Ahrefs or Semrush finds the gap and a person picks the ten that fit the company.
It works because it is specific to them and it is exactly the work you sell.
Walk them through it on a 15 minute call. The titles only land when they match what the company sells best and the call is where they pick the order. A plan with no writer is a problem you already solve.
The five posts already on their blog that sit closest to page one and what each one is missing.
It works because the fix is cheap and fast and the pages are already theirs.
Show it on a screen share with each post open next to the page that outranks it. Seeing the difference side by side is what makes them ask you to finish the job.
Take the top title from their plan and write the full article in their voice. Hand it over ready to publish and charge nothing.
It works because it is the exact product they would buy every month. If they publish it and like it the retainer is simply more of the same.
It starts with a 20 minute call to hear how they explain their product and who they want reading. Deliver the draft within a week of that call. A draft that shows up on time says more about your agency than any pitch.
Each segment gets its own email because a specific email gets more replies than a general one. Split each segment by sub-industry too so the examples in the email fit the reader.
Keep each email under 100 words with one reason for writing and one line of proof and one offer and one question. The proof lines are examples of the kind of result to use. Swap in real results of your own before anything goes out.
Blogs with no new post in months. Lead with the date of the last post and offer the plan.
Hi {{first_name}},
The last post on the {{company}} blog went up in {{last_post_month}}.
We write content for {{industry}} companies only. Mapped out the next 10 posts I'd publish for {{company}} and the search each one goes after.
A 40-person company we write for went from 600 to 4,100 monthly visits from search in eight months.
Want me to walk you through the plan?
{{sender_first_name}}
They post often and nothing ranks. Lead with their post count next to their search traffic and offer the rewrite list.
Hi {{first_name}},
{{company}} has published {{post_count}} posts and they bring in about {{monthly_traffic}} visits a month from Google.
Found five of them sitting just off page one. Each needs a better draft and not a new post.
We rewrote five posts like that for a software company last year and three of them reached page one within two months.
Should I show you which five?
{{sender_first_name}}
Name the competitor and a few topics it ranks for that this company never covered. Offer the free article.
Hi {{first_name}},
{{competitor}} ranks for {{gap_count}} topics {{company}} has never written about. A few of them get real search volume every month.
Happy to write the first one free in your voice so you can judge the work before anything else.
The first article we wrote for our newest client reached page one for its main search in six weeks.
Interested?
{{sender_first_name}}
Lead with the round or the launch and ask for a call directly. New money usually comes with new targets for marketing.
Hi {{first_name}},
Saw {{company}} raised a {{round_type}} in {{round_month}}. Congrats.
Buyers search for {{category}} long before they talk to sales. We write the articles that show up when they do. A company we started with after its Series A gets about 30 demo requests a month from search a year later.
Worth 15 minutes to see what we'd publish first?
{{sender_first_name}}
Send two follow ups in the same thread three to five days apart.
Each reply should end in a booked meeting that actually happens. The lead magnet and the offer get delivered on that call and never go out as a file to read later.
The replies below cover the three ways people say yes.
They asked for the plan. The call is where the titles get matched to what they sell best.
Hi {{first_name}},
Happy to. The plan works best when the order matches what {{company}} most wants to sell this year. Fifteen minutes is enough to go through the 10 titles and pick the first three together.
Does Tuesday at 10am or Wednesday at 2pm work?
{{sender_first_name}}
They want the free article. The call gets the voice and the details right.
Hi {{first_name}},
Great. To write in your voice I need 20 minutes with you first. How you explain {{product}} and who you want reading it.
The draft comes back within a week of that call. Does Thursday at 11am or Friday at 3pm work?
{{sender_first_name}}
They said yes to a call. Tell them what they'll leave with so they show up.
Hi {{first_name}},
Perfect. I'll bring the searches your buyers make before they talk to sales and the first five articles I'd publish. You'll leave with a plan you could hand to any writer.
Does Monday at 1pm or Tuesday at 9am work?
{{sender_first_name}}
Results aren't guaranteed and nobody honest can promise a number before the first emails go out. A few things decide how a campaign does.
The first few weeks show how the market responds. The list and the copy and the offer get sharper from there.
We build and run this campaign for one agency per industry.
This page is a starting point and a strategy we'd happily test ourselves. Working together gives us more context on your agency. That context lets us add better strategies and build better lists and offers and automations for you.
Thirty minutes on your market and how we'd reach it.