8 Steps to Get Your Outbound Up & Running (Without Overthinking It)
+ 15 Email Templates every GTM Pro should use
Dear GTM Strategist,
I vividly remember the day when I had to send my first email to 5000 strangers - accountants from the UK. Gloria Gaynor described it beautifully:
At first, I was afraid; I was petrified.
It was way worse.
I was so terrified to do it.
So many thoughts run through my head - will people hate me for spamming their inbox, will they block me on LinkedIn, what if they think I am an idiot, and I’ll get fired?
The whole office gathered around my workstation at the tiny startup I was working at in 2015, and they cheered me on to send that email.
But I survived to tell a story. Sure, there were some unsubscribes and a few negative replies, but that campaign generated initial leads and sales for the invoicing product we were launching at the time.
While I totally admit that outbound (sending email to strangers) is scary and we are annoyed as people when we get our inboxes with “I reviewed your website, we offer professional WordPress services"… it does get easier …
… I also 110% believe that outbound is one of the quickest and cheapest ways to book the next batch of meetings, demos, or users.
But only when you do it right.
In the world of AI-generated-everything (entry barriers for bad outbound have never been lower), we get bombarded with offers every time we open our emails or LinkedIn DMs.
As a decision maker, I still buy from outbound and as an entrepreneur, I plan outbound campaigns for nearly all of our clients - some PLG companies excluded. Why?
Because it still works, and it will continue to work in 2026 and beyond.
To make your outbound experience a bit smoother than mine was, it is my pleasure to walk you through 3 essential sections in this newsletter:
We’ll share 8 steps on how to get your outbound campaigns up and running
You’ll get 15 outbound email templates that we use and think every GTM pro should consider using
We’ll explore how to transition from an outbound “campaign experiment” to a predictable, scalable GTM motion (way to acquire clients).
I promise not to hold back here.
Do you promise not only to read this one, but to put it to work to fill your calendar for 2026?
Well, give me a chance here :)
Hunter kindly supports this Substack.
This was the first outbound tool that I’ve ever used (back in 2017 :) ), and it got so much better since. It now serves as an integrated, end-to-end platform.
You can get email addresses, phone numbers from your decision makers there, find relevant signals that they are receptive to your offer (hiring for specific roles, changes in the buying committee, technologies used, and fundraising activity), craft great outreach drafts there with their powerful AI writer, do the mass customization, send campaigns directly from there, and so much more. In terms of high-quality data & low complexity of usage, they are #1 choice on the market.
As a reader of the GTM Strategist, you can get an exclusive deal - 250 free credits valid for 6 months after you create your account. That is 250 emails that you can send to book your next meetings with companies that are likely to buy from you.
Outbound isn’t rocket science. But it is a system.
At its core, outbound is a predictable system: right companies → right people → right message → right infrastructure → enough volume → booked meetings.
Teams that try to start with outbound motion typically fail for two reasons:
no strategy
too much strategy
Teams either spray 20 random emails and conclude “outbound doesn’t work”… or they disappear into an 8-week rabbit hole of ICP exercises, buying tools they don’t need, drawing funnels in Figma, only not to execute campaigns fast enough.
Outbound only works when you understand why you’re reaching out, who you’re reaching out to, and what you want to say… before you send anything.
Here are 8 steps you should follow to build an effective outbound motion that books you meetings.
1. Define the Problem You Solve (Not the Product You Sell)
Most outbound dies in the first sentence because it’s about you: your product, your features, your clever wording.
This might hurt you, but the reality is that prospects don’t care about you.
They care about their problem that they’re stuck with.
So before you do anything, write down four things:
The core pain points your product eliminates
Who feels these pain points the most (role + company type)
What happens if they don’t fix it
What happens if they implement your product (benefits, not features)
This becomes your outbound backbone.
Every email you write will come back to this.
2. Decide Who You’re Selling To (TAM → ICP → Most Likely to Buy Now)
Once you’ve defined the pain points your product solves and its benefits, it’s time to understand which companies feel these pains the most and are willing to pay for the solution.
Most outbound efforts fail because people think they know they are targeting “HR”.
The reality is that you need to have a deeper and segmented understanding of your ICP in order to craft a copy that resonates.
The problems that a 50-employee company will have are very different to the one that has 5,000 employees.
Start by defining your target audience big, and then narrow it down. The narrower the definition, the more likely that your message will convert into a meeting.
TAM (Total Addressable Market)
Everyone who could theoretically use your solution.
ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)
The slice of your TAM where you win most consistently. Companies that should get the most value from your solution.
ICP is typically defined by:
industry
company size
maturity
business model
tech stack
internal processes
“Most Likely to Buy Now” (High Intent) List
This is where outbound actually begins.
You take your ICP and apply signals to isolate companies that have a reason to buy now.
Signals can include:
active hiring in the problem area you solve
funding events
new leadership (CPO / CHRO / VP Sales)
rapid growth / new office opening
using a known competitor
new regulations
product launches
This step converts your ICP from “theoretically good fit” into “practically motivated buyer”.
Your outbound list 👉 ICP + signals = Most Likely to Buy Now.
As a rule: 👉Don’t start outbound with fewer than 200 qualified accounts.
Relevance matters more than volume, but you still need enough surface area for statistical reality.
3. Understand Who You’re Reaching Out to (personas by company size)
Going back to the previous example, “selling to HR” is not precise enough.
Different company sizes → different role ownership → different pain → different messaging.
Here’s an example of a better customer persona segmentation:
1-50 employees
No formal HR in many cases.
The “HR person” is often the founder, office manager, or operations generalist.
Your buyer is a “do-everything” person drowning in tasks.
50-250 employees
You start seeing HR Manager, People & Culture, Talent Acquisition Lead.
They still do hands-on work and feel the pain directly.
250-1000 employees
Roles get more specialized.
Head of Talent, Head of People, HRBP.
These people own processes and KPIs.
1000+ employees
Director / VP of Talent Acquisition, CHRO.
They care about strategy, risk, brand, scalability.
Day-to-day pain is one step removed, but budget power is higher.
You don’t pitch a founder like you pitch a VP of Talent Acquisition.
So before you send anything, answer:
“For companies of size X, which actual job title owns this problem?”
“What does their day look like?”
4. Build Your “Most Likely to Buy Now” List (Companies → People → Verified Data)
Now it’s time to put everything together and create your high-quality outbound list that is ready for outreach.
a) Most Likely to Buy Now Companies
Your outbound list should be:
ICP + high-intent signals = “Most likely to buy now”.
For each company, find the most relevant signal that would indicate the need for your product (i.e. lead scoring):
They’re hiring in the area you impact (e.g. multiple roles in HR, sales, CS).
They recently raised funding.
They’re expanding into a new market.
They use a tool you integrate with.
They’re using a competitor that has known gaps.
These signals are your icebreakers and relevance anchors.
b) People: Map the Right Contacts Inside Each Company
Using your persona breakdown from Step 3, identify:
Primary buyers (1–3 per company)
Secondary influencers (1–2 optional)
Pick the roles based on company size.
Your relevance depends on emailing the right persona with the right angle.
5. Enrich Contacts with Verified Data
This is the point where most outbound breaks - not because of messaging, but because of bad data.
If your contact data is weak, your entire outbound system collapses in following ways:
a. Bad data destroys deliverability
Every bounce is a negative signal to inbox providers.
If you stack up enough bounces, you’ll quietly get pushed to spam, no matter how good your emails are.
Hunter’s verification API and Data Platform exist for exactly this reason - to ensure the emails you send actually land.
b. Bad data kills relevance
If you reach:
the wrong person
someone who left 18 months ago
someone who never owned the problem in the first place
…you’re not doing outbound, you’re doing noise.
Outbound only works when the right message reaches the right person.
So what does “good data” actually mean?
At minimum:
Verified email (verified, not “catch-all”)
Correct name & title (reflecting the current org chart)
Updated within the last few months
6. Set Up Sending Infrastructure Properly
This is the boring part nobody wants to deal with.
It’s also the part that determines whether your emails land in an inbox or in a black hole.
Follow these 5 rules to make sure your email lands in the primary inbox:
a. Use secondary domains
Never run cold outreach from your main domain.
If your primary domain gets burned, your entire business suffers - support emails, customer comms, sales replies… everything.
Instead, get a couple of alternate domains (or more if needed) that will be used only for outbound.
This gives you a safety layer between experimentation and your core brand.
b. Create at least 2 inboxes per domain
This keeps volume healthy without blasting from one address.
Example:
sam@trycompany.com
alex@trycompany.com
This allows you to spread your volume across inboxes and maintain a healthy reputation.
c. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
Think of these as your email authentication passport.
They are the DNS records that make your domain “trustworthy.”
If they’re misconfigured, mailbox providers penalize you automatically.
If you’ve never done DNS changes before, you can follow Hunter’s guide to set everything up.
d. Warm up your domains for 2–3 weeks
A brand-new domain is a newborn - fragile and suspicious to mailbox providers.
Warm-up rules:
Send very low volume at first (10–15 emails/day/inbox)
Gradually increase volume over ~3 weeks
Mix authentic emails, replies, and internal communication during early warm-up
e. Respect daily volume caps and pacing
Most teams blow their domain reputation by sending too many emails too fast.
Realistic safe caps:
30 emails/day per inbox when starting
Scale up to 50 emails/day per inbox once reputation is stable (after a month or two)
At least 7 minutes between each email (longer is better)
This pacing makes your sending behaviour look human, not robotic.
7. Use a Proven Email Framework
Most cold emails fail because they’re:
too long
too vague
too self-centered
too “salesy”
too unclear about why the sender is showing up today
Instead, use this proven 4-part structure for every first touch email you are sending to improve your reply rate:
1. Why you’re reaching out now
This is where signals matter.
This sentence answers:
“Why are you emailing me today?”
Examples of triggers you can reference:
hiring pattern
funding
product launch
new leadership
competitor usage
Examples of an icebreaker line with triggers:
“Saw you’re hiring 8 SDRs…”
“Noticed you opened a new office in Berlin…”
“Congrats on your Series A…”
“You recently launched X…”
“New Head of CS joined last quarter…”
This shows you’re paying attention.
It tells the reader: This email was written for you, not a template blasted to 5,000 people.
2. Identify a likely problem they might have
Here you demonstrate empathy + expertise.
You’re not guessing. You’re pattern-matching a specific friction tied to their role and company size (or signal).
Examples:
“Teams scaling hiring this fast often struggle to keep interview quality consistent.”
“When companies expand into new markets, ticket backlog tends to spike.”
“New TA leaders usually inherit fragmented tooling and manual processes.”
You’re showing that you understand their world.
3. Explain how you help + 1 social proof point
Do not bombard them with all the features your product has, instead focus on what outcome you deliver and attach relevant social proof to it. Here you should follow this structure: Outcome → Mechanism → Proof.
Examples:
“We help companies reduce onboarding time by 40% by centralizing enablement docs (used by Miro & Pendo).”
“We help TA teams cut screening time by 70% using automated shortlisting (companies like Deel and Contentsquare use it).”
4. Clear, low-friction CTA
Instead of asking the prospect for an hour-long Zoom call, try with micro-commitment and interest-based call to actions:
“Worth a quick look?”
“Open to exploring if this is on your roadmap?”
“Want me to share more context?”
“Should I send over a short teardown?”
“Can I send you the 60-second overview?”
These CTAs require almost zero cognitive load and boost your chances of getting a positive reply.
The Anatomy of a Great Cold Email (putting it all together):
Trigger → “Saw X happening on your end.”
Problem → “Teams at your stage usually struggle with Y.”
Value + Proof → “We help companies fix Y by doing Z (used by ABC).”
CTA → “Worth a quick look?”
This should be 4–6 lines total.
BONUS: GET 15 EMAIL FRAMEWORKS EVERY GTM SHOULD BE SENDING
5. Send Follow-ups That Add Value
Most people “follow up” by:
bumping
nagging
saying “just checking in”
trying to guilt the prospect
This doesn’t bring any additional value to the prospect.
A good follow-up does one thing: adds new context or new value.
And you only need 2 follow-ups - not 7, not 10.
Here’s how to structure them:
Follow-Up 1 - Add Context
Send it 2–4 days after email 1. The goal is to enrich the original problem statement, not repeat it.
Principles:
Reply in the same thread
Don’t apologize for following up
Don’t “bump”
Don’t guilt-trip (“haven’t heard back…”)
Instead:
Assume positive intent
Add a new insight, angle, or clarification
Keep it short
Reinforce why now
Examples:
“Adding context - teams hiring 5+ AEs quickly usually start seeing inconsistency in onboarding.”
“Noticed you’re also expanding CS headcount. That’s usually when response times slip.”
“One pattern we see with companies at ~100 employees is…”
Follow-Up 2 - New Angle + Lower Friction CTA
Send 3–5 days after Follow-Up 1.
The goal is not to restate the same value.
It’s to offer a different dimension:
time saved
risk reduced
cost avoided
quality improvement
speed gained
Then pivot to a softer CTA:
“If this isn’t a priority, happy if you just hit ‘later’ and I’ll circle back then.”
“Or if someone else owns this, feel free to redirect me.”
8. Track What Works & Scale
Outbound becomes predictable only when you track what’s happening. You need enough volume to spot real patterns, and a structured way to convert those patterns into a repeatable operating system.
Minimum conditions for learning
1,000 contacts
across 2+ weeks
using clean, verified data
through warmed, authenticated domains
What good looks like
2–3% positive reply rate → solid
3–5%+ → strong fit
<1% → something’s wrong
bad data
weak signal
vague messaging
deliverability issues
Patterns you should watch for
Are replies clustering around certain industries?
Are certain roles replying more than others?
Are certain signals driving more interest?
Is one subject line outperforming all others?
Are bounces too high (bad data)?
Are auto-replies high (timing issue)?
Scale what worked
If something worked, it becomes the new default - not a one-off.
Preserve:
the segment that replied most
the persona that showed strongest intent
the subject lines that consistently drove opens
the best-performing Email #1
the follow-up angles that converted
the CTAs that earned replies
the signals that actually correlated with interest
recurring objections (these sharpen your pitch)
Outbound becomes dramatically easier when you stop reinventing the wheel and double down on proven patterns.
Remove what didn’t work
Outbound improves faster through elimination than addition.
Cut:
segments with <1% reply rate
messaging angles that fell flat
signals that showed no predictive value
personas who never engaged
subject lines with weak performance
follow-ups that generated negative sentiment
anything that damaged deliverability
At this point, outbound shifts from experimentation to mathematics:
Volume × (Reply Rate × Qualification Rate × Conversion Rate) = Pipeline
You’re no longer guessing - you’re operating a predictable engine.
And in the next Substack, we’ll dive into GTM analytics so you know exactly what to measure and how to interpret the signals your pipeline sends you.
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