Email Design Techniques

If 2024 taught us anything about Cold Email, it’s this: 👇 General ICP Outreach isn’t enough to drive results anymore. With deliverability getting tougher every day, there’s only one way to make outbound work: → Intent-Based Targeting Here’s how we do it at SalesCaptain to book 3x more demos ⬇️ Step 1️⃣ Identify High-Intent Triggers The goal? Find prospects showing buying signals. ✅ Website visits – Someone browsing pricing or case studies? (We use tools like RB2B, Leadfeeder, and Maximise.ai). ✅ Competitor research – Tools like Trigify.io reveal when prospects engage with competitor content. ✅ Event attendance – Webinar attendees or industry event participants often explore new solutions. (DM me for a Clay template on this) ✅ Job changes – Platforms like UserGems 💎 notify us when decision-makers start new roles (a prime buying window). ⚡️ Pro Tip: Categorize triggers: → High intent: Pricing page visits → Medium intent: Engaging with case studies This helps prioritize outreach for faster conversions. Step 2️⃣ Layer Intent Data with an ICP Filter Intent data alone isn't enough, you need to ensure the right audience fit. Tools like Clay and Clearbit help us: ✅ Confirm ICP fit using firmographics ✅ Identify the right decision-makers ✅ Validate work emails ✅ Enrich data for personalized messaging ⚡️ Key Insight: Not everyone showing intent fits your ICP. Filter carefully to avoid wasted resources. Step 3️⃣ Hyper-Personalized Outreach Golden Rule: Intent without context is meaningless. Here’s our outreach formula: 👀 Observation: Reference the trigger (e.g., webinar attended, pricing page visit) 📈 Insight: Address a potential pain point tied to that trigger 💡 Solution: Share how you’ve helped similar companies solve this pain 📞 CTA: Suggest an exploratory call or share a free resource ⚡️ Pro Tip: Use tools like Twain to personalize at scale without landing in spam folders. 📊 The Results? Since focusing on intent-based outreach, we’ve seen: ✅ 3x Higher Demo Booking Rates 📈 ✅ 40% Reduction in CPL (focusing on quality over quantity) ✅ Larger Deals in the Pipeline with higher-quality prospects It’s 2025. Let’s build smarter, more profitable campaigns. 💡 Do you use intent signals in your outreach? Drop me a comment below! 👇

If your plan this weekend is to blast 3-4 disconnected promotions in the next few days, STOP and rethink your approach. Let me explain. Here's what most brands do: Thursday: "NATIONAL DONUT DAY SALE!" Friday: "FREE SHIPPING SALE!" Sunday: "FLASH SALE!" Monday: "20% OFF PANTS!" Your customers and prospects? They're drowning in discount fatigue. Try this instead: Create a cohesive event, not random promotions: Thursday: "Announcing our Biggest Clearance Event (Early Access Tomorrow)" Friday: "The Clearance Event is LIVE" Sunday: "Clearance Event Update: Top sellers almost gone" Monday: "Final Hours: Clearance Event Ends Tonight" But the real magic isn't just in connected messaging. It's also in strategic audience narrowing - here's an example: Send 1: 120-day engaged + all purchasers (cast wide net) Send 2: 60-day engaged + clicked previous email (tighten focus) Send 3: 30-day engaged + didn't purchase yet (target the interested) Send 4: Engaged with previous emails but haven't purchased (final push) Then segment further by: First-time buyers vs. repeat customers Price-sensitive vs. premium shoppers Category preferences And layer in SMS for high-intent signals, less batch and blast. Only text people who clicked but didn't purchase Or for time sensitive messages: Final "hours left" reminder From my experience, this approach doubled the average click-through rate and revenues. Stop treating each promotion as an isolated discount. Start creating a narrative that builds anticipation and focuses on your most engaged audiences. Leverage the power of event marketing in email and sms. Real strategy will increase your revenue. What's your go to for your email and sms marketing strategy?

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘇𝘆? 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻’𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘀. They slap a first name in there and call it a day. Spoiler: that’s not personalization. Real personalization has almost nothing to do with fancy merge tags or crazy branching flows. It’s all about timing, intent, and knowing what someone’s actually ready for. When I dig into accounts, I see the same thing over and over: A broad segment here. A merge tag there. And nothing else that speaks to what the customer actually wants. 𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗺𝗲, 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘆: → 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗧 Send based on people's actions, not just who they are. When the message matches behavior, it feels personal. → 𝗞𝗘𝗘𝗣 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗬 𝗦𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗟𝗘 Don’t build ten versions of the same email. One strong message, timed well, does more than a giant flow with minor tweaks. → 𝗨𝗦𝗘 𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗡𝗔𝗟𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗗𝗥𝗜𝗩𝗘 𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗨𝗟𝗧𝗦 Viewed product, added to cart, bought once, bought again. These tell you more than any “age 25 to 34” segment ever will. → 𝗠𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗢𝗡𝗘 𝗖𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗥 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗠𝗜𝗦𝗘 Say the thing they care about in the first two lines. Personalization is clarity, not decoration. → 𝗦𝗘𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗡𝗘𝗫𝗧 𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗣, 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗙𝗨𝗟𝗟 𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗨 Guide the customer. Don’t overwhelm them with too many paths. The funny part? Brands overcomplicate email because they’re scared of being “too simple.” But simple, intent-based emails almost always outperform the overengineered ones — and they drive more revenue, too.

Cold email is not dying. Volume-based cold email is. The teams still blasting 10,000 generic sequences are hurting themselves twice — burning domains and generating zero pipeline. Meanwhile, Instantly's 2026 benchmark data across 700,000+ businesses tells a different story: elite senders are hitting 10%+ reply rates. The average? 3.43%. That gap is not luck. It's signal discipline. At a previous, we made the same mistake most early-stage SaaS companies make we optimised for volume because it felt like progress. More sequences. More domains. More follow-ups. What we got was a steadily degrading sender reputation and a sales team chasing ghost conversations. The shift that changed our results was moving from list-first to signal-first. Here's what that actually looks like in practice: — Hiring signals (VP of Sales just joined = active team building) — Funding signals (Series A in last 90 days = budget unlocked) — Product launch signals (new feature announced = pain amplified) — Website visit signals (they found you = intent is warm) When those signals collapse into a micro-segment, the message writes itself. You're not selling you're acknowledging something they already feel. That's why campaigns under 50 recipients average 5.8% response rates while lists of 500+ average 2.1%. The math is brutal and clear. The other non-negotiable: email length. Elite performers average under 80 words on first touch. Every word that doesn't earn its place kills reply rate. Not "might reduce" kills. What we do at Ryesing now is build signal-triggered lead lists before a single word of copy gets written. The message is a conclusion, not an introduction. What's the most reliable signal your team uses to prioritise outreach timing and has it changed in the last 12 months? #GTM #Outbound #SaaS #B2BMarketing

Most outbound teams send more emails and get fewer replies. Here's why: They treat outbound like a numbers game. Scrape a database. Blast 10,000 emails. Hope something sticks. But that's not strategy. That's spam at scale. Here's the workflow that actually works: Step 1: Start with Intelligence, Not Volume Use Sales Navigator + Apollo to build lists based on real signals (hiring, funding, tech stack changes). Don't just scrape. Target with intent. Step 2: Enrich for Relevance Use Clay or similar to layer in context: recent posts, company news, trigger events. Generic personalization = "Hi {FirstName}, great post about that restaurant…" Real personalization = "{FirstName}, saw you recently hired 3 AEs..." Step 3: Write Sequences That Sound Human This is where Saleshandy comes in. Most tools let you blast emails. Saleshandy lets you build sequences that: → Test multiple variations of subject lines and copy (A-Z testing) → Detect timezones for optimal delivery → Automate follow-ups based on prospect actions Step 4: Protect Your Deliverability → Sequence score predicts campaign success before launch → Email warmup builds sender reputation → Sender rotation distributes volume across accounts → Inbox Radar shows where emails land BEFORE you send Step 5: Measure What Matters Opens mean nothing. Replies mean everything. Track reply rates by segment, message type, and timing. Double down on what works. Kill what doesn't. The difference? This isn't about sending MORE. It's about sending BETTER. Fewer emails. Higher relevance. More conversations. Question: Would you rather send 10,000 emails and pray... or send 1,000 strategic messages and actually fill your pipeline?

Contrary to typical sales practices, I don’t like to sell panic. Phrases that make you act out of desperation, like: “Act now before it’s too late”, “Stop leaving money on the table” … work against our nervous system as opposed to with it. Because I believe the best decisions are made when grounded in confidence, calm and intention. Five years into building her business supporting fashion manufacturers, my client knew this desperation well. But post-covid, the industry went from expansion mode to survival mode. The sales pitch that worked back then, no longer worked today. She had investors to answer to, and staff to train. Every decision and problem fell on her shoulders. Can you imagine the weight of that pressure? As someone who supports founders, I couldn’t imagine adding to it. The last thing she needed was someone yelling "hustle harder." The challenge was clear on the surface: they weren’t booking enough sales calls, and when they did, they couldn’t close them. But the real culprit wasn’t speed. It was direction. At first, she was hesitant to pause. Stopping to think felt like a risk when the pressure was to move fast. But I proposed we get to the bottom of things properly. While she took a step back, I rebuilt her messaging piece by piece. I interviewed factory leaders, re-analysed her sales call notes, and dug for the new insights that can actually drive decisions in the industry. When she returned with fresh eyes, we had the answers. We built a new sales messaging manifesto from the ground up. It wasn't louder, just smarter. Immediately after sending out the first email with the new messaging, their sales call bookings increased by 50%. Moving quickly doesn’t get you anywhere if it is a knee jerk reaction. Moving with intention is where the magic happens. And we can’t find intention through panic. What about you? Are you someone who acts positively or negatively in times of panic?

Adding more prospects to your campaign is not how you get more positive replies. It's knowing which 50 people to send to. Too many people panic when their sequences aren't converting. They double the list size, lower the bar on ICP fit, but reply rates keep dropping. That's not a volume problem. That's a targeting problem. Just because a prospect fits your ICP does not mean they are ready to buy. Fit and timing are two different things, and most outbound ignores timing completely. Here's the system I use to fix that: 1. Build a list of contacts that fit your ICP This is your starting pool, not your final list. Fit is the entry requirement, not the finish line. 2. Find and validate their email addresses Bad data kills good sequences before they even start. Validate before you send. 3. Layer in signals This is where you separate the 50 from the 500. Signals tell you who is already in motion, actively looking for what you offer. Three types to look for: a) Buying intent - hiring for roles tied to your solution, attending relevant events, leaving negative reviews on G2 or Capterra b) Trigger-based intent - recent funding, new leadership, product launches c) Interest-based intent - engaging with content about your problem space, website visits 4. Personalise based on the signal, not just the persona The signal tells you why you're reaching out right now. That's your opening line. That's what makes it feel relevant instead of random. 5. Add them to a sequence on tool like lemlist Use the A/B test feature to try different formats. You learn faster, and faster learning compounds into better results over time. 6. Write 2 follow-ups after your initial email Most replies don't come from the first touch. The follow-up is where intentional outbound separates itself from the blast-and-hope approach. Inboxes are getting louder. More people are doing cold email than ever before. That's not a reason to send more. It's a reason to get more intentional. Cold email was never about volume. It was always about relevance.

Here’s the truth: Personalisation ≠ Relevance. Most salespeople still think writing “Hey {{first_name}}, saw your post!” counts as personalisation. It’s not. It’s lazy relevance. Mentioning a random post ≠ context. Visiting the website ≠ intent. Complimenting a milestone ≠ opportunity. Here’s the difference - ❌ Personalisation: “Hey John, congrats on the funding!” ✅ Relevance: “You recently raised $8M and started hiring AEs. Guessing outbound is about to get crowded.” ❌ Personalisation: “Loved your post on leadership.” ✅ Relevance: “You mentioned your team struggles to prioritise deals. That’s usually a sign of low outbound data confidence.” See the shift? Relevance is about timing and context, not flattery and fillers. When you lead with what matters now, you don’t sound like a stranger but you sound like someone paying attention. Real personalisation starts where context meets intent. Here’s my 3-level framework we use before sending any cold email: 1. Signal: What actually happened (funding, hiring, product launch, partnership, etc.) 2. Intent: Why it matters to their role. 3. Angle: How your solution naturally fits into that story. Example 👇 1. Signal: A company hired 3 AEs. 2. Intent: They’re scaling outbound. 3. Angle: “You’re likely setting up new outbound workflows. Most teams struggle to make personalisation scale, we built something to fix that.” That’s the Relevance Matrix I use before every cold email. No guesswork. No fluff. Just context that converts. #sales #sdr #prospecting #AI #personalisation #coldemail #relevance P.S. - Are your cold emails getting ignored? DM me "Cold" for free feedback.

You don’t need better intent data. You need to read the internet like a buyer in pain. Most teams wait for big trigger events like funding rounds or leadership hires before reaching out. But by the time those hit the wire, you're already in a crowded inbox. The smarter move is to track micro-triggers….subtle signals that surface in a prospect’s digital footprint. –An engineer asking “anyone using <tool>?” on Twitter. –A VP reposting Gartner’s latest quadrant. –A quiet change in job title from “Marketing” to “Growth Marketing.” These aren’t random. They’re symptoms of an internal pain or evaluation moment. You can track them in under 15 minutes a day. Use TweetDeck, Talkwalker, or Google Alerts with Boolean searches like “looking for <solution type>” or “recommendations for <category>.” Add qualifiers to stay tight on your ICP. Then focus on the context - why they asked, what they liked, who else chimed in. Reach out with value, not pitch. Example: “We actually built a free comparison matrix for tools in that space—no forms or opt-ins, just sharing it in case it helps.” It’s a trust-first play. Over time, log these signals into a daily queue. Company, name, trigger phrase, context, and potential angle. Five responses a day based on micro-triggers will outperform twenty generic touches built on stale intent data. The opportunity isn't in volume. It's in timing. Rooting for you, Tom

The #1 reason your email list is underperforming…. You’re sending the same message to people with completely different reasons to buy. Not segmentation by demographics. Not A/B testing subject lines. Not prettier templates or flashier copy. The problem is misalignment. When the message doesn't feel like it's for you, it gets deleted. Last month, I was reviewing a clothing brand with 82,000 subscribers. Email/SMS SHOULD be printing money. But every campaign? Same everything. Same angle. Same offer. Same urgency. To everyone. Grandma buying gifts. Dad into hunting gear. Mom shopping for school clothes. All getting the same email. The results were brutal… <20% open rates. 0.3% clicks. Revenue per send barely covering costs. Not because the list was bad. Because the message doesn’t match the moment. So here’s what we did: We stopped writing to "our audience" and started writing to why they buy. • Parents got: "Outgrown last season's tee? Here's what's next." • Gift buyers got: "Got a birthday coming up? These were made for it." • Hunters got: "The hunt is over. Our #1 camo design is back." The results? Open rates jumped to 34%. Click rates hit 2.8%. Revenue per send increased 4x. It’s not rocket science. It’s relevance. Write to one real person with one real reason to care at the exact moment they need it solved. Most agencies think segmentation means splitting by company size or industry. That's surface-level thinking. Real segmentation is intent-based. Want the framework? Reply "INTENT" and I'll send you the breakdown.