I started doing outbound email campaigns recently and realised that its an ocean in itself . I have put together my learnings for the benefit of some one starting newly. The presentation covers the following: 1. How to create a target list? 2. What content to send in an email? 3. How to handle a campaign 4. Further reading material to learn more The presentation details the tools required to run a with $0 investment. The presentation also provides details on tools which will improve efficiency and can be used when your campaign starts to scale.

1. Setting up Outbound Email
Campaigns
Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

2. How MeasuringWhat
Is it
working?
Who
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

3. HowWhat Is it working?
Who
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

4. Who - do we reach out to?
The first step is to identify and create a list of your target audience (Prospects). We do it the following way:
1. Create a list of target companies (Accounts)
2. Create a list of people you want to contact in these companies (Leads)
3. Find out contact details of these prospects (Research)
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

5. Database Generation
The following tools will help you accomplish Step 1 & 2
1. Linkedin
2. X-Ray search Linkedin - Reference (If you are using Linkedin Premium or Sales Navigator account,
then X-Ray search may not be relevant)
3. Clearbit Sheets
4. Company websites (Org Charts, Team page, Contact Us page)
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

6. Database Curation
Step 3 is slightly complex and not very straight forward. But luckily, there are plenty of tools available to
help us out. Either one of them or a combination of more than one of them will help you get the task done
80% of the time.
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies
You can use the following tools to validate the
email id
● Rapportive
● Clearbit Connect
● Email Hunter
● Mail Tester
● Quick Mail Verification
You can use the following tools to guess email
ids
● Name2Email from Clearbit
● Email Permutator

7. HowWhatWho
Is it
working?
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

8. What - do we send to them?
You can refer to the email templates from:
● Yesware
● ReplyApp
● Hubspot
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies
Content is the most important part of an email campaign. You can write the content yourself or hire a
professional agency or modify template available in the internet. By following a set of best practices, you
will be able to develop a killer sales email for your company.
● Short, specific and personalised/customized subject line
● Content & subject line should match
● Personalise content - First name, Company name, any anecdotes
● Short, simple & sweet - Be to the point and make it easy to read on a smartphone.
● One simple call to action - make it easy to respond to.
● Avoid HTML content. Use plain text.
● Enable instant opt-out
● Breakthrough Email
● 40 great subject lines from Thrivehive

9. SPAM Check
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies
Its is also important to ensure that your email does not get mistaken as spam. You can prevent this by
taking care while drafting your content. There are tools available on the web which check your email
against keywords commonly identified with spam emails.
● Email Spam Test
● Spam Check
● Mail-Tester

10. A few samples
Here are a few emails from my Inbox which I had opened and responded to.
Check your inbox and am sure you will find many interesting examples :)

11. Venkat, a Quick Introduction!
Hi Venkat,
I understand that you are the Co-Founder & CEO at Focaloid and given our customers who use similar
technology, a chat may be beneficial.
In short we have created Marketing & Sales automation that salespeople have been craving by shoring
up the shortcomings, filling up the blindspots and relieving the frustrations of current solutions. The
difference is obvious - See for yourself.
We are a SaaS-based startup from India with more than 8000+ sales users across the globe helping them
sell faster over teams using old school CRM's.
Are you available for a quick chat this week or Mon/Tue of next week?
Cheers!
Hi Venkat,
I'm sure you have been busy with work. My intent is not to be a pain.
I’m going to assume that for one reason or another, you aren’t open to connecting at this time to discuss
on LeadSquared.
If I’m mistaken and you are open to connecting with me for a brief chat sometime in the near future or
even direct me to somebody from your team, Send me a quick Email. Either way, I wish you the best. :)
Cheers!
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies
Personalization
Benefit for the recipient
Introduction (Short & sweet)
Call to action

12. Hi Venkat! Startup Question
Hi Venkat, i saw Focaloid and reached out. We like you to join our bangalore CEO club.
The goal is to share growth hacks, hiring tips, advice, and grow our network with like minded people. We are
all on an incredible journey building fast growth companies. This is the best network to have for any
entrepreneur.
Is it cool if i send more details?
PS - attached photo with Flipkart founder, Sachin Bansal, at our last meeting :)
Vlad
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies
Personalization
Benefit to the recipient
Call to action
Bait / Proof

13. Hi Venkat, I need your help
Hi Venkat, Can you help?
I am working on the next book in the Marketing Tactics Series and my focus this time is email list
building. I am compiling the ultimate list of practical tactics that anyone can start using as soon as they
read them. My goal is 200 of the highest quality tactics that go beyond the basic "Put a pop up on your
site". I will also categorise each tactic by difficulty, type and industry. If you need to build an audience I
want this to be the go to reference book!
This is where I need your help.
What list building tactics have you tried that worked great. Have you seen any great examples from
other people? Can you share it with me via this form please?
Every single contribution will get a thank you in the book and a digital copy when published.
If your tactic is used you will get full credit and attribution and I will send you a signed copy of the book.
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies
Personalization, clear subject
Call to action.
Subject and content is matched
Introduction + Benefit to recipient

14. What HowWho
Is it
working?
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

15. A typical outbound campaign will look like this:
Day 1 - Intro email
Day 3 - Follow up email as a reply to the original email
Day 6 - Follow up email as a reply to the original mail thread
Day 10 - Customised email (New thread)
Day 15 - Follow up email as a reply to the 2nd email thread
And so on...
How - do we reach out to them?
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies
Important factors to be considered are:
1. Number of steps in the campaign
2. Content for each email - Define templates
3. Select time gap between different steps in the campaign
4. Try to deliver emails according to the time zone of the recipient

16. The level of automation and tools to use will depend on the scale of operations. Before we invested in
serious tools, we wanted to get the habit right and then gradually introduced tools to improve efficiency.
The best tools available might be overwhelming when you start off and might get you to distracted from
your end goal.
Get the priority of your goals right. For us the goals were the following in the order of priority.
1. Get a new account. Close a deal.
2. Get positive replies to emails
3. Get replies to emails
4. Ensure emails are delivered to the inbox
5. Increase read rates for emails.
Goals v/s Tools
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

17. Operations
I have grouped these tools into 3 buckets based on the level of automation and investment. I use Google
apps for work, but the tools are compatible or equivalent tools are available for other email providers
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies
Level 1 - Manual
1. Canned Responses in gmail - Simple alternative to Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V for email template and subject lines
2. Campaign tracker - We developed this simple spreadsheet based tracker to manage our email campaigns
Level 2 - Minimal Automation
1. Mail merge with scheduling - This tool lets you schedule emails and also track analytics using Google spreadsheets.
Its free for up to 50 emails a day and priced very low. It does not allow you to do follow ups
2. Yet another mail merge - Tool gives you good analytics and also lets you do follow up campaigns. But it lacks the
ability to schedule emails. While sending mass emails, there should be sufficient time gap between emails.
Level 3 - Automated
There a bunch of tools to automate the entire outbound email campaigns. These are paid tools and are useful when you are
scaling up.
● Reply App
● Quickmail
● Woodpecker
● Outreach

18. Check list
Here's a TOP-10 Checklist to go through before you press "start".
1. Your have written clear and to-the-point messages and follow ups
2. The prospect list is highly targeted and enriched with leads' info
3. Email copies are personalized (with custom variables or manually)
4. Every email address is validated before sending
5. All emails look 100% manually typed
6. You provide value to your prospects
7. Emails are sent directly from your email server
8. Automatic follow ups are set to go out when needed
9. Opt-out link is included to email copies at all steps
10. You process replies ASAP
Check list courtesy - Oleg Campbell | Reply.io
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

19. What Is it working?Who How
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

20. Measuring Success
You can track the following metrics to measure the success of your campaign. The metrics available will be
based on the tools you use while setting up your campaign.
Positive Reply rate - This is what you want :)
Negative Reply rate - High number of negative replies reflect a need for refining the target definition.
SPAM rate - Low deliverability of emails could be due to poor reputation, due to poor choice of content, or
sending habits (Eg: sending the same email to 50 people in the organisation)
Bounce rate - A high bounce rate indicates need for more rigourus data cleansing. High bounce rate can
affect the reputation of your domain.
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

21. Finetuning
You can improve your email campaign by analysing the data you gather from your campaigns. We do the
following steps:
1. Subject lines - Try different subject lines with varying degree of personalisation and customisation.
Clickbait subject lines might get you email opens, but will not give you replies :).
2. Email content - Try different email content based on the target persona. Different benefits and cta
could be provided to different people in the same organization based on their designation and role.
3. Email sequence - Try changing the frequency of emails. Define the frequency based on the nature of
your business - for a product with a short sales cycle 5-6 emails in a 2 week period might be
considered alright. But the same might be perceived as annoying for a product with a longer sales
cycle.
4. Delivery timing - Try changing the day and time when your emails are sent based on your target
geography. Eg: Mondays and Fridays are generally considered as low response days, but for Middle
East Mondays deliver a good response rate.
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

22. Further reading
Book - Predictable Revenue - Aaaron Ross & Marylou Taylor
Blog - How this cold email template generates all our B2B sales leads. - Alan O’Rourke
Blog - Email Quality vs Quantity
E-book - Art & Science of effective subject lines
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies

23. About me
I am Venkat Ramakrishnan, Co-founder and CEO of Focaloid Technologies. We are an outsourced product development firm
building products on mobile, web and cloud for our clients. You can learn more about us at www.focaloid.com
This presentation is a documentation of my learnings while setting up an outbound sales team at Focaloid. Feel free to reach
out to me for any questions. You can reach me at venkat@focaloid.com
Setting up Outbound Email Campaigns | Venkat Ramakrishnan | Focaloid Technologies