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.
The CEO or the founder hires a marketing leader. At private equity backed companies the operating partner often gets involved.
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.
Walk through it on a 20 minute call. A public plan always misses things only the CEO knows and the call is where you hear them. 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.
Go through the slide on a call so the numbers match what their board expects. 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.
It starts with a 20 minute call to agree who gets interviewed and what the plan must answer. Start within a week of that call.
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.
Lead with the job post and an interim option. Offer the 90 day plan.
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.
A client that brought us in during its search had marketing pipeline up by half before the new hire started.
Want me to walk you through it?
{{sender_first_name}}
Lead with the round and the plan the board will want. Offer the board slide.
Hi {{first_name}},
Congrats on the {{round}}. The board will want a marketing plan with numbers by the next meeting.
Drafted one slide on marketing for that meeting with the goals and the numbers to watch.
A founder we worked with after a similar raise walked into the next board meeting with a plan and left with the budget approved.
Want me to walk you through it?
{{sender_first_name}}
Lead with the team they have and the direction it needs. Offer the diagnostic.
Hi {{first_name}},
{{company}} has {{team_size}} people in marketing on LinkedIn and nobody leading them.
We run a two week review at a fixed fee that counts toward the first month. You get a plan in order of priority either way.
After the same review a client's team doubled its demo requests the following quarter.
Interested?
{{sender_first_name}}
Lead with the new CEO and ask for a call directly.
Hi {{first_name}},
Saw {{ceo_name}} took over as CEO at {{company}} in {{start_month}}. New CEOs usually want a marketing plan in their first 90 days.
We give {{industry}} companies a senior marketing leader for a few days a month. For the last new CEO we worked with we had the plan in front of the board in six weeks.
Worth 15 minutes to see what that plan would cover?
{{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 90 day plan. The call fills in what only the CEO knows.
Hi {{first_name}},
Happy to. A plan built from public information always misses things only you know. Twenty minutes is enough to go through it and fix what I got wrong.
Does Tuesday at 10am or Wednesday at 2pm work?
{{sender_first_name}}
They want the diagnostic. The call agrees the interviews and the questions.
Hi {{first_name}},
Great. I need 20 minutes with you to agree who I interview and what the plan has to answer. The review starts 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 what the first 90 days of marketing would look like at {{company}} and how we'd report it to the board. You'll leave with a plan even if you hire in house.
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.