Haif Media: The Cold Email Starter Kit
- Mohamed Imran
- Apr 5
- 10 min read
Updated: Apr 22
Agenda Of The Cold Email Starter Kit
Disclaimers
Purchasing And Setup Of Domains & Emails
Scrapping Of Leads
Cold Email Software
Important Cold Email Metrics to Measure
Cold Email Strategies
Sample Cold Emails
Total Cost Of Cold Email Systems
Summary
1. Disclaimers
Hi, I am Imran, CEO of Haif Media. I run a cold email agency. I wrote this cold email playbook to help those who have yet to start a cold email outbound system in their company. I wrote this to tailor as much as I can to you, however since I do not have your respective company details it will not be 100% personalized. However, if you have any type of personalized queries feel free to reach out to me.
The materials that are listed in this cold email playbook are what Haif Media is fundamentally using. Hopefully, you can utilize it, fine-tune and generate leads. The most important thing to take note of is to use this cold email playbook and infuse your own flavor into it to achieve maximum results.
The listed way is not the only way to run an outbound cold email system, there are many ways that you can explore. Every single day, Haif Media is constantly improving on how to do it better. Eg: Recently we have been exploring an automated AI Cold Email Outreach System. In short, use this playbook as a fundamentals baseline. If you found something better feel free to use that. Also, the V2 of this cold email playbook is being prepared. Reach out to us if you want it.
If you are a beginner you can go through the full document. However, if you are already running cold email. Go to the “Cold Email Strategies” section.
Lastly, this playbook is written word by word by Me and AI was not used.
2. Purchasing And Setup Of Domains & Emails
In this section, we will focus on how to purchase the necessary domains and emails to run your cold email outbound system.
Purchasing Of Domains:
Visit https://godaddy.com/ to purchase domains.
Since you are freshly beginning cold email, let's start with 2 domains to get the hang of it before we continually increase them.
If you are already doing cold email buy as many domains as you need.
Type the domain you are looking for:
Once you checkout, you can view the full price.
These are the options you have to choose from before you checkout:
Buy the domain with no professional email and no domain protection.
Total Cost Of One Domain Is: $15.99 SGD = $11.95 USD
Once you are done with your first domain, do the respective steps for your second domain.
Good To Know Information About Domains:
There are various domain providers out there however it depends on one preference.
One thing to take is to never use your original domain for cold emailing as there is a chance that domain deliverability might go down.
The first rule of thumb is always to buy other domains related to your company name.
Checkpoint
Have purchased 2 domains from GoDaddy
Purchasing Emails:
An important thing to take note each domain can have 3 emails.
Click “Start Free Trial”:
Type in your business name and the respective employee size:
The website will ask whether you have a domain, click “Yes, I have that one that I can use” and it will provide you the steps to log in to Godaddy. Follow the instructions to complete the setup:
Choose the Business Starter Plan (Monthly) package:
Total Each Email Cost: $9.40 SGD = $7.03 USD (Monthly)
At this point, 3 emails are bought for that respective domain.
Now we need to proceed with setting up MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC records.
These tutorials guide you step by step on how to get it done: Cold Email Setup: SPF, DKIM and DMARC for GoDaddy & Google Workspace
Repeat the listed steps for the second domain.
Good To Know Information About Emails:
There are various email service providers out there however it depends on one preference, deliverability, and cost.
In the Google Workspace pricing plan, there are both monthly and yearly packages. Yearly packages tend to be cheaper as Goole wants us to commit for that respective year. However, as for Haif Media, we currently buy monthly packages as in any case, till we streamline our cold email outreach system fully, we would want the flexibility to cancel the subscription at any time and move on to preferred alternatives.
Having more than 3 emails per domain will affect the domain deliverability.
Checkpoint
Have purchased 2 domains from GoDaddy
Have purchased a total of 6 emails for 2 domains
Have set up the respective DKIM, DMARC, SPF, and MX records
3. Scrapping Of Leads
In this section, we will utilize the basic tools needed to scrap the leads of your respective target audience.
Visit https://www.apollo.io/
Create an account and choose the $59 USD monthly package:
Total Leads Scrapping Software Cost: $59 USD Monthly
In Apollo, there are no specific instructions on what are the best options to select and derive the best lead list. Just go on tweaking the options to see which filters best generate your lead list:
Once, done export the list as a CSV
Good To Know Information About Scrapping Leads:
There are other lead software out there such as Zoominfo, Clay, and Phantom Buster.
The monthly package is bought as there are always evolving leads tools coming out, thus any time an upgrade is needed we would have the flexibility to do so.
Apollo.io is a basic tool out there to get the feel of scrapping leads and running your cold email.
Once you get the hang of it, to have quality leads, we would need to infuse enrichment using tools such as Clay.com
Enrichment + AI will be the key to qualifying leads. Once we enrich to find more about a particular prospect, our lead list will be more personalized and targeted.
Checkpoint
4. Cold Email Software
In this section, we will purchase the cold email software that would be needed to run our cold email campaigns.
Visit https://instantly.ai/
Buy the package for $97 USD monthly package:
Total Email Software Cost: $97 USD Monthly
Warmup Emails:
Instantly can be used to enable warmup for respective emails and run your cold email campaigns
Each email must be warmed up for at least 2 weeks.
Click the “Add New” button on the top right to add the email accounts. Follow the instructions listed on Instantly to get your emails added:
Once added, click the respective email account you will see a tab that is opened on the right-hand side:
Click the Settings tab and scroll below until you see “Custom Tracking Domain”:
This is the most important portion before you enable warmup. Go to the GoDaddy DNS Section, add a record type “CNAME”, host as “inst”, and value as prox.itrackly.com.
Once done, type “inst.yourdomain.com” in the textbox, and click check status to make sure “CNAME Verified” and “SSL Verified. Then click the save button
Now you can enable warmup by clicking this “fire” button which should turn green once warmup enabled:
Don’t start your cold email campaign till warmup is done for at least 2 weeks.
There is a section called “Health Score”, which determines if email deliverability is good. A good health score ranges from 90% and above.
Good To Know Information About Cold Email Software:
There are many other software out there such as Lemlist, and Smartlead. You can research. Each has its own benefits
Instantly has an easy interface to meddle with.
Campaign Setup:
To set up campaigns, click the Campaign button on the left side toolbar:
Once it's redirected to the campaigns page, Click the “Add New” button at the top right:
Enter your campaign name and in the leads tab upload the CSV that was generated from “Apollo.io”
In the schedule tab, select your campaign timezone
In the options tab, select the email accounts you want to use
In the open tracking section: Tick the checkbox “Link tracking” and click the enable button. This ensures your link clicks are monitored.
Since this are new email, set the Daily Limit section to 90. (30 emails per account). Then click the save button
The last thing that is left, is the sequences section. Where we create the cold email copies.
Set up and launch your campaign once, you have read the “Cold Email Strategies” section.
Checkpoint
Have purchased 2 domains from GoDaddy
Have purchased a total of 6 emails for 2 domains
Have set up the respective DKIM, DMARC, SPF, and MX records
Have purchased Apollo.io
The lead list is generated from Apollo.io
Have purchased instantly.
All 6 emails have been enabled warmup
Campaigns are setup
Lead list is uploaded
5. Important Cold Email Metrics To Measure
In this section, important metrics are listed with detailed explanations. These metrics determine whether your campaigns are running well and whether any fine-tuning is required.
Open Rate -> This will tell you whether the recipient has opened the email. However, this is not very accurate as for instance in Apple phone mailboxes, they will pre-open the mailbox for security reasons. However, we should have at least maintained a 40% and more open rate to gauge that the campaign is running well.
Click Rate -> This is also known as link clicks. For instance, we have three sequences in a campaign. In sequence one we have attached a pdf. When someone clicks the pdf, it is recorded as a link click. For us, as much as possible as a strategy in one of the sequences we try to attach a link click to measure whether the email is read. Click Rate is more accurate compared to Open Rate.
Replies -> This means that people are replying to your email. It consists of both negative and positive responses. Using this, we can gauge for instance why people may or may not interested.
Opportunities -> This is also known as a positive response. This means that people are interested in the cold email we sent. These are the ultimate metrics that determine whether the campaign is running well.
6. Cold Email Strategies
The most important aspect of cold emailing is the strategies and copywriting. This is where most of your attention should be. Strategies should be applied to Subject Lines, Contents of Emails, and Overall Campaign purpose.
Main Strategy:
Use cold email as a platform to offer free valuable resources to your client. It should be genuine and beneficial. The style we embrace is from Gary Vee’s “Jab Jab Jab Right Hook” which also means “Give Give Give Ask”. This means that provide as many free beneficial resources as you can in your respective cold email sequences. You would then have an opportunity upcoming at the right time where at one cold email sequence or reply you offer them your services. It’s a simple equation: if they feel so many benefits from your free stuff, they can foresee how much benefits would receive when it's paid. This strategy differentiates you from the regular spam emails they might receive and establishes trust in you.
Subject Line
A subject line is essential to make the recipient read the email.
Keep it as short as possible, and ensure subject lines are always related to the contents.
Random subject lines can be used, however, it can mislead them.
The strategy is always to be as genuine as possible and not to make it look like clickbait.
Contents Of Emails
One Sequence = One Content of Email
In a campaign, we can have as many sequences as want, but the recommended would be 3.
More than 3 will feel like spam to users, leading them to be overwhelmed.
Ensure each sequence alone has something good to offer to your clients. Then ensure each sequence of the overall, plays a part in the upcoming next sequence.
7. Sample Cold Email
This section based on the strategy listed above, will showcase how an email can be crafted. These sample emails are focused on strategies rather than specific target lead groups.
The cold email samples would consist of 3 sequences. Each sequence would have an explanation of the purpose and what we got to offer.
Sequence 1 |
Purpose: Provide an audit report that they can review to see how their company performance is. The purpose of the audit report is to sound personalized to the client at the same time reveal problems that they might be facing. This email is purely beneficial for the client we do not have any forceful CTA. This is known as the “Give Sequence” with a “Soft Ask”. |
Subject: {{FirstName}}, Get Your Free Audit Report! |
Body: Hi {{FirstName}}, Based on your {{Website Link}}, I have prepared an audit report about {{Company Name}}. Do take a look at it. View Audit Report Here: [Link] Feel free to reach out to me, if you have any clarifications. Regards, Name |
Sequence 2 |
Purpose: This email will be a follow-up without stating it's a follow-up. Provide them with a video, to explain the audit report in video format. This acts as a kind of follow-up. Video will reduce the effort of reading the audit report. This is known as the “Give Sequence” with a “Soft Follow-Up”. |
Subject: {{FirstName}}, A Short Video For You! |
Body: Hi {{FirstName}}, Just realized, you might not have the time to read the full audit report as it's very detailed. I have summarised it in a short video which makes it faster for you to watch and review. Watch Here: [Link] Once done watching, I would appreciate it if you could provide me with feedback on how the video was. Regards, Name P.S. The most important part of the video is from 3:25 mins. Don’t forget to watch that part. |
Sequence 3 |
Purpose: This email would be the final sequence. It would not be a follow-up but an act-alone email offer. We are going to tell them we are going to connect them on LinkedIn. |
Subject: Let’s stay connected on LinkedIn! |
Body: Hi {{FirstName}}, Sometimes I do understand you might be flooded with emails, so I sent you a LinkedIn connection request. Hope you are okay with connecting there. Regards, Name |
LinkedIn Strategy
After this, you use LinkedIn to send your prospect a connection request with a note.
The note mentions: “I am {{Name}}, I sent you emails regarding an audit report. Just thought it would be easier for me to connect with you here. Have you managed to review them?”
This strategy is useful as cold email serves as an anchor point to message your prospect on LinkedIn. Cold email makes you no more stranger to your prospect.
This moment can be utilized for the “Ask” Sequence.
8. Total Cost Of Cold Email Systems
Description | Quantity | Breakdown Cost (USD) |
Domains | 2 | $11.95 * 2 = $23.90 (1 year) |
Emails | 6 | $7.03 * 6 = $42.18 (Monthly) |
1 | $59 (Monthly) | |
Instantly | 1 | $97 (Monthly) |
Total Cost: | Yearly: $23.90 Monthly: $198.18 |
9. Summary
Based on the cost that I have calculated above, you can see that it's not that expensive to start a cold email outreach system on your own. Compared to other lead generation outreach methods, cold email is one such method that is cost-effective. Continuously strategize, scale, and fine-tune your cold email campaigns to achieve maximum results.