Volume is not a strategy

Blasting a 12-step sequence at a cold list gets you marked as spam and your domain reputation torched. Reply rates come from relevance and restraint, not from touch count.

The 6-touch structure

A cadence that works across most B2B segments:

  1. Day 1 — Email. Personalized opener referencing a real trigger (funding, a hire, a launch). One ask.
  2. Day 3 — LinkedIn. Connection request, no pitch. Just context.
  3. Day 5 — Email. A short, useful resource tied to their problem. Give before you ask.
  4. Day 8 — Call + voicemail. Reference the prior emails. Keep the voicemail under 20 seconds.
  5. Day 12 — Email. A different angle on the value. New subject line.
  6. Day 16 — Breakup email. "Should I close the loop?" These get surprisingly high reply rates.

Write for the reply, not the open

  • Subject lines under 5 words. "Quick question about [Company]" beats clever.
  • Under 90 words per email. If they have to scroll, you've lost.
  • One CTA. Asking for both a call and a reply gives them an excuse to do neither.

Timing that lands

Across our customer data, Tuesday–Thursday mornings (local time to the prospect) outperform Mondays and Fridays by a wide margin. Send in the recipient's timezone, not yours.

Kill the sequence on engagement

The moment someone replies or books, they exit the cadence automatically. Nothing damages a relationship faster than a prospect getting step 4 of an automated sequence after they already booked a call.