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Setting up for outbound

If you want to use FirstQuadrant for outbound campaigns, you’ll need to set up a few things first.

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Purchasing domains

We recommend that you purchase at least 2 .com domains that will be used exclusively for your outbound campaigns since we don’t want to use your primary domain for outbound. This is because if your primary domain is flagged as spam, it will affect your entire business, and you will have to spend a lot of time and effort to get it unflagged; but if you use a separate domain for outbound, you can simply stop using it and switch to a new domain.

We prefer .com domains for outbound if you are buying fresh ones, but other TLDs like .co and .io work too if you already own them. This is because .com domains have the highest sender reputation, but a domain with a history and good reputation can also be a good choice.

For example, if your primary domain is example.com, you can purchase examplehq.com and getexample.com as additional domains, or more specific to your line of business, for example the explainer video agency Cleverclip may purchase cleverclipvideos.com.

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Setting up mailboxes

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Selecting a provider

To create mailboxes from the domains you purchased, you can use any email service provider (ESP). Most of our customers use Google Workspace. We recommend using Google or Microsoft 365 for Business as they have the highest sender reputation.

There are also third-party resellers who set up Google Workspace mailboxes on your behalf, so you don’t have to go through the process of setting up the mailboxes yourself, such as Zapmail. This can also be more affordable than purchasing Google directly.

There are also cold email-specific providers like MailScale, Maildoso, and Infraforge that you may wish to use because they are significantly more affordable than Google or Microsoft. However, we find that Google and Microsoft still have the highest deliverability rates, so we recommend using them as the first choice.

Depending on which provider you select, you will have to set up DNS records to start sending and receiving emails from your new mailboxes. Some providers will guide you through this process, while others will set it up for you automatically. You can also purchase a domain through Google or Microsoft directly, or you can purchase it through a domain registrar like Namecheap or GoDaddy and then connect it to Google or Microsoft.

Here are some guides on how to set up the required DNS records for Google Workspace:

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Creating mailboxes

To start your first outbound campaigns, we recommend setting up 6 mailboxes through an email provider which we can use for sending out our outbound campaigns. The names used for these mailboxes should correspond with the name of the person that’s sending out the emails. For example, if you’re sending out emails as Carlo Badini at Example Inc., your 6 mailboxes can be:

  • carlo@examplehq.com
  • carlo.badini@examplehq.com
  • cbadini@examplehq.com
  • carlo@getexample.com
  • carlo.badini@getexample.com
  • cbadini@getexample.com

When you connect your mailboxes to FirstQuadrant, you can select how many emails you want to send per day from each mailbox. We also set up smart ramping up, so we’ll start with a low volume and gradually increase it to ensure the best deliverability. By default, we suggest 30 emails per mailbox per day. To approximate the number of mailboxes you need, you can use the following:

  • Say you have 1 outbound campaign that wants to reach out to 25 new prospects per day
  • 1 first-contact email + 3 follow-ups over a few weeks = 4 emails per prospect per sequence
  • 25 prospects * 4 emails per prospect = volume of 100 emails per day
  • 100 emails per day / 30 emails per mailbox = 3 to 4 active mailboxes
  • 3 to 4 active mailboxes + 2 to 3 backup mailboxes = 6 mailboxes

After you have set up your 6 mailboxes, you can connect them to FirstQuadrant during the onboarding call.

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Starting email warming

After you’ve set up the mailboxes, we also recommend setting up email warming. Email warming is the process of gradually increasing the number of emails you send and receive from a new mailbox to establish a good sender reputation with mailbox providers. This is done by sending a small number of emails at first, and then gradually increasing the number of emails sent over time, and having a percent of those emails replied to. This makes the mailbox provider believe that the emails sent are worth replying to, and are therefore not likely spam.

Regardless of whether you have a completely fresh mailbox or one that’s already been used in the past, it is of paramount importance that you always continue to warm up your mailboxes.

You can select your email warming provider of choice, such as MailReach or Warmup Inbox, which are the market leaders in email warming but you have to pay per mailbox. You can also use Instantly or Smartlead.ai which allow you to warm all your mailboxes for a flat monthly fee.

You can learn more about deliverability on our free email deliverability guide.

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Preparing your first campaign

Write a summary of what your company/product is offering. The summary serves as contextual knowledge for our AI model and should be anywhere from 500 to 1000 characters long. This content is not directly used in the emails, but it helps the AI to understand the context of your product and company, and to generate more relevant emails.

Export a CSV file of contacts you don’t want to reach out to as a Suppression list. You can import a list of email addresses, contact names, LinkedIn profile URLs, company names, or company domains. Alternatively, you can connect your HubSpot account and exclude all contacts that are already in your CRM.

Develop one or multiple clear ICPs (Ideal Customer Profile). Write down who exactly you need to reach, ideally being as specific as possible. For example, the ICP for FirstQuadrant is “Founders of late seed to series B, B2B SaaS startups in the US that sell to other US software companies”.

Write a personalized email sequence for your first outbound campaign. FirstQuadrant works best if the outbound sequence is truly personalized to the recipient. To get started, it’s easiest if you pick one real person that matches your ICP and write an email + follow-ups to that specific person. We will then help you to generalize this email during our onboarding call.

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Example sequence

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First contact

Subject: Connecting with YC founder

Hi Samrah, I came across Koxa and saw that you’re selling an accounting-to-banking API. We can help you find the right CFOs at the right software companies and scale up sales without increasing your headcount.

I’m the co-founder of Y Combinator funded FirstQuadrant. An AI sales automation platform. We’re helping some of the fastest growing startups in Silicon Valley to scale sales on autopilot with our GPT-based platform. We’re in private beta right now but I thought you may be interested in giving 1Q a try. Happy to prioritize you.

Cheers, Carlo

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Follow-up 1

Hi Samrah, just bumping this up since I haven’t heard back from you yet. Other API-first companies like Svix have already increased their sales by 30% through us. Happy to jump on a call and discuss how we can help you guys out too.

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Follow-up 2

Hi Samrah, since I haven’t heard back from you yet, I assume automating sales with AI is not relevant to you at this point. If there’s someone else in your team who might be the right point of contact, please connect me. Sorry if I bothered you, and wish you all the best!

IntroductionProspect