The situation
Senior sales professionals are the most recruited people on LinkedIn. Their inboxes there are full of templated recruiter messages, and most go unread. Our client needed to stand out in an overcrowded hiring market and keep a consistent flow of qualified candidates coming in every day.
The hard part
The best candidates are not looking. They are busy hitting quota. The outreach had to earn a reply from people who rarely answer recruiters at all.
What we did
1. We built tight candidate lists. Lists were built around seniority, sales role and company type, so every email went to someone the client could actually place.
2. We moved off LinkedIn and led with the details. Personalized email replaced the LinkedIn messages these candidates had learned to ignore. Instead of a vague "exciting opportunity," every email named the industry, the role, the size of the team they would lead and the pay on offer, and offered to send the full details before asking for a call. We tested work and personal addresses side by side to see where candidates responded best.
3. We optimized every week. Campaigns were adjusted weekly based on the quality of replies, not just the number, so the pipeline improved as it grew.
One email from the campaign
The first email in the sequence, as sent. Merge fields highlighted.
Merge field notes
{company}: the candidate's current employer.{roleTitle},{teamSize},{compensationRange}: pulled from the live role being filled.
Real numbers up front, and no call required to see them. Senior sellers respect that.
Results
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Campaign length | 30 days |
| Emails sent | ~54,600 |
| Reply rate | 2.45% |
| Interested candidates | 475 |
| Emails per interested reply | 1 in 115 |
What it meant
475 experienced sales professionals asked to hear more in a single month. That's a pipeline the client could not have built through LinkedIn alone, from people who almost never reply to recruiters.
Built with
Clay · Apollo · Mailtester Ninja · Instantly
How we count
- Emails sent: every email delivered by the sequencer, first touches and follow-ups combined.
- Reply rate: replies divided by leads contacted, as reported by Instantly.
- Positive reply: a reply showing interest. Not a meeting yet.
- Qualified opportunity: a positive reply from a decision-maker at a company that fits the client's ICP, flagged as an opportunity in Instantly.
- Qualified meeting: a booked call with a decision-maker that meets the client's qualification criteria.
- Attended: the prospect actually showed up.