Building Lead Lists and Cold Emails with Clay 📊

Hey there.

So in this video, I'm just going to share with you how I build lists and how I use Clay to build lists for my clients.

And although this is necessary, this is not necessarily the actual Clay table that I built for them since most of my work is proprietary.

So once I've done working with that specific company, I won't have access to their Clay tables.

So this example is just a recreation of it without sharing most of the details about the company, etc.

So the ICP of my client was software companies or SaaS companies that are in the AI and dev tool space and that they are selling into enterprise companies, but they are just small enter- they're just small startups.

their ICP is technical, CTO, head of engineering, or founder.

And one trigger moment that I would be using is when the ICP of my client says, the enterprise client of my ICP says their data is sensitive, can they deploy it in their cloud?

So this is the selling point of my client for those ICP.

So the infrastructure that I that I built is using SmartLead for email sending, Zapmail for inboxes, and then Klaviyo and Cloud Code for GTM orchestration.

And then I've used like Blitz and AIArc for email data since most of the companies are on LinkedIn and it's easy discover- it's easily discoverable.

So in order to build the right type of list.

I usually don't overcomplicate it.

So if I can find it using Clay's company search features, I use it and I take advantage of the specific features of this list or filters like the AI revenue streams, products and services, and company descriptions, which is quite good actually.

So basically what I did is I searched for startups that are 50 employees and below, that are privately held in the United States, that has company descriptions of enterprise and AI, and their products and services is similar to dev tools, developer tools, and DevOps.

So basically once I found those specific companies I have this workflow where I find the top 3 most important things when it comes to using AI.

So I don't use AI a lot, I just use it for 2 major things or 3 major things most of the time.

So one one client that I built is the double checking if the company is selling for enterprise.

So just use their website and their company LinkedIn to check if they are indeed selling for enterprise.

After that, I use another client for if the if the answer is yes.

If the answer is yes, I I check if it's the right fit for that specific company.

Basically, I tell AI, this is the company that you're currently working with, and check if this company is the right fit for that company.

And if it's an ICP fit company, I use Clay's Find Contacts at Company feature to find senior technical employees of those companies like founding software engineer, CTO, co-founder, founder, head of engineering, VP of engineering for those specific things.

Once I found those ICP fit leads, I just basically double-checked using a cheap AI to double check if their company is in the right company and format the company since I'll be using it as a variable and basically just found their email.

So when it comes to creating cold emails, I usually focus on telling a story.

So it's not just about selling, it's about making sure that we properly communicate to the lead that we know their problem and we can have the solution for it.

So the I I mean I don't even have the custom AI personalization because most of the people that use it use it very badly, so there's a bad connotation on it.

So I just focused on the offer and telling a story.

So the only variable that I have is the company, which I used in Clay to double-check to make sure that this is good.

So company in your customer clouds.

Elon, ever heard of an enterprise lead?

So I'm just telling the story.

can you can you run this in your cloud?

And then I tell them specific problem and then the solution.

And then would this workflow help your team close more enterprise deals?

So basically on my CTA, I I attribute closing more deals to this solution that we're selling.

So basically it's it's positioning my solution as a way for them to close more enterprise deals.

And then the risk reversal is like no platform fee or annual commitments.

You only pay per deployment.

So this is a good example on how I structure my cold email campaigns.

And for the follow-up, it's just building on top of the first email.

So I just focused on like how important it is, like whenever whenever the rep finally lands an enterprise lead, which takes a lot of time for them to land.

And then basically I just build on top of the the first email.

So enterprise lead, and then how hard it is to cater to their specific needs, how we can solve it easily.

And in the first follow-up, is how hard it is to land an enterprise lead on a call.

And then instead of saying- so instead of their salesperson saying, "Let me check with engineering," which most of the time slows the deals down or maybe even cuts the deals because the enterprise lead will move on to other vendors who who can do it, their rep can say, "Sounds good, we can run it on their cloud." So I'm I'm continuously painting a picture on how it is better to use our solution than using than doing the enterprise deals without our solution.

So basically that's just it.

Like I don't usually focus on the features.

I focus more on telling a story specifically.

That's similar to the second follow-up.