# Cold email personalization Human Guide

## What This Is For
When to Use Writing cold outreach, sales prospecting, or outbound B2B emails Personalizing email openers from prospect research signals Building multi-touch follow-up sequences Reviewing. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for email marketing: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Cold email personalization agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for cold email personalization.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Cold email personalization guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- Writing cold outreach, sales prospecting, or outbound B2B emails
- Personalizing email openers from prospect research signals
- Building multi-touch follow-up sequences
- Reviewing or scoring email drafts before sending
- **Map the ICP** — Complete [ICP & Objection Mapping](assets/icp-objection-mapping.md). Gate: persona, top 3 objections, and desired next step are defined.
- **Research signals** — Follow the [Research Playbook](assets/research-playbook.md) to find custom signals from the last 90 days. Gate: at least 2 verified signals per prospect.
- **Choose campaign path** — Pick Custom Signal, Creative Idea, Whole Offer, or Fallback from [Campaign Types](assets/campaign-types.md).
- **Draft the email** — Apply [Email Structure](assets/email-structure.md) rules: plain text, 60-120 words, one CTA. Use [Variable Schema](assets/variable-schema.md) for merge fields.
- **QA and score** — Run the [QA Checklist](assets/qa-checklist.md), then score with the [Scoring Rubric](assets/scoring-rubric.md). Gate: score >= 80 and 3:1 recipient-to-sender ratio.
- **Build sequence** — Add follow-ups per [Follow-Up Strategy](assets/follow-up-strategy.md), rotating value props each touch.
- **Message-market fit over cleverness** — Show you understand the prospect's situation immediately.
- **Research is the personalization** — Custom signals prove homework; never fabricate facts.

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: When to Use, Workflow, Principles, Example, References, Supporting file: assets/campaign-types.md, Custom Signal Campaign, Creative Ideas Campaign, Whole Offer Campaign, Fallback Campaign ("Let Me Know If...").

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- **Research is the personalization** — Custom signals prove homework; never fabricate facts.
- Do their job well enough to avoid criticism.
- The best cold emails feel like you've been watching their company for weeks. Signals must be:
- Never invent facts; if unknown, omit or use broader strategy.

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Cold email personalization human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the gtmagents/gtm-agents skill entry for `cold-email-personalization`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# Cold Email Personalization

## When to Use
- Writing cold outreach, sales prospecting, or outbound B2B emails
- Personalizing email openers from prospect research signals
- Building multi-touch follow-up sequences
- Reviewing or scoring email drafts before sending

## Workflow
1. **Map the ICP** — Complete [ICP & Objection Mapping](assets/icp-objection-mapping.md). Gate: persona, top 3 objections, and desired next step are defined.
2. **Research signals** — Follow the [Research Playbook](assets/research-playbook.md) to find custom signals from the last 90 days. Gate: at least 2 verified signals per prospect.
3. **Choose campaign path** — Pick Custom Signal, Creative Idea, Whole Offer, or Fallback from [Campaign Types](assets/campaign-types.md).
4. **Draft the email** — Apply [Email Structure](assets/email-structure.md) rules: plain text, 60-120 words, one CTA. Use [Variable Schema](assets/variable-schema.md) for merge fields.
5. **QA and score** — Run the [QA Checklist](assets/qa-checklist.md), then score with the [Scoring Rubric](assets/scoring-rubric.md). Gate: score >= 80 and 3:1 recipient-to-sender ratio.
6. **Build sequence** — Add follow-ups per [Follow-Up Strategy](assets/follow-up-strategy.md), rotating value props each touch.

## Principles
- **Message-market fit over cleverness** — Show you understand the prospect's situation immediately.
- **Research is the personalization** — Custom signals prove homework; never fabricate facts.
- **One job per email** — Single sharp question or CTA; earn a reply, not a meeting.
- **Two personalization paths** — Path A: custom signal research. Path B: whole-offer strategy. See [Creative Ideas](assets/creative-ideas.md) for Path B tactics.

## Example
**Signal found**: Prospect's company posted a VP Sales hire on LinkedIn 2 weeks ago.

**Subject**: {{first_name}}, growing the sales team?

**Body**: Hi {{first_name}}, saw {{company}} just brought on a new VP Sales — congrats. Specifically, it looks like you're scaling outbound to {{customer_type}}. We helped [similar company] ramp 3 new reps to quota 40% faster by templatizing their top performer's research workflow. Worth a 15-min look?

**Why it works**: Uses a verified, recent signal in the first line; ties it to a specific, relevant outcome; single clear CTA.

## References
- [Research Playbook](assets/research-playbook.md) — Finding custom signals
- [Variable Schema](assets/variable-schema.md) — Standard merge variables
- [Email Structure](assets/email-structure.md) — Subject lines, body, punchiness
- [Campaign Types](assets/campaign-types.md) — Four campaign patterns
- [Creative Ideas](assets/creative-ideas.md) — Generating credible prospect ideas
- [Follow-Up Strategy](assets/follow-up-strategy.md) — Sequence logic and value rotation
- [ICP & Objection Mapping](assets/icp-objection-mapping.md) — Persona and objection prep
- [QA Checklist](assets/qa-checklist.md) — Pre-send verification
- [Scoring Rubric](assets/scoring-rubric.md) — 0-100 quality score
- [Examples](assets/examples.md) — Full campaign examples

---

## Supporting file: assets/campaign-types.md

# Campaign Types

## 1. Custom Signal Campaign
**When:** You have strong research data (case studies, pricing insights, reviews, hiring).

**Structure:**
- **Subject:** 2-4 words, intriguing.
- **First line:** Custom signal with `{{variable}}`.
- **Body:** Value prop + case study proof.
- **CTA:** Low-effort question.

## 2. Creative Ideas Campaign
**When:** You can generate specific, credible ideas for them.

**Requirements:**
- Define 3-5 specific features/capabilities.
- Generate 3 bullet point ideas, each using ONE feature.

**Structure:**
```
{{First name}} – I was back on your site today and had some marketing ideas for you.

{{Creative Ideas}}
• Idea 1: [Specific action using Feature X]—would help with [their pain]
• Idea 2: [Specific action using Feature Y]—could improve [their goal]
• Idea 3: [Specific action using Feature Z]—might address [their challenge]

But of course, I wrote this without knowing anything about your current bottlenecks.

If it's interesting, we could hop on a call and I'd be happy to share what's working in the {{industry}} industry.
```

## 3. Whole Offer Campaign