# Cold email to new business owners — Agent-Readable Companion

> Companion to https://app.goodleads.club/cold-email-new-business-owners.html
> (the human-readable guide). Format: structured plain text for an AI agent
> writing or planning cold email to the owners in a GoodLeads file.
>
> Sibling files: https://app.goodleads.club/llms.txt (API and MCP quick-start) ·
> https://app.goodleads.club/data-dictionary.llms.txt (full field inventory) ·
> https://app.goodleads.club/new-business-leads.llms.txt (what a record is)
>
> Updated: 2026-10-10

## The benchmarks (third-party, attributed)

Compiled by Nick Abraham (https://x.com/nickabraham12/status/2108617514259235079)
from Gong's 2025 report, Instantly's 2026 benchmark and YC partner talks.

- Reply rate: average 2% (Gong) to 3.43% (Instantly); top 10% of senders 8% to 10.7%+.
- Length: 51 to 100 words (Gong); under 80 words (Instantly); readable in 60 seconds (Seibel).
- Sequence: about 6 emails over 14 to 28 days (Gong); 4 to 7 touchpoints (Instantly); follow up 2 to 4 times a few days apart (Epstein); not "quickly" (Seibel).
- Follow-ups: 42% of replies come from follow-ups (Instantly); a breakup email lifts replies 89% (Gong).
- Subject: 1 to 4 words, lowercase, +11% opens (Gong); short and informal (Epstein).
- Personalization: recent activity 24% reply rate vs personal facts 6% (Gong); an "uncommon commonality" (Epstein).
- The ask: a meeting request −44%, an offer +28% (Gong); one clear ask (Instantly); let them escalate (Seibel).
- Words to cut: buzzwords −57%, "AI" −36%, "platform" −26% (Gong); no jargon (Seibel).
- Best day: Wednesday (Instantly).

## Applied to a GoodLeads record

- The record reaches the buyer the morning after the state posts the filing;
  send that day, in the owner's time zone (`time_zone`). Speed is publication
  latency, never a formation-date claim.
- The formation IS the recent activity. Personalize on it with the filing's
  own facts: `entity_name`, `trade_name`, `formation_date`, `principal_city`,
  `neighborhood`, `industry_name`, `gmb_category`, `filing_kind` / `lead_class`.
- Subject lines use the name the owner chose (`trade_name` where present, else
  `entity_name`), lowercase, 1 to 4 words.
- The ask is the thing a new owner needs now (bank account, payments,
  insurance, phone line, website), as a one-word-answer question.
- Mostly personal mailboxes: a days-old business has no work email. Write to
  a person, never to an info@ alias.

## The personalization test

Personalize on the place, the trade and the filing. Never on the person.
A detail true of every new business in that town, trade or filing kind is a
commonality; a detail true only of this owner is a dossier.

- In copy: `neighborhood`, `principal_city`, `msa_name`, `county_fips`-level
  public facts, `time_zone`; `industry_name` and `gmb_category` and the
  trade's first-month need; `filing_kind`, `published_date`, `entity_type`,
  the name itself.
- Never in copy (routing only: which template, which offer, which order):
  any address detail, `property_*`, `tract_income_band`, `estimated_age`,
  `formation_service`, `ra_*`, `cluster_*`, `area_code` origin,
  `email_is_free_provider`, every score and tier.
- Say how you found them in one clause ("I watch new filings in Travis
  County"). Write a guess as a condition ("if you are running it from home").
- Filing kind → opening line: Just started → congratulations; New to <state>
  → welcome, what differs here; Back in business → welcome back; New trade
  name → new sign, site, cards, listing; Established business, new entity →
  veteran register.
- Give a fact the owner has not met: the state's first-year filing deadline
  and fee, the trade's first permit, the free help in town.

## Which records get the sequence

- `zb_email_status` = valid: the deliverability check (catch-all and unknown
  are not send-safe). That is the file column; on the API and MCP the same
  field filters as `email_deliverability_status`.
- `contact_relevance_tier` in (Decision Maker, Likely Decision Maker).
- Do not gate an email-only send on `reachability_tier`; it blends phone
  signals.
- Re-check a list older than 90 days before a high-volume send.
- `contact_ref` is one person; never send the same sequence twice to one ref.

## Sample first email (under 80 words; brackets are file columns)

subject: congrats on [trade_name]

Hi [first_name],
Saw [entity_name] was filed in [principal_city] on [formation_date]. Congratulations.
I set up [what you sell] for new [industry_name] businesses in [principal_city]. Most owners do it in their first month, and it takes about [time].
Want me to send you the two-line version of how it works?
[Your name]
[Your business, your postal address]

Breakup email: subject "last one, [first_name]" — one line saying you will
not write again, the way left open, good luck with [entity_name].

## Legal use

A deliverable address is not an opted-in address. CAN-SPAM compliance is the
sender's job: a real postal address in every email, a working unsubscribe and
an honest subject line. These are public-record business contacts; at checkout
the buyer attests to lawful use and do-not-call compliance for their own
outreach. We do not check numbers against do-not-call lists and we do not give
legal advice. Terms: https://goodleads.club/terms.html

## If a record is wrong

A hard bounce, a disconnected phone or the wrong person reported within 30
days of delivery is replaced. What is bought can be re-downloaded any time.

## Buy

https://app.goodleads.club/buy.html — say who you sell to, see the count and
the price. MCP address: https://mcp.goodleads.club/mcp (no key, no account).