cold-email-outreach

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from review. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: cold-email-outreach
description: >
  End-to-end cold email outreach orchestration. Handles goal alignment, lead
  selection from Supabase, sequence design, email generation (via email-drafting),
  campaign setup in the user's chosen outreach tool, and logging. Tool-agnostic —
  supports Smartlead (default), Instantly, Lemlist, Apollo, or manual CSV export.
tags: [outreach]
---

# Cold Email Outreach

The final mile of the outbound pipeline. Takes qualified leads from Supabase, builds email sequences using the `email-drafting` skill, loads campaigns into the user's chosen outreach tool, and logs everything back to Supabase.

**Tool-agnostic:** Asks the user which outreach platform they use. Defaults to Smartlead if they have MCP tools configured. Falls back to CSV export for any other tool or manual workflow.

## When to Auto-Load

Load this skill when:
- User says "launch a campaign", "send outreach", "email these leads", "set up cold email"
- An upstream skill connects with "create email campaign" or "passes: supabase-eligible-leads"
- User completes `lead-qualification` and wants to act on the results

## Supported Outreach Tools

This skill does NOT assume a specific tool. It asks first, then adapts.

| Tool | Integration | How It Works |
|------|------------|--------------|
| **Smartlead** (default) | MCP tools (`mcp__smartlead__*`) | Full automation: create campaign, add sequences, import leads, configure schedule, launch |
| **Instantly** | CSV import | Generate CSV matching Instantly's import format, user uploads manually |
| **Lemlist** | CSV import | Generate CSV with Lemlist-compatible columns |
| **Apollo** | CSV import | Generate CSV matching Apollo sequence import format |
| **Manual / Other** | CSV + instructions | Export leads + emails as generic CSV, provide setup instructions |

**Tool selection logic:**
1. Ask user in Phase 0: "Which outreach tool do you use?"
2. If **Smartlead** → use MCP tools for full automation
3. If **Instantly / Lemlist / Apollo** → generate tool-specific import CSV
4. If **Other or unknown** → generate generic CSV (`email`, `first_name`, `last_name`, `company`, `title`, `subject`, `body` per touch) and ask user for their tool's import requirements

## Prerequisites

### Supabase

People must be stored in Supabase with the schema from `tools/supabase/schema.sql`. The `people` and `outreach_log` tables must exist. Run `python3 tools/supabase/setup_database.py` if setting up fresh.

Environment variables in `.env`:
```
SUPABASE_URL=https://xxx.supabase.co
SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY=eyJ...
```

### Outreach Tool

- **Smartlead:** MCP tools available via `mcp__smartlead__*`. No additional setup.
- **All others:** Just need CSV export — no API keys required.

## Phase 0: Intake

Ask all questions at once. Organize by category. Skip any already answered by an upstream skill.

### Campaign Goal
1. What's the objective? (book meetings, drive demo requests, get replies, nurture)
2. What's the outreach angle or hook? (hiring signal, competitor displacement, event-based, pain-based, cold database)
3. What should we name this campaign?

### Outreach Tool
4. Which outreach tool do you use? (Smartlead / Instantly / Lemlist / Apollo / Other / Just give me a CSV)

### Lead Selection
5. Which leads should we target? Options:
   - All leads for a specific `client_name`
   - Specific `icp_segment`
   - Title patterns (e.g., "VP Operations", "Director of Sales")
   - Industry or location filters
   - `qualification_score` above a threshold
   - Specific `source` (crustdata, apollo, linkedin, etc.)
   - Custom filter (describe what you want)
6. Any exclusions? (specific companies, recently contacted leads, certain titles)
7. Max campaign size? (default: 200)

### Sequence Design
8. How many touches? (default: 3)
9. Timing between touches? (default: Day 1 / Day 5 / Day 12)
10. Personalization tier? (Tier 1: merge fields only / Tier 2: segment-specific / Tier 3: unique per lead)

### Sending Config (