Designing outreach that people can trust
Email outreach works best when it is relevant, well-paced and respectful. Here is how we designed an AI system to help a sales team do exactly that.
Reaching out to someone you have not met is a delicate thing. Done well, an introductory email is relevant, brief and easy to answer. It respects the reader’s time, and it leaves a good impression of the sender whether or not they reply.
For a small sales team, doing this well at any scale takes a great deal of effort: finding the right people, learning a little about each one, writing something worth reading, following up politely, and keeping track of every response. Herald is the system we built to help with that work. This article describes how it is designed, and the principles behind it.
A clear division of responsibilities
Herald is built on a simple idea. The AI does the reading and the writing. The decisions about who receives an email, how many are sent and when, belong to the team and are carried out by clear rules in the software.
This matters because an organisation’s reputation travels with every email it sends. By keeping those decisions in plain, visible rules, a team always knows what Herald will and will not do on their behalf.
Finding the right people
The process starts with a brief in plain language: the kind of organisation the team would like to reach, and the people within it. Herald turns that into a search, and saved searches are refreshed regularly so new prospects appear over time.
Before anything else happens, Herald sets aside duplicates and anyone who has previously asked not to be contacted. Only then does it learn more about each organisation, reading publicly available information and noting what is relevant.
Writing with the team
Herald drafts a short sequence: an introduction and a few gentle follow-ups, spaced about a week apart. The team then makes it their own. They edit the wording, preview it against real prospects to see how it reads, and approve it when they are happy.
Nothing is sent before that approval, and if the template is changed later, Herald asks for approval again.
Many teams like a blended approach. The approved email is sent exactly as written, and Herald adds one short opening line that is specific to the reader. If there is not enough to say something genuinely relevant, the line is left out. The email the team approved is always what arrives.
Accuracy comes first
A personal touch is only welcome when it is correct. Where an opening line refers to something specific about the reader, Herald checks it against a public source first. If there is any doubt, for instance because a name is very common, the detail is not used.
Each draft is also checked against the organisation’s own guidelines for how it speaks. Anything that does not fit is revised, and if it still does not fit, a person takes a look.
A considerate pace
Emails are sent from team members’ own mailboxes, during working hours, and never at weekends or on public holidays. Each mailbox has a daily limit, and there is an overall limit as well.
These limits apply to new introductions only. Replies to people who have written back are conversations, and Herald makes sure there is always room for those.
Every reply read and understood
A reply is the whole purpose of an introduction, so this is where Herald takes the most care. It reads each response and recognises what kind it is:
- Interested. Follow-ups stop, and a suggested reply is prepared for a person to review.
- A referral. “I’ve moved on, but my colleague now looks after this.” An introduction to the right person is drafted for the team.
- Not at the moment. Follow-ups stop, and a note is kept for later.
- Away. The sequence waits until the person is back.
- Please remove me. Honoured immediately and remembered permanently.
Herald looks at what a message actually says. An automatic reply that also names a successor, for example, is recognised as the helpful referral it is.
Whenever a person replies, the automated sequence ends. From that point the conversation belongs to the team.
Respect built in
Several details are there simply because they are the right thing to do.
Every email includes the sender’s postal address and a clear way to unsubscribe. The unsubscribe link opens a confirmation page, so a request is always deliberate. Unsubscribes, undeliverable addresses and complaints all feed one list that every campaign honours.
Herald reads only the conversations it started. A team member’s other correspondence remains private.
Each email is written and signed in the name of the person whose mailbox it comes from.
And if a service Herald relies on is briefly unavailable, work pauses where it is and resumes afterwards. Replies are still recorded, and unsubscribe requests are still honoured.
What a team gains
With Herald handling research, first drafts and sorting, a team’s time moves to where it is most valuable: the conversations with people who have replied.
The broader lesson reaches beyond sales. An AI system earns trust when its role is clearly defined, its limits are visible, and the people it works for remain in charge of how they are represented.