Suede AI Cold Email Writing
Use this cold-email playbook to write concise, evidence-grounded outreach that sounds human and respects the recipient.
Before Writing
Check for product marketing context first:
If .agents/product-marketing.md exists (or .claude/product-marketing.md, or the legacy product-marketing-context.md filename, in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.
Understand the situation (ask if not provided):
- Who are you writing to? Role, company, why them specifically
- What do you want? The outcome (meeting, reply, intro, demo)
- What's the value? The specific problem you solve for people like them
- What's your proof? A result, case study, or credibility signal
- Any research signals? Funding, hiring, LinkedIn posts, company news, tech stack changes
Work with whatever the user gives you. If they have a strong signal and a clear value prop, that's enough to write. Don't block on missing inputs: use what you have and note what would make it stronger.
Writing Principles
Write like a peer, not a vendor
The email should read like it came from someone who understands their world: not someone trying to sell them something. Use contractions. Read it aloud. If it sounds like marketing copy, rewrite it.
Every sentence must earn its place
Cold email is ruthlessly short. If a sentence doesn't move the reader toward replying, cut it. The best cold emails feel like they could have been shorter, not longer.
Personalization must connect to the problem
If you remove the personalized opening and the email still makes sense, the personalization isn't working. The observation should naturally lead into why you're reaching out.
See personalization.md for the 4-level system and research signals.
Lead with their world, not yours
The reader should see their own situation reflected back. "You/your" should dominate over "I/we." Don't open with who you are or what your company does.
One ask, low friction
Interest-based CTAs ("Worth exploring?" / "Would this be useful?") beat meeting requests. One CTA per email. Make it easy to say yes with a one-line reply.
Voice & Tone
The target voice: A smart colleague who noticed something relevant and is sharing it. Conversational but not sloppy. Confident but not pushy.
Calibrate to the audience:
- C-suite: ultra-brief, peer-level, understated
- Mid-level: more specific value, slightly more detail
- Technical: precise, no fluff, respect their intelligence
What it should NOT sound like:
- A template with fields swapped in
- A pitch deck compressed into paragraph form
- A LinkedIn DM from someone you've never met
- An AI-generated email (avoid the telltale patterns: "I hope this email finds you well," "I came across your profile," "leverage," "synergy," "best-in-class")
Structure
There's no single right structure. Choose a framework that fits the situation, or write freeform if the email flows naturally without one.
Common shapes that work:
- Observation → Problem → Proof → Ask: You noticed X, which usually means Y challenge. We helped Z with that. Interested?
- Question → Value → Ask: Struggling with X? We do Y. Company Z saw [result]. Worth a look?
- Trigger → Insight → Ask: Congrats on X. That usually creates Y challenge. We've helped similar companies with that. Curious?
- Story → Bridge → Ask: [Similar company] had [problem]. They [solved it this way]. Relevant to you?
For the full catalog of frameworks with examples, see frameworks.md.
Subject Lines
Short, boring, internal-looking. The subject line's only job is to get the email opened: not to sell.
- 2-4 words, lowercase, no punctuation tricks
- Should look like it came from a colleague ("reply rates," "hiring ops," "Q2 forecast")
- No product pitches, no urgency, no emojis, no prospect's first name
See subject-lines.md for the full data.
Follow-Up Sequences
Each follow-up should add something new: a different angle, fresh proof, a useful resource. "Just checking in" gives the reader no reason to respond.
- 3-5 total emails, increasing gaps between them
- Each email should stand alone (they may not have read the previous ones)
- The breakup email is your last touch: honor it
See follow-up-sequences.md for cadence, angle rotation, and breakup email templates.
Quality Check
Run this pass on the draft before presenting it. Every item resolves to something you can observe in the text, not a feeling about it.
Any item that fails means rewrite before presenting. Do not hand over a draft with a caveat attached to it.
Output Format
Deliver every email in this shape, with these field labels verbatim.
Subject: [2-4 words, lowercase]
Body: (NN words, target under 75)
[the email exactly as it would be pasted into the send tool]
CTA: [the single ask, quoted from the body]
Personalization source: [the specific signal this email traces to (the post, the filing,
the job ad, the release) with enough detail that the user can confirm it is real]
Personalization source: is required on every email. It is what makes the "do not invent personalization" boundary auditable. If you cannot name a real source, you do not have personalization, and the opening line has to change.
Emit the follow-up table only when the user asked for a sequence rather than a single message:
| # | Send day | New angle it carries | Subject |
|---|
| 1 | 0 | ... | ... |
| 2 | +3 | ... | ... |
3-5 emails total: see follow-up-sequences.md for cadence and angle rotation. Omit the table entirely for a single-message request.
What to Avoid
- Opening with "I hope this email finds you well" or "My name is X and I work at Y"
- Jargon: "synergy," "leverage," "circle back," "best-in-class," "leading provider"
- Feature dumps: one proof point beats ten features
- HTML, images, or multiple links
- Fake "Re:" or "Fwd:" subject lines
- Identical templates with only {{FirstName}} swapped
- Asking for 30-minute calls in first touch
- "Just checking in" follow-ups
Deliverability Gate
Copy that lands in spam earns nothing, and a burned domain takes months to
recover. When the user asks for a sequence or a send plan, state these as
recommendations alongside the copy:
- Send from a secondary domain or subdomain, never the primary domain that
carries invoices and password resets.
- SPF, DKIM, and DMARC (p=none minimum, aligned) must pass. Gmail treats close
to 5,000 daily messages to personal accounts as bulk, and Microsoft enforces
authentication above 5,000 a day; both reject non-compliant mail.
- Keep the spam-complaint rate under 0.1% and never near 0.3%.
- Include a working opt-out and a postal address (CAN-SPAM); honor opt-outs
fast and permanently.
- Verify addresses first; stop if hard bounces pass 2%.
- Plain text, at most one link, no images or attachments on first touch.
Sources and detail: benchmarks.md.
References
Use them to inform the writing, not as a checklist to satisfy.
Boundaries
- Do not invent personalization, mutual connections, customer facts, results, urgency, or prior contact.
- Do not scrape prohibited data, expose sensitive personal information, or advise evasion of consent, spam, or platform rules.
- Do not send, schedule, enroll, or follow up with anyone without explicit authorization for the exact recipients and sequence.
- Do not decide that silence means consent; honor opt-outs and suppression lists before any execution.
Routing
- Need a qualified prospect list -> use
suede-prospecting.
- Need lifecycle or nurture email -> use
suede-emails.
- Need positioning context or collateral -> use
suede-product-marketing or suede-sales-enablement.
- Need CRM stages, lead routing, or suppression operations -> use
suede-revops.
- Before anything goes to a real recipient -> use
suede-deslop.
- From those skills, route cold outbound message and follow-up writing back to
suede-cold-email.