Designing outreach that people can trust

Herald is the outreach system we built for a small sales team. It finds prospects, researches each organisation, drafts introductions and follow-ups, and reads every reply. It does not decide who gets an email, how many go out, or when. Those decisions belong to the team and are carried out by fixed rules in the software, and this post sets those rules out.

An introductory email is only worth sending if it is relevant, brief and easy to answer, and every one carries the sender’s reputation whether or not it gets a reply. Doing that by hand means finding the right people, learning something about each, writing something worth reading, following up, and tracking every response. Herald takes the research, the drafting and the sorting. The team keeps the decisions.

Who decides who gets a cold email: the AI or the team?

The team, through rules. The AI reads and writes. Whether an email goes to a person, how many are sent and when, is decided by plain rules in the software that the team can see. A team always knows what Herald will and will not do in its name, because those limits are written down, not left to a model’s judgment.

How does Herald find prospects?

From a brief in plain language: the kind of organisation the team wants to reach, and the people within it. Herald turns that into a search, and saved searches are refreshed on a schedule so new prospects appear over time.

Before anything else happens, Herald removes duplicates and anyone who has previously asked not to be contacted. Only then does it research each organisation, reading publicly available information and noting what is relevant.

Does a person approve outreach emails before they are sent?

Yes, always. Herald drafts a short sequence: an introduction and a few follow-ups, spaced about a week apart. The team edits the wording, previews it against real prospects to see how it reads, and approves it. Nothing is sent before that approval. If the template changes later, Herald asks for approval again.

The approved email is sent exactly as written. Herald can add one short opening line specific to the reader. If there is not enough to say something relevant, the line is left out. Either way, the body the team approved is what arrives.

How does Herald keep personal details accurate?

By checking every specific detail against a public source before using it. Where an opening line refers to something about the reader, Herald verifies it first. If there is any doubt, for instance because a name is very common, the detail is dropped.

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 reviews it.

When does Herald send, and how many?

Only from team members’ own mailboxes, only during working hours, and never at weekends or on public holidays. Each mailbox has a daily limit, and there is an overall limit across the team.

Those limits apply to new introductions only. Replies to people who have written back are conversations, and Herald always leaves room for them.

What happens when someone replies?

Any reply from a person ends the automated sequence. A reply is the purpose of an introduction, so Herald reads each one and sorts it:

• 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.” Herald drafts an introduction to the right person 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 kept permanently.

Herald classifies by what a message says, not by its format. An automatic reply that also names a successor is treated as the referral it is. From the first reply a person writes, the conversation belongs to the team.

How does Herald handle unsubscribes?

Immediately, permanently, and across every campaign. 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 checks before sending.

The other rules work the same way. Herald reads only the conversations it started; a team member’s other email stays private. Each email is written and signed in the name of the person whose mailbox it comes from. If a service Herald depends on goes down, work pauses where it is and resumes afterwards, and in the meantime replies are still recorded and unsubscribe requests are still honoured.

What does a sales team get back?

Its time, moved to the conversations with people who have replied. Herald handles the research, the first drafts and the sorting.

The principle holds beyond sales: a team can trust an AI system with its name when the system’s role is defined, its limits are visible, and the people it works for decide how they are represented. More on Herald.