Tomorrow's Best Brands: 23 brand partners from cold outbound
Key metrics from working with us for 60 days
96
Positive replies
Converted leads
23
Positive reply rate
2.37%
The brand
Tomorrow's Best Brands is a consumer-facing newsletter that spotlights innovative new food, drink, and wellness brands before they go mainstream. Subscribers get early access to exclusive deals from emerging CPG companies, delivered straight to their inbox.
The opportunity
The newsletter had the audience and the format. What it didn't have was a repeatable way to fill the feature calendar with brand partners. Inbound interest and warm intros weren't going to keep the pipeline full, especially when the brands that would benefit most from the exposure had never heard of the newsletter.
The goal was to build an outbound system that could consistently reach CPG founders and marketing leads at emerging brands, get them interested in being featured, and convert that interest into confirmed partnerships.
Our approach
We built and ran a cold email campaign targeting CPG brand owners and marketing decision-makers. The entire system, from list building to sequencing to follow-up, was designed to generate brand partners at scale.
Targeting
We assembled a list of emerging CPG brands across food, beverage, and wellness, filtering for founders, co-founders, and marketing leads. The sweet spot was brands with a product already in market but still early enough that newsletter exposure would move the needle.
Messaging
The emails led with what the brand gets: a feature in front of a curated audience of early adopters actively shopping for new products. No generic partnership pitch. The copy was short, specific, and written to sound like a person reaching out, not a platform selling inventory.
Sequencing
We ran a multi-step sequence across 5,477 prospects. Each follow-up added context or reframed the value instead of just bumping the thread. The sequence was built to stay useful at every touchpoint, not just chase a reply.
Results
The campaign generated 130 replies at a 2.37% reply rate. Of those, 23 converted into brand partners. Strong signals that the targeting and messaging were reaching the right people with the right offer.
Final takeaway
Landing newsletter brand partners through cold outbound is a different motion than generating leads for a service business. The brand needs to understand the audience, trust the format, and see the value of being featured, all from a cold email they didn't ask for. This campaign proved that with the right list, the right message, and a well-built sequence, cold email can fill a partnership pipeline without a sales team.