Homework: Send Your First Campaign

Writing emails is not the same as sending emails this homework asks you to run the full system once so you have real data to improve from

What You Are Building

A sending domain with DNS records configured and warmup running. A completed EMAIL.md with all sections filled in. A verified list of 20 targeted prospects with signals. A 4-email sequence written with Claude and loaded into Instantly or Gmail. And a first campaign running with at least 10 emails sent.

Part 1: Infrastructure

Set up your sending domain and DNS records. Verify with MXToolbox that SPF, DKIM, and DMARC all pass. Start warmup in Instantly or Warmup Inbox.

You cannot complete the rest of the homework without this step. The warmup takes 14 days to run in the background. Start it now and use those 14 days to complete Parts 2 through 4.

Confirmation needed: a screenshot of MXToolbox showing all three records passing and the date warmup started.

Part 2: Build EMAIL.md

Complete every section of your EMAIL.md using the template from the EMAIL.md lesson.

The three sections that most improve your Claude prompts are Who I Serve which needs to be specific enough that you could describe the person to a stranger and they could picture them, Signals I Look For which needs at least three signal types with notes on where to find them, and What I Sell which is your primary offer description from SALES.md pasted in.

Use this prompt to get feedback on your draft:

Using @SALES.MD and @MARKETING.MD — review my EMAIL.md draft and tell

me what is missing, too vague, or needs to be more specific.

[PASTE YOUR EMAIL.MD]

For each section tell me:

1. Is it specific enough to meaningfully guide Claude's outputs?
2. What is the weakest section and why?
3. What one thing should I add before using this file in real campaigns?

Part 3: Build Your Prospect List and Find Signals

Go to Apollo.io. Apply your filters. Export 20 contacts. Verify them. Fill in the Signal column with one specific observation per person.

Remove any prospect where you cannot find a real signal in 4 minutes.

Use the batch hook generation prompt from the personalisation lesson to write 20 personalised hooks. Review every output before keeping it.

Confirmation needed: 20 verified contacts with the Signal column filled in and 20 hooks reviewed and confirmed as specific.

Part 4: Write and Load Your Sequence

For your top 5 prospects run the sequence writing prompt from the follow-up sequence lesson and produce all four emails per prospect.

Review every email against the three-question test from the first email lesson.

Could this have been sent to 100 other people? If yes rewrite the hook.

Does it sell before it acknowledges the problem? If yes cut the self-introduction.

Does the ask require more than a reply? If yes make it smaller.

Load the sequence into Instantly with the hook column variable.

Confirmation needed: campaign created in Instantly or Gmail drafts ready, sequence loaded, sending schedule configured, "stop on reply" enabled, and test email sent and confirmed as landing in inbox.

Part 5: Launch and Post in the Community

Launch the campaign. Watch the Unibox for replies. After 5 days note the numbers.

Then post in the Claude Code and Codex Mastery community with the title "Outbound Email — Campaign Running."

Share five things: your ideal prospect profile in one sentence, the signal type you used for your first campaign and where you found it, one specific hook you wrote that you are most confident about, your reply rate after the first 5 to 10 emails even if it is 0% because the data is real and useful to share, and one thing you would do differently if you started over.

The community posts from this homework are consistently useful because outbound campaigns are specific to the sender's niche. Seeing someone else's hook in a different industry teaches more than a generic template.

Bonus: Go Further

Prospecting with Claude:

Using @EMAIL.md — help me find 5 more Apollo search queries I have not

tried yet that would surface my ideal prospects.

What I have already tried: [PASTE YOUR FILTER COMBINATIONS]
Best segment so far: [WHICH CAMPAIGN HAD THE HIGHEST POSITIVE REPLY RATE]

Give me 5 new filter combinations with:

• Job title variations I might have missed
• Alternative industry categories that face the same problem
• Technology filters worth trying
• Location refinements worth testing

Response handling with Claude:

Using @EMAIL.md, @SALES.MD, and @MARKETING.MD — help me respond to

this reply from a cold email prospect.

The original email I sent: [PASTE EMAIL]
Their reply: [PASTE REPLY]

Tell me:

1. What this reply tells me — interested, objection, wrong person, or

timing issue

1. The exact response I should send under 100 words that continues the

conversation

1. Whether to move this to the Sales sequence or stay in email mode

You Are Ready for the Next Course

With Marketing bringing people to you through content, Sales converting conversations into clients, and Outbound Email reaching people who have never heard of you, you now have a three-channel client acquisition system running.

The next course continues with SEO with Claude Code, which is search as a fourth channel that compounds over time without weekly effort.

Run this system for 4 weeks before moving on. The data from your first month of outbound will make you significantly better at every subsequent campaign.