Where Net Zero started

Net Zero had built a platform that could genuinely help companies manage carbon emissions, automate utility billing, and navigate ESG obligations. The product worked. The problem was they did not know who to sell it to.

Three verticals looked promising — construction, utilities, and accounting — but none had demonstrated repeatable traction. The team had run their own outbound campaigns to try to find the answer. The results were not encouraging.

Before The GTM Company:

• 6 replies over three weeks of outbound

• No qualified meetings booked

• Inconsistent copy with no clear angle per vertical

• Low-quality prospect data with no personalisation logic

• No clarity on which market had genuine commercial pull

The problem was not the product. It was that every vertical valued a different part of the platform — and without knowing which angle to lead with, every email felt like a generic pitch aimed at no one in particular.

Our approach

Most outbound fails for one reason. It asks before it gives. It leads with the product, not the problem. It treats every prospect the same regardless of what they actually care about.

Our thesis is the opposite. Before we ask for anything, we find a way to give the prospect something genuinely useful — a specific insight, a relevant observation, a hook that makes them feel like we actually understand their world. That is what makes someone reply.

For Net Zero, that meant three entirely different campaigns, each built around what each vertical actually cared about — not what Net Zero wanted to say.

01 — Signal-driven targeting We used live data — project names, hiring signals, operational footprints — to reach the right people at the right moment.

02 — Value before the ask Every email led with something the prospect cared about. Not a feature. Not a demo request. A reason to reply.

03 — Outbound as discovery Replies, meeting quality, and objections were fed back as market intelligence — not just pipeline data.

Three verticals. Three completely different campaigns.

The same product. Three different problems. Three different reasons to reply.

Construction — Contract risk and future tenders

Hook: "ESG reporting now directly impacts who wins future bids."

We personalised around named projects, live tender commitments, and sustainability obligations specific to each firm. The trigger was not ESG as a concept — it was losing contracts.

Utilities — Replace manual invoice teams with AI

Hook: "Cut 70–90% of your invoice processing workload."

We found companies with large data-entry and invoice-processing teams using hiring signals. The angle had nothing to do with ESG. It was about operational cost and replacing manual labour.

Accounting — Add ESG services without adding headcount

Hook: "Offer ESG reporting to every client. Zero additional staff."

For accountants, the hook was revenue expansion. We personalised around existing client niches, partner bios, and the specific services each firm already offered.

"Most agencies send the same email to everyone. We spent more time on the hook than the email — because if the first line is not relevant, nothing else matters."

The results

12,750 emails sent across three verticals over 90 days.

Email performance

LinkedIn performance

What the market told us

Every reply, every meeting, every objection was data. By the end of the campaign, Net Zero did not just have pipeline — they had a clear view of which vertical to prioritise and why.

Construction — Priority 2 of 3

Contract risk drives action. Firms responded best to specific project references and future tender implications. Generic ESG messaging was ignored. Specific, personalised contract-risk framing converted.

Utilities — Priority 1 of 3

Labour cost beats ESG every time. Utilities did not care about carbon reporting. They cared about cutting the cost of large invoice-processing teams. The AI automation angle produced the highest urgency responses in the campaign.

Accounting — Priority 3 of 3

Revenue expansion is the hook. Accountants were not interested in ESG for compliance. They were interested in offering a new service to existing clients without taking on new staff. A strong partnership-led opportunity.

More than pipeline

The 40 booked calls a month matter. But the bigger outcome was strategic clarity that no amount of internal discussion or product research could have produced as quickly.

01 — ICP priority confirmed by live market behaviour Not a hypothesis. Not a spreadsheet. Real replies and real meetings that showed exactly who was ready to buy and why.

02 — Validated copy frameworks for each vertical What landed in construction does not land in utilities. The campaign produced tested, proven messaging for each market — ready to use in future outbound.

03 — A repeatable outbound system the team can run independently Clean ICP datasets, project-driven personalisation logic, sending infrastructure, and a prospecting methodology that works without us.

04 — Clarity on product development priorities Knowing that utilities care about labour cost — not ESG — changes where the product team focuses. Outbound produced a strategic roadmap, not just a pipeline report.