2026-05-electrical-distributor-manufacturer

# Campaign: 2026-05-electrical-distributor-manufacturer
**Persona:** Electrical Distributors | **Hypothesis:** (1) Social proof in DM#1 boosts reply rate. (2) Pain-point email subject boosts open rate vs credibility subject. | **Date:** 2026-04-24

## Rationale

This campaign targets the people who actually read blueprints and build BOMs at mid-size electrical distributors — quotation specialists, project specialists, and account managers who handle project quotes. Past campaigns targeting this space made two mistakes: (1) the sales-electric-suppliers campaign used product-first framing at 78 words (4.7% reply, but 50% positive sentiment among repliers — the audience IS interested), and (2) the pm-electric-manufacturer campaign targeted enterprise companies (Siemens, Eaton, ABB) where PMs can't adopt tools (22% reply, 0 conversions).

This campaign corrects both: we target mid-size companies (11-500 employees) and use the estimating-services DM#1 formula — the gold-standard template that produced 13.7% reply rate with 42% positive sentiment. Specifically:

- **Founder story first** (11.3% avg reply vs 2.1% product-first — playbook pattern #1)
- **Under 60 words** for DM#1 (55w→19.5%, 57w→13.7%, 78w→4.7% — playbook pattern #2)
- **Open-ended question CTA** about their pain point, not "15-minute call" (14.2% vs 1.2% — playbook pattern #5)
- **Distributor-specific language**: "RFQs", "project quotes", "blueprints to BOMs" — not generic "takeoffs" which is contractor language. The sales-electric-suppliers retro noted content/audience mismatch hurt performance.
- **Framing Gink as upstream from their ERP** — distributors already have Eclipse/Prophet 21 for pricing. Gink fills the gap before pricing: turning the blueprints into the BOM.

The ABB Account Manager from the suppliers campaign booked a meeting immediately, and the Graybar Project Specialist asked deep technical questions about the AI model. These are the exact roles we're now targeting at smaller, more agile companies.

**What's new in this campaign:**
1. **Social proof in DM#1** — adding "I've been testing with quotation teams at a few distributors and the feedback has been really positive." This has never been tested. The estimating-services retro explicitly recommended it.
2. **Pain-point email subject** — using "Quoting from blueprints at {{companyName}}" instead of our standard "Former electrical apprentice & PlanGrid dev". Our best email open rate was 63% (suppliers) with credibility subjects, but 0 email replies. Testing whether a problem-focused subject converts better.

---

## LinkedIn path (connection accepted)

### Step 1: Connection request note
No note — send without.

### Step 2: DM #1 (after accept, 30min delay)
Hey {{firstname}}, thanks for connecting. I'm a former electrical apprentice turned software dev (spent a decade building PlanGrid). Now I'm building an AI tool that turns construction blueprints into BOMs automatically. I've been testing with electrical quotation teams at a few distributors and the feedback has been positive.

Is building project quotes from blueprints a major time sink for your team at {{companyName}}?

Alexei

### Step 3: DM #2 (if no reply, 3-4 days later)
You can send me a project and I'll send back the bill of materials it produces so you can see how it works on your projects. My email is alexei@usevawn.com.

### Step 4: DM #3 (if no reply, no email available)
I'll be inviting a handful of people to try it out in a couple of weeks. Would you like to be part of that invite?

Alexei

---

## Email path (connection accepted, has email)

### Step 5: Email #1 (7 days after DM#2, no reply)
**Subject:** Quoting from blueprints at {{companyName}}
Hey {{firstname}},

I'm a former electrical apprentice turned software dev that spent a decade building PlanGrid. Now I'm building an AI tool that reads construction blueprints and automatically generates BOMs.

I've been talking to quotation teams and hearing that manually building BOMs from blueprints is the biggest bottleneck. Is that true for your team at {{companyName}}?

Alexei


---

## Email path (connection NOT accepted)

### Step 7: Email #1
**Subject:** Quoting from blueprints at {{companyName}}
Hey {{firstname}},

I'm a former electrical apprentice turned software dev that spent a decade building PlanGrid. Now I'm building an AI tool that reads construction blueprints and generates BOMs automatically — the step before pricing in your ERP.

I'm talking to quotation teams at distributors to understand if manually building BOMs from blueprints is still a major time sink. Is that true at {{companyName}}?

Alexei

### Step 8: Email #2 (7 days later)
**Subject:**
You can also send me a sample project and I'll send back the bill of materials it produces so you can see how it works on your projects. 

Alexei

### Step 9: Email #3 (7 days later)
**Subject:**
I'll be inviting a handful of people to try it out in a couple of weeks. Would you like to be part of that invite?

Alexei

# Hypotheses

This campaign tests two content changes simultaneously.

---

## Hypothesis 1: Social Proof in DM#1

### Statement
Adding "I've been testing with quotation teams at a few distributors and the feedback has been really positive" to the DM#1 opener will increase reply rate compared to past campaigns that used founder-story-only.

### Why this matters
Social proof has never been used in any of our 7 campaigns. The estimating-services retro (13.7% reply, 42% positive — our best campaign) explicitly recommended testing it. If it works, every future DM#1 should include it. The social proof line adds 14 words (51→65), pushing above our 60-word sweet spot — if reply rate still improves, we know social proof outweighs brevity.

### How we measure
Compare this campaign's LinkedIn reply rate against the estimating-services campaign (13.7%) and the sales-electric-suppliers campaign (4.7%) — the two closest audience comparisons. Since we can't A/B test in La Growth, this is a sequential test: same proven formula (founder story + open question CTA) with social proof added.

### Confounds to watch
- Different audience (distributor quotation specialists vs estimators/sales reps) means reply rate differences could be audience-driven, not content-driven
- DM#1 is 65 words — if reply rate drops, we won't know if it's the social proof or the length
- Compare connection acceptance rate to prior campaigns to isolate audience quality from content quality

### Success criteria
- Reply rate >10% → social proof likely helps (above the 7-campaign average of 8.6%)
- Reply rate 5-10% → inconclusive (could be audience effect)
- Reply rate <5% → social proof may hurt, or audience isn't viable

---

## Hypothesis 2: Pain-Point Email Subject Line

### Statement
Using a pain-point subject line ("Quoting from blueprints at {{companyName}}") will produce more email replies than our standard credibility subject ("Former electrical apprentice & PlanGrid dev").

### Why this matters
Across 7 campaigns, we've had high email open rates (up to 63%) but almost zero email replies (10 total across all campaigns, most from the accepted+email path). Every campaign used a credibility-focused subject line. We've never tested whether a subject that names the recipient's problem converts better. If it does, we can split-test subjects in future campaigns.

### How we measure
- **Primary metric:** Email reply count (any reply, including from not-accepted path)
- **Secondary metric:** Email open rate — compare against our best (63% from suppliers) and average (~45%)
- The subject "Quoting from blueprints at {{companyName}}" uses company-name personalization (proven in DM#1) and names a specific activity

### Confounds to watch
- Different audience may have different email behavior regardless of subject
- Email replies have always been near-zero — this might be a channel limitation, not a subject problem
- If open rate drops significantly, the pain-point framing may be less compelling than credibility

### Success criteria
- Any email replies (>0) from the not-accepted path → pain-point subject works better than credibility
- Open rate >50% with replies → strong signal to adopt pain-point subjects
- Open rate <30% → pain-point subject is less compelling, stick with credibility

No leads linked to this campaign yet.