Seed User Pool Stratification

seed-user-pool-stratification

Purpose — Given a raw seed user pool of 100–1000 rows, stratify it into ROI-ranked tiers before spending any outreach energy. Prevents the classic mistake of spraying Tier-4 prospects first and burning the list.

Triggers — "rank this seed pool", "who should I message first", "stratify these 500 leads", "who's Tier 1 here"

Why this matters — Reply rate drops ~70% when you send to low-tier leads first (they set the baseline, contaminate deliverability, and burn your bandwidth). Always hit Tier 1 first, learn, then decide if Tier 2–4 is worth the effort.

Inputs

• Raw seed CSV (from competitive-intel-mining or elsewhere) with at minimum: handle, source_url, exact_quote, pain_category
• Your product's ICP — 1–2 sentences describing who benefits most
• Capacity — how many messages you can send personally per week (realistic, not aspirational)

Outputs

• CSV with added columns: tier (1–4), intent_score (0–3), fit_score (0–3), access_score (0–3), rationale, send_week
• pool-ranking-summary.md — how many rows per tier, recommended send sequence, estimated reply/convert rates

Scoring rubric

Each row gets 3 scores, each 0–3. Total = intent × 0.5 + fit × 0.3 + access × 0.2.

Intent (0–3) — how hot is their pain right now?

• 3 — Complaint posted in last 30 days, unresolved, active blocker
• 2 — Complaint in last 90 days, resolved but with workaround
• 1 — Mentioned pain >90 days ago
• 0 — No direct pain signal

Fit (0–3) — how well do they match your ICP?

• 3 — Exact ICP (role, team size, tech stack all match)
• 2 — Adjacent ICP (2 of 3 match)
• 1 — Loose ICP (1 of 3 match)
• 0 — Not ICP

Access (0–3) — how easily can you reach them?

• 3 — Public email + active on X/LinkedIn + English-speaking
• 2 — Two reach channels available
• 1 — One obscure channel only
• 0 — Effectively anonymous handle

Tiering

Steps

1. Score each row across intent / fit / access
2. Compute weighted score → tier
3. Write 1-sentence rationale per Tier-1 row (why them, why now, what angle)
4. Capacity-cap Tier 1 — if you have 10 Tier-1 rows but only capacity for 5/week, split across 2 weeks
5. Write summary — how many per tier, send sequence, expected reply rate (benchmark: Tier 1 = 30–50%, Tier 2 = 10–20%, Tier 3 = 2–5%)

Quality bar

• Every Tier-1 row has a written rationale
• Tier 1 does not exceed your realistic weekly capacity × 4 (otherwise you burn the list)
• If Tier 1 is <5 rows, don't stratify — just hand-pick. Stratification is overkill for small pools.

Anti-patterns

• Don't skip Tier 1 to "warm up with easy Tier 3 messages." Tier 1 teaches you what resonates; Tier 3 teaches you only that cold email is hard.
• Don't let fit override intent. Perfect ICP + no pain = no reply. Hotter pain + loose ICP converts higher.
• Don't rank on "followers" or "stars." Prominence ≠ pain.

Related

• Upstream skill: competitive-intel-mining
• Downstream skill: personalized-cold-outreach
• Playbook: 01-cold-email-campaign