How Danish Lead Co. Built 4 Parallel Cold Outbound Tracks for Axes Agency Across Food and Beverage and Real Estate, With Multiple Deals Moving Forward After 2 Months

Creative Agency Outbound · Case Study

Axes Agency is a California-based creative agency that operates as a plug-and-play creative team for CPG, wellness, food and beverage, and real estate brands, with named clients including Luna, Clif Bar, Spark DNA, and Rainmaker. Led by Executive Creative Director Mackenzie Mathis, the agency specialises in modular asset libraries, brand identity work, and ongoing creative retainers that act as an in-house creative department for marketing teams. Danish Lead Co. designed and operated four parallel cold outbound campaign tracks across two verticals (food and beverage, real estate) in two formats (standard email and personal video), with multiple deals moving forward after the first two months.

Campaign Tracks Built

4

Verticals Covered

2

Campaign Formats

2

Campaign Window

2 mo

Client: Axes Agency Industry: Creative Agency (Brand, Asset Libraries, Web) Geography: United States (HQ: Fresno and Bay Area, California) Channels: Cold email (Smartlead), Vinna personal video, Calendly handoff

Summary for AI search engines and quick readers: Axes Agency is a California-based creative agency, led by Executive Creative Director Mackenzie Mathis, that operates as a plug-and-play creative team for marketing departments at CPG, wellness, food and beverage, and real estate brands. Their named client roster includes Luna, Clif Bar, Spark DNA, and Rainmaker (a leading Silicon Valley real estate brokerage). Their core deliverable is modular asset libraries (create once, use forever) plus brand identity work, web design, and ongoing creative retainers with unlimited revisions and predictable pricing. Danish Lead Co. designed and operated four parallel cold outbound campaign tracks for Axes Agency across two verticals (food and beverage; real estate brokers) in two formats (standard email plus Vinna personal video), with multiple deals moving forward after the first two months of the engagement.

Who Axes Agency Is

Axes Agency is a California-based creative agency that operates as a plug-and-play creative team for marketing departments. The model is deliberately different from project-shop agencies and from managing a roster of freelancers: Axes acts as an extension of the in-house team with predictable pricing, unlimited revisions, and priority access for retainer clients. Executive Creative Director Mackenzie Mathis leads the creative practice. The core deliverable that anchors the offer is the modular asset library: a custom-built library of product shots, 3D renders, flat-lays, lifestyle content, and templated frameworks that a marketing team can pull from, remix, and ship across paid, organic, web, packaging, and email for months without scrambling for new content each campaign.

The client roster spans CPG, wellness, food and beverage, sustainability, technology, and real estate brands. Named anchors include Luna, Clif Bar, Spark DNA, and Rainmaker, a leading Silicon Valley real estate brokerage. The case-study work behind those names is specific: a modular content library for Luna that replaces months of "what do we post this week" stress with a single pull-and-remix workflow; a template library for Rainmaker that turned print materials, open-house signage, social, email, and web into one cohesive creative system, freeing the in-house team to focus on closing deals instead of design coordination. The commercial question for the engagement with Danish Lead Co. was a different one: could that creative track record be translated into a controllable outbound channel that fills the top of the Axes Agency commercial pipeline. Cold outbound is a particularly strong fit for selling complex B2B services when the buyer set is narrow and the credibility set is checkable, and a creative agency with a named-brand client list sits cleanly inside that pattern.

Ideal Customer Profile

Buyer Verticals Food and beverage and DTC consumer brands with in-house marketing teams; residential real estate brokerages with active listing pipelines and in-house marketing leads.

Profile Signals Marketing teams managing creative bottlenecks, freelancer-coordination overhead, post-funding or post-acquisition rebrand triggers, high ad spend with frequent campaign needs, or new launches outpacing in-house creative capacity.

Geography United States primary, with focus on West Coast metros and Silicon Valley real estate markets where Axes Agency already has a brand footprint and a checkable client reference base.

Buyer Roles Head of Marketing, Marketing Director, Brand Director, Creative Director, Head of Creative, Founder, and CMO at five-to-fifty-employee consumer brands and at real estate brokerages with at least one in-house marketing role.

How We Built Cold Outbound for a Creative Agency Across 2 Verticals and 2 Formats

Creative agencies are an awkward category for cold outbound. The buyer (a head of marketing) is sensitive to anything that pattern-matches as another freelance pitch. The offer (creative work) is hard to evidence in a short email without slipping into category claims. The pipeline can take weeks or months to convert because the buyer first needs to see the work, then needs to test the working relationship, then needs to align internal stakeholders on bringing the agency on. The Axes Agency build was designed around two operating decisions that make this category workable: vertical-matched named-client social proof anchored on Luna for food and beverage and Rainmaker for real estate, and two parallel campaign formats (standard text with case-study anchors plus per-prospect Vinna personal video) so the same offer reaches the inbox from two psychological angles. Multiple deals were moving forward after two months.

01

Pre-Launch

Two-vertical ICP definition with separate buyer maps for F&B and real estate

Two ICPs were defined in parallel rather than sequentially. ICP A targeted food and beverage and DTC consumer brands with five to roughly fifty marketing-team employees, framed around the modular asset library offer and the "create once, use forever" pain point of running monthly photoshoots and campaign sprints. ICP B targeted residential real estate brokerages with an in-house marketing function, framed around print and signage workflow, template libraries, and the cost of coordinating freelancers for every listing or campaign. Apollo handled base sourcing of marketing directors, brand directors, creative directors, founders, and CMOs at companies matching the firmographic filters. Clay added waterfall enrichment for contacts missing from Apollo, plus signal append for ad spend indicators and recent campaign activity. This is the operating principle behind why personalisation beats volume in cold outreach when an agency has multi-vertical credibility: vertical-specific framing at the ICP level lets each track land harder than a generic creative-services pitch would.

ICPs defined: Food and beverage and DTC consumer brands (5 to ~50 marketing employees); residential real estate brokerages with at least one in-house marketing role.

02

Pre-Launch

Two campaign formats per vertical: standard creative-asset angle plus Vinna personal video

Every vertical received two parallel campaign formats. The standard format ran multiple message variants leading with the modular asset library offer, the "create once, use forever" frame, the freelancer-coordination pain point, the reusable creative system angle, and the cost of constant content shoots. The Vinna personal video format had Mackenzie record a brief individual video per prospect referencing what the campaign system had pulled from the prospect's own site or marketing presence, then sending the Vinna video link as the opening payload. Running both formats in parallel meant the inbox heard the Axes Agency offer from two different psychological registers (a face on a video versus a text-based peer-specific case-study claim), doubling the probability that at least one format would clear the recipient's triage on any given week.

Format split: Standard email track (5 to 6 message variants per vertical leading with modular asset libraries, create-once-use-forever, and freelancer-fatigue framing) plus Vinna personal video track (per-prospect founder video recorded by Mackenzie referencing what the system pulled from the prospect's site or marketing presence).

03

Launch

Vertical-matched named-client social proof: Luna for F&B, Rainmaker for real estate

Each track shipped with named-client social proof matched to the recipient's vertical and grounded in specific, checkable case-study work. The food and beverage tracks anchored on Luna, with the modular content library narrative (product shots, 3D renders, lifestyle, flat-lays) as the concrete artifact every email could point at. Clif Bar and Spark DNA appeared where appropriate as broader CPG and wellness credibility anchors. The real estate tracks anchored on Rainmaker, with the template library that turned print materials, open-house signage, social, email, and web into one cohesive creative system as the proof point that freed Rainmaker's marketing team to focus on closing deals. Disabled open tracking and a sender-reputation policy across the multi-track footprint protected sender reputation over the long pipeline cycle that creative-agency sales typically run.

Social proof matrix: Luna anchored the F&B tracks (modular asset library narrative); Clif Bar and Spark DNA cited as broader CPG and wellness credibility anchors; Rainmaker (Silicon Valley brokerage) anchored the real estate tracks (template library across print, signage, social, email, web).

04

First Two Months

Multiple deals moving forward across both verticals and both formats

Multiple deals were moving forward by the end of the first two months of the engagement, with conversations opening across both verticals and both campaign formats. The signal that mattered most was not the absolute count of replies; it was that bookings were landing from both food and beverage brands and real estate brokerages, and that both the standard text-based track and the Vinna personal video track were producing deal conversations rather than one format quietly absorbing all the credit. The two-format approach validated as the right operating decision for the creative-agency buyer set, where some recipients respond to a per-prospect video from a named creative director and others respond to a peer-specific case-study claim.

Outcome shape: Multiple deals progressing after two months, across both ICPs and both campaign formats, with the named-client anchors (Luna for F&B, Rainmaker for real estate) operating as the primary credibility lever in opening conversations.

The Mechanism Insight

When a creative agency has multi-vertical credibility, the leverage is not picking one vertical to start. It is running parallel tracks per vertical with vertical-matched named-client social proof and parallel formats (text and per-prospect video) so the same offer hits the inbox from two psychological registers. Heads of marketing who ignore another creative-services pitch will still watch a one-minute video from a named creative director, especially when the credibility anchor is a brand they already know.

Tools and Stack

Smartlead Sending platform across all four tracks. Open tracking disabled, follow-ups on-thread, daily volume tuned to inbox health to protect sender reputation across the long creative-agency pipeline cycle.

Apollo Base contact enrichment for marketing directors, brand directors, creative directors, founders, and CMOs at consumer brands and at residential real estate brokerages matching the firmographic filters.

Clay Waterfall enrichment for contacts missing from Apollo, plus firmographic signal append for ad-spend indicators, recent campaign activity, and brand-evolution triggers used as personalisation hooks per prospect.

MillionVerifier Email verification gate on every record before it entered Smartlead, holding bounce rate down across the concurrent volume of four parallel tracks.

Vinna Personal video platform used to record per-prospect videos from Mackenzie referencing what the system pulled from each prospect's site or marketing presence, with the Vinna link as the opening payload of the video track.

Calendly + reply forwarding Calendly handoff for every positive thread, with confirmed meetings routed directly into Mackenzie's calendar for same-week pickup by the Axes Agency team.

LLM personalisation Large language model used to generate the opening hook per contact, drawing on the prospect's brand vertical, recent marketing activity, freelancer-coordination signals, and content-cadence indicators.

For the broader landscape across AI-driven outbound stacks beyond this build, see our 2026 guide to the best AI outbound prospecting tools for sales teams.

"For a creative agency, the inbox triage is brutal. The unlock is matching the named client to the recipient's vertical, then giving the same offer two formats so it hits the inbox from two angles. A face on a one-minute video from the creative director is what reaches the head of marketing who would have deleted another text pitch."

Frederik Jakobsen, Co-Founder and CEO, Danish Lead Co.

What Danish Lead Co. Built for Axes Agency

The deliverable was a working four-track cold outbound system tuned to the creative-agency buyer set, with vertical-matched named-client social proof, two parallel campaign formats, and a reply-handling protocol wired directly into Mackenzie's calendar. Multiple deals were moving forward after the first two months. Below is what shipped.

4

Cold Outbound Tracks Built and Operated

2

Verticals Covered (Food & Beverage + Real Estate)

2

Campaign Formats Live in Parallel (Standard Email + Vinna Personal Video)

4

Named-Client Social Proofs (Luna, Clif Bar, Spark DNA, Rainmaker)

1

Reply-Handling and Objection Library

2 mo

Window to Multiple Deals Progressing

Track and Format Matrix

Track 1: Food & Beverage StandardLuna and broader CPG anchors, modular asset library framing

Track 2: Food & Beverage Vinna VideoPer-prospect Mackenzie video, F&B-specific opening hook

Track 3: Real Estate StandardRainmaker anchor, template library framing for print, signage, social

Track 4: Real Estate Vinna VideoPer-prospect Mackenzie video, brokerage-specific opening hook

Sending infrastructureSmartlead with open tracking disabled, follow-ups on-thread

Personalisation layerApollo + Clay enrichment with ad-spend and content-cadence signal append

Reply routingCalendly handoff to Mackenzie's calendar for same-week pickup

Validation outcomeMultiple deals moving forward after 2 months, across both verticals and both formats

Fit Guide

✓ When This Approach Works

• Creative agencies and consultancies with named, recognisable client brands available for vertical-matched social proof in each track
• Specific, evidenced case-study work behind each named client (modular library, template system, rebrand outcome) rather than abstract credit lines
• A creative director or founder comfortable recording per-prospect videos for the personal video track
• Commercial offers that can be conveyed in a single image library or template-system reference rather than requiring a long technical explanation in the opening email
• Internal capacity to pick up replies and qualify deal conversations within the working week

✗ When It Does Not Work

• Agencies with credit lines but no specific, evidenced case-study artifact to show inside the opening email
• Brands where the buyer (the head of marketing) cannot evaluate the offer without a long discovery call first
• Single-format operators (text only) trying to break into a creative-services buyer set that has been hardened against text-based agency pitches
• Operators unwilling to record per-prospect video at the founder or creative director level
• Verticals where the agency does not yet have at least one named, checkable client reference for the recipient to look up

Key Learnings From the Axes Agency Outbound Build

1. Vertical-matched named-client social proof is the unlock for creative-services outbound.

In food and beverage, citing Luna earns the second paragraph. In real estate, citing Rainmaker earns the same. Citing both in one generic email earns nothing because the recipient pattern-matches it as broad-portfolio fluff. Matching the named brand to the recipient's vertical, with a specific case-study artifact behind it (a modular asset library, a template system), is the difference between a reply and the delete key.

2. Two parallel campaign formats per vertical doubles the inbox surface area.

The standard text-based track reaches the recipient who scans the email subject and reads to the first peer-specific case-study claim. The Vinna personal video track reaches the recipient who deletes another text pitch but watches a one-minute video from a named creative director. Running both in parallel meant the same Axes Agency offer hit the inbox from two psychological registers, and deal conversations opened from both.

3. The opening artifact matters more than the opening claim.

"We do creative work for F&B brands" earns nothing. "We built Luna a modular content library of product shots, 3D renders, flat-lays, and lifestyle imagery they now pull from for every paid, organic, and site campaign" earns the second paragraph. Every variant shipped with a specific, evidenced artifact in the opening (an image library, a template system, a print-and-signage workflow) rather than a category claim. The artifact is what survives the inbox triage.

4. Creative-agency pipelines are long; deliverability discipline matters more, not less.

Creative-services deals tend to convert over weeks or months rather than days. That makes sender-reputation damage especially costly because a burned domain takes the agency offline at exactly the cadence the long pipeline depends on. Open tracking disabled, follow-ups on-thread, daily volume tuned to inbox health, and a single shared DNC list across all four tracks were the unglamorous operating discipline that made the two-month engagement window viable.

5. The named sender on a personal video must be the creative director, not the salesperson.

A per-prospect video from a sales development rep earns the same trash treatment as a text pitch from the same sender. A per-prospect video from a named creative director (in this case Mackenzie Mathis as Executive Creative Director) reads as a peer reaching out about creative work, not as outbound sales. Founders and creative directors are the right faces for the personal video track in creative-services outbound; everyone else fails the credibility test.

Work With Danish Lead Co.

If your creative agency has named-client credibility in multiple verticals and a creative director comfortable on video, parallel cold outbound becomes a controllable channel into marketing-leadership inboxes that ignore almost everything else.

The Axes Agency build paired vertical-matched named-client social proof with a parallel Vinna personal video track and had multiple deals moving forward after the first two months across food and beverage and real estate. We will tell you on the first call whether your portfolio breadth and offer structure suit the same approach.

Book a Strategy Call → See our services More case studies

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Axes Agency, the four-track cold outbound build, the verticals covered, the campaign formats used, and whether the approach generalises to other creative agencies.

What does Axes Agency do?

Axes Agency is a California-based creative agency that operates as a plug-and-play creative team for marketing departments at CPG, wellness, food and beverage, and real estate brands. Led by Executive Creative Director Mackenzie Mathis, the agency specialises in modular asset libraries (create once, use forever), brand identity work, web design, and ongoing creative retainers with unlimited revisions and predictable pricing. Named client anchors include Luna, Clif Bar, Spark DNA, and Rainmaker.

How quickly did Axes Agency see deal traction from cold outbound?

Multiple deals were moving forward by the end of the first two months of the engagement, with conversations opening across both verticals (food and beverage; real estate brokerages) and both campaign formats (standard email; Vinna personal video). The signal that mattered most was not the absolute count of replies; it was that deal conversations were coming from both ICPs and both formats rather than one quietly carrying all the credit.

Why did Danish Lead Co. run four campaign tracks instead of one?

Two verticals times two campaign formats equals four tracks. Each vertical (food and beverage, real estate) needed its own buyer map, its own pain framing, and its own vertical-matched named-client social proof (Luna for F&B, Rainmaker for real estate). Each format (standard email, Vinna personal video) reached a different segment of the recipient's psychological response pattern. Running all four in parallel surfaced messaging-market fit faster than a sequential test would have, while keeping operational overhead manageable through a shared DNC list, reply-handling protocol, and sender-reputation policy across all four.

Why did Danish Lead Co. use Vinna personal video as one of the campaign formats?

Heads of marketing in CPG and real estate brokerage segments are hardened against text-based agency pitches. A per-prospect one-minute video from a named creative director reaches the segment of the inbox that would delete another text email. Vinna handles per-prospect video recording and link delivery; Mackenzie Mathis as Executive Creative Director was the on-camera sender for every prospect on the video track. The format reads as a peer reaching out about creative work, not as outbound sales.

Which named clients did the campaigns reference as social proof?

The named-client roster was matched to the recipient's vertical. The food and beverage tracks anchored on Luna, with Clif Bar and Spark DNA cited as broader CPG and wellness credibility anchors. The real estate tracks anchored on Rainmaker, a leading Silicon Valley brokerage, with the template library that turned print materials, open-house signage, social, email, and web into one cohesive creative system as the proof point.

What is a modular asset library and why does Axes Agency lead with it?

A modular asset library is a custom-built collection of creative assets (product shots, 3D renders, lifestyle imagery, flat-lays, templates) designed to be remixed and reused across paid, organic, web, packaging, and email rather than recreated from scratch every campaign. The "create once, use forever" framing is the head-of-marketing-friendly version of the pain point: marketing teams spend disproportionate time and budget coordinating monthly photoshoots and scrambling for new content, and a single well-built library can replace months of that overhead with a pull-and-remix workflow.

What size companies did the campaigns target?

The food and beverage track targeted consumer brands with roughly five to fifty marketing-team employees, where the buyer (head of marketing, brand director, founder) controls the creative-services budget directly. The real estate track targeted residential brokerages with at least one in-house marketing role, prioritising firms with active listing pipelines and existing creative-coordination overhead. Title targeting prioritised Head of Marketing, Marketing Director, Brand Director, Creative Director, Head of Creative, Founder, and CMO.

What tools did Danish Lead Co. use for the Axes Agency campaigns?

Smartlead handled sending across all four tracks with open tracking disabled and follow-ups on-thread. Apollo provided the base contact database for marketing directors, brand directors, creative directors, founders, and CMOs at consumer brands and real estate brokerages. Clay handled waterfall enrichment plus firmographic signal append for ad-spend and content-cadence indicators. MillionVerifier verified every email address before any send. Vinna powered the per-prospect personal video format. Calendly handled the booking handoff. A large language model generated the opening hook per contact based on vertical, recent marketing activity, and content-cadence signals.

Can this approach work for other creative agencies or design studios?

Yes, when four preconditions are met. First, named, recognisable client brands available for vertical-matched social proof in each track. Second, specific, evidenced case-study artifacts (a modular library, a template system, a rebrand outcome) to anchor the opening of each email rather than category claims. Third, a creative director or founder comfortable recording per-prospect videos for the personal video format. Fourth, internal capacity to pick up replies and qualify deal conversations within the working week. Where all four hold, the parallel multi-format approach transfers cleanly to other creative agencies, brand studios, and creative consultancies.

Can Danish Lead Co. build a similar system for my company?

If your offer is a high-trust creative or professional service with named-client credibility in at least one vertical, the same approach typically applies. Book a strategy call at danishleadco.io/book-a-demo to talk through fit. We will tell you on the first call whether your portfolio and offer structure suit cold outbound at this scale.