How a B2B Manufacturer/Paper Products Supplier Generated 123 RFQs with AI Outbound
Dashboard view showing outbound campaign performance metrics across B2B Manufacturer/Paper Products Supplier lead generation sequences, including leads, emails sent, reply rates, and positive responses.
Client Overview
Company: SOFi Paper Products
Industry: Sustainable Packaging / Paper Products Manufacturing
Team Size: 20–10,000 employees
ICP: Cafés, coffee chains, hotels, restaurants, and other businesses with high usage of paper cups, straws, and similar consumables
Why They Chose Danish Lead Co.: SOFi had grown through cold email in the past, but declining deliverability and deteriorating results meant their pipeline was slowing down. They needed a modern outbound system that could revive performance and scale consistently.
Challenges Before AI Outbound
SOFi sells innovative, highly sustainable paper products — especially premium paper straws and next-generation paper cups. Demand existed, but reaching the right buyers at scale had become increasingly difficult.
Their previous cold email efforts suffered from:
- Shrinking reply rates and domain fatigue after years of DIY outbound
- Hard-to-find buyers: cafés, restaurants, and hotels are notoriously difficult to identify on LinkedIn
- Inconsistent list quality leading to wasted sends and poor targeting
- Meeting friction: the ICP rarely booked online meetings and preferred quick phone conversations
They needed a complete rebuild: better lead sourcing, cleaner lists, stronger deliverability, and messaging that matched how this ICP actually prefers to engage.
Our AI-Powered Outbound System
We rebuilt SOFi’s outbound engine from the ground up — powering consistent, scalable RFQ generation across the US over ~9 months.
Here’s how we did it:
Google Maps–Driven Lead Sourcing:
Because most cafés, restaurants, and hospitality venues aren’t well-categorised on LinkedIn, we scraped Google Maps at scale, filtering for the correct business size, location, and relevance — then layered AI enrichment to identify the decision-makers.ICP Validation + Segmentation:
Segmented leads by business type (cafés, coffee chains, hotels, restaurants, event venues) and prioritised those with high consumable usage.Deliverability Overhaul:
Deployed fresh sending domains, strong warmup routines, and rotating inbox architecture to reverse declining performance.Messaging Built for This ICP:
Instead of pushing for online meetings (which underperformed), we pivoted to a “quick call” CTA, which aligned with how operators in this industry naturally buy. This single change dramatically increased positive engagement.AI-Assisted Personalisation:
Used Clay for enrichment, validation, and micro-personalisation at scale — replaced generic messaging with contextual relevance.Continuous Optimisation:
Weekly angle tests (sustainability, product quality, supply chain reliability, price competitiveness) to learn what triggered RFQs fastest.
Results
Over ~9 months, the new system produced:
✅ 123 RFQs generated (Requests for Quote)
✅ Consistent inbound interest from cafés, hotels, restaurants, and food service brands
✅ Successful transition away from booking links → high-performing phone-call conversions
✅ Reversal of declining outbound results — performance trending upward month over month
✅ Dramatically improved list quality from Google Maps + AI enrichment
SOFi regained the predictable outbound engine they previously relied on — but with far higher quality, scalability, and sustainability.
Client Feedback
“Our previous cold email results were dropping month after month. Danish Lead Co. completely rebuilt our outbound engine — and within weeks RFQs were coming in again. The Google Maps sourcing and quick-call approach worked way better than anything we’d tried.”
— SOFi Leadership Team
Tools & Stack Used
Clay – Lead enrichment, validation, and contextual personalisation
Smartlead – Domain rotation, inbox diversification, and anti-burn scaling
Outscraper – Google Maps scraping for cafés, restaurants, hotels, and food service locations
Apollo – Additional contact data and micro-segmentation
Google Maps – Primary TAM sourcing infrastructure
Key Learnings
- Google Maps → Best source for hospitality leads: Traditional B2B databases miss small/mid-size cafés, hotels, and restaurants.
- Phone calls outperform meetings: For operators, a simple phone call dramatically beats calendar scheduling.
- Sustainability + quality angle wins: Messaging focused on “eco-friendly without sacrificing usability” produced the strongest RFQ volume.
- Deliverability resets matter: Multi-domain rotation quickly reversed the decaying performance from SOFi’s old setup.
Next Steps
- Expand campaigns to new hospitality regions and niche food-service verticals
- Add personalised sustainability messaging for eco-certified or eco-focused venues
- Explore international expansion (UK, EU, Australia) with localized angles
- Layer on LinkedIn presence (soft-touch), once volume caps are reached
Want Results Like This?
We build AI-powered outbound systems designed to generate real opportunities — RFQs, booked calls, and sales conversations — not vanity metrics.
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