Case study
Linen and More produce bed linen from facilities in Israel, India and Egypt, and hold customers for twenty years. Reaching new ones was the problem. Marco had already bought a database and sent at volume, and got nothing back at all.
See if you qualifyMarco has been producing bed linen for almost forty years: fitted sheets, flat sheets, duvet covers, pillowcases, quilts and comforters, mostly at the high end, from facilities in Israel, India and Egypt. The buyers he needs are e-commerce stores that specifically sell bedding, across the UK, USA, Europe and South Africa.
Two years ago he tried to reach them himself. He bought a database of contacts and sent in volume. He tried LinkedIn as well. Neither produced a single conversation.
“We sent a lot of mails, no one get the answers. The people are very busy. They get a mail. I can support you, I can give you a good price. And usually, they don’t answer. Even they don’t read the mails.”
That outcome usually gets read as proof that cold outreach doesn’t work for a category. It’s more often proof that a list bought off the shelf is a list of addresses, not a list of buyers.
There’s a second difficulty specific to this market. Most of these businesses already have a supplier and are satisfied with them. The pitch isn’t asking anyone to switch. It’s introducing a second vendor, which any growing retailer eventually wants.
The list was built narrow on purpose: not homeware, not retail, not e-commerce broadly, but online stores whose actual product is bedding, pillows and linen. Specificity is what makes a first line land on a buyer who sells duvet covers for a living.
Campaigns went live in April 2026. Replies come into Marco’s own inbox, and his follow-up is why they convert: he reads the reply, finds their site, works out what end of the market they sell to, then sends a tailored introduction with portfolio, presentation and factory video. Everything moves to a Zoom call rather than a phone call.
“When you have a Zoom call, you meet each other. And then of course, after this Zoom call, we have a to-do list.”
Roughly a quarter of those calls become customers. For serious leads Marco travels to meet them, or invites them to audit the facilities in person.
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Replies from outreach | None, across thousands sent | Hundreds |
| Live buyer conversations | Zero | Five to six at once |
| Route to bedding e-commerce | Bought lists, cold LinkedIn | Targeted campaign, replies direct to inbox |
| Time to first negotiations | Two years, nothing | Inside four months |
“So actually, we are acting like partners. We go by hand by hands. If you grow, your succeed is my succeed.”
Next