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Creator outreach at scale — funnel math, emails, calls and referrals

How Cal AI signed 2,000–3,000 creators from ~220,000 contacted (25 assistants sending ~2,000 emails a day, AI-handled replies, a sales call, $100–200 referral bonuses), plus Coconote's rule for spotting reachable creators and why relationships compound.

Updated 2026-10-24·5 sources·organic-growthinfluencer-marketingcreator-outreachoperationscal-ai

Creator outreach at scale

TL;DR

  • Expect ~1% conversion: Cal AI contacted ~220,000 influencers and signed 2,000–3,000.1
  • Alfie Dickens’s rough funnel per 100 emails: ~10 replies, ~2 calls, ~1 signed. Real numbers were often nearer 1 signed per 1,000.1
  • Volume: 25 outreach assistants × ~100 emails a day ≈ 2,000 a day. Email beats DMs (DM limits, low reply rates unless you’re famous).23
  • Don’t ask for a call in message one. Answer “what’s your budget?” by pitching “seamless integration, long-term partnership, keep making your normal videos”, then ask for a call. Calls ~10× the chance of signing on good terms.45
  • Pay creators $100–200 per referred friend you sign — it also gets you around agents.6
  • Coconote’s filter: a Gmail address and 5–10K followers with good engagement is the sweet spot; an agency email in the bio means “you’re too late”.78

Details

Cal AI’s machine (Alfie Dickens).

  • Started with ~5 marketing assistants doing ~100 contacts each a day; grew to 25, hired through an outsourcing company. Real output was often 40–70 a day.23
  • After the first email, AI handled the initial back-and-forth and handed warm leads to a manager’s calendar.3
  • Alfie’s call script: get to know the creator first, then pitch “you keep doing what you’re doing, just sneak the app in”. Creators hate word-for-word scripts.9
  • Deals died almost only on price.10
  • Assistants got monthly prizes (cash, vouchers) for most contacts and most sign-ups via “referred by” tracking.11
  • Signing targets were 50+ creators a month, sometimes 100.12
  • Agents block deals a creator would take; Cal AI pushed to get the influencer themselves into the deal group chat.136
  • Being less picky than most brands helped: Cal AI contacted creators in France, Germany, Spain, the UK and the US, and said yes whenever the app fit the video at a decent CPM.14

It’s a grind (Jake Castillo). There’s no secret: thousands of messages, mostly unanswered, painful negotiations, every day for 18 months. Jake sees the difficulty as the moat — competitors quit after a day.1516

Relationships compound. Treat early creators as partners: Cal AI gave Dawson Gibbs unprompted bonuses because he iterated on angles without nickel-and-diming, and happy creators refer friends.17 Dawson referred ~100 creators to Cal AI for a per-creator fee.18

Onboarding friction (Drew Levin). Script every step: outreach message → 5-minute call → Notion page to join the campaign and submit handles. If it isn’t easy, the program never gets off the ground.19

Disagreements / caveats

  • Cal AI’s volume worked because fitness has a near-endless creator supply; in a small niche you’ll run out of creators long before 220K.
  • Nicole Cheung (How to find, vet and pay UGC creators for an app) recruits mostly through inbound and Discord communities once established, rather than cold volume.

See also

Footnotes

  1. Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Cal AI @ 35:21 — Alfie Dickens ↩ ↩2

  2. Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Cal AI @ 34:06 — Alfie Dickens ↩ ↩2

  3. Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Cal AI @ 44:25 — Alfie Dickens ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  4. Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Cal AI @ 37:39 — Alfie Dickens ↩

  5. Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Cal AI @ 39:15 — Alfie Dickens ↩

  6. Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Cal AI @ 45:33 — Alfie Dickens ↩ ↩2

  7. $6.7M ARR, No Paid Ads, and an Exit to Quizlet in 2 Years – Brett Bauman & Zack Hargett, Coconote @ 24:43 — Zack Hargett ↩

  8. $6.7M ARR, No Paid Ads, and an Exit to Quizlet in 2 Years – Brett Bauman & Zack Hargett, Coconote @ 25:31 — Zack Hargett ↩

  9. Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Cal AI @ 07:05 — Alfie Dickens ↩

  10. Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Cal AI @ 40:46 — Alfie Dickens ↩

  11. Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Cal AI @ 42:20 — Alfie Dickens ↩

  12. Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Cal AI @ 16:12 — Alfie Dickens ↩

  13. Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Cal AI @ 46:35 — Alfie Dickens ↩

  14. Meet The Marketing Genius Behind Cal AI @ 36:41 — Alfie Dickens ↩

  15. How Cal AI turned creators into a growth machine — Jake Castillo, Cal AI @ 43:33 — Jake Castillo ↩

  16. How Cal AI turned creators into a growth machine — Jake Castillo, Cal AI @ 44:25 — Jake Castillo ↩

  17. How Cal AI turned creators into a growth machine — Jake Castillo, Cal AI @ 06:35 — Jake Castillo ↩

  18. The 1 Billion Views Content Strategy Every App Should Steal in 2026 @ 04:09 — Dawson Gibbs ↩

  19. I Studied 1,000,000 UGC Ads, This Is What Will Grow Your App @ 14:02 — Drew Levin ↩