How to Use folk to Build and Email a Partner Outreach List

The short answer: create a group for the partners, capture them from LinkedIn or Sales Navigator with the folkX extension, enrich their emails, add an AI field that sorts each one by fit and check its answers, authenticate your own domain as a custom sender, write a short sequence that stops on reply and carries an unsubscribe link, review every recipient's copy, then read the analytics and move replies through the group's pipeline.

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The job: you want twenty agencies, resellers or creators to partner with you, and the list lives in a LinkedIn search, three spreadsheets and somebody's memory. folk turns it into one group you can sort, email and track. For what the product is and costs, see the folk glossary entry.

Before you capture anyone:

• Budget the enrichment credits. For example, 200 partner contacts take 200 email credits from Standard's 500 a month, and at the 50 to 60% success rate in folk's enrichment guide you should expect between 200 x 0.5 = 100 and 200 x 0.6 = 120 addresses. The rest need a manual search or a LinkedIn message.
• Start from the list you already have. Import the spreadsheet first, then add from LinkedIn, so nobody arrives twice.
• Write down the reply rate that makes a second wave worth it, and how many signed partners the campaign needs to pay back the seats.

What you need

• folk Premium if the campaign has follow-ups. The pricing page lists sequences on Premium, at $48 per member a month billed annually or $60 monthly, checked on 24 October 2026. Standard sends single campaigns.
• Access to your domain's DNS, for the custom sender.
• Google Chrome for the folkX extension.
• A basis for emailing each partner. Article 13 of the ePrivacy Directive requires prior consent for marketing email to individual subscribers, leaves other subscribers to national law, and requires a valid address where recipients can ask you to stop. Whether a partner's work address counts as an individual's depends on the country.

Step 1: Create the group

Click the plus button in the sidebar, name the group, pick an emoji, and choose People as the contact type, per the groups guide. folk creates a pipeline view and a table view. Rename the pipeline stages to the partner journey, such as To contact, Contacted, In talks, Signed.

Step 2: Capture partners with folkX

Install folkX from the Chrome Web Store and pin it. On a LinkedIn profile, click the folkX floating button, choose the workspace and the group, and folk pulls in the name, company, job title, LinkedIn URL and any public email or phone, per the folkX guide. For a list, run a LinkedIn search such as "partnerships manager agency" and add the results page by page; in Sales Navigator, scroll to load the results and add up to ten at once. A contact already in folk opens as its profile instead of a duplicate.

Step 3: Find the emails

Select the contacts in the group and click Enrich, or Enrich all for up to 500 at a time. Choose email only: an email costs one credit and a phone number four, and a failed lookup costs nothing, per the enrichment guide. Results improve when a contact has a company URL or LinkedIn URL as well as a name. Enriched fields carry a sparkle icon, and Settings, Workspace details shows the credits left.

Step 4: Sort by fit with an AI field

Add a column with the plus in the header, choose a Select custom field and enable Fill with AI, per the AI fields guide. Write a prompt that reads the record, such as: classify this contact as Strong, Possible or Weak partner fit using {Job title} and {Company}, where Strong means they run partnerships at an agency of 10 or more people. Turn on web search if the job title alone is too thin. For company context, the Research Assistant writes a research note per company, with 200 research actions per workspace on paid plans.

The AI fills the column; you read every Strong and Possible before anyone is emailed and correct the cells by hand, which the field allows. Only the rows you confirmed go into the send in step 6.

Step 5: Send from your own domain

In Settings, Senders, click New Sender and choose a custom sender, then add the three CNAME records to your DNS, automatically through Entri or by hand, per the custom sender guide. Verification can take up to 48 hours. A custom sender is not optional for this job: the Gmail sender guide caps Gmail at 125 emails a day from a personal account and 500 from Workspace, with no sequences and no open or click tracking. Add a DMARC record as well.

Step 6: Write and review the sequence

Filter the group to your confirmed rows and click Email all. Personalise with variables by typing a slash, such as /First name, per the messages guide. Then click New step under the first email to add a follow-up. Each step is sent in the same thread by default, waits the number of days you set from the previous email, and stops for anyone who replies, per the sequences guide. A sequence holds up to ten steps; two or three is plenty for partners.

Insert the unsubscribe link from the toolbar, per the unsubscribe guide. Click Review: you can edit each recipient's copy, add a personal line and remove anyone who should not get it. Then send.

Step 7: Read the results and move the replies

Open Messages to see each campaign's sent, not sent, opened, clicked, replied and bounced figures, per the analytics guide. Replies land in your own inbox, not in folk, and are counted only if the sender's mailbox is synced under Settings, Accounts. Drag each partner who answers to In talks.

Warnings in folk's own guides

• Unsubscribed and bounced recipients still cost messages. They stay selectable, and each attempt is deducted from your monthly allowance even though nothing is delivered. The unsubscribe guide suggests a column marking who unsubscribed, so you can filter them out.
• Enrichment adds rather than replaces. New data is added even when a field already has a value, so check for second email addresses.
• A disconnected mailbox during review. The sequences guide says the Stop if replies condition is removed if your email disconnects at the review step.
• A cold domain. folk's guide to avoiding a Google ban suggests building volume over two to four weeks, for example 10 emails a day in week one rising to 50 in week four.

An AI field is sold as time saved, and it is, but the vendor carries none of the cost of a wrong label; the partner who received the wrong pitch is yours to win back. Keep the human pass in step 4 even after the prompt looks right.

FAQ

Can I do this on the Standard plan?

You can capture, enrich, sort and send one campaign on Standard. Follow-up steps need Premium, because the pricing page lists sequences there.

Does folkX work with Sales Navigator?

Yes. The folkX guide covers Sales Navigator: scroll to load the results, then add up to ten contacts at a time.

Can an AI assistant update the group for me?

Yes, through folk's MCP server, which gives Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor the same access as your account, so it can update a partner's status or custom fields on request. Ask it for summaries first, and confirm any change it proposes.