BD Campaigns: Prospecting New Clients

BD campaigns win you new clients the same way sourcing campaigns win you candidates: managed cold outreach to decision-makers, AI-classified replies, and a human taking over the moment there's real interest. The AI never runs a discovery call — that's yours.

Create a BD Campaign

BD campaigns use the same campaign wizard as candidate sourcing:

1. Open the campaign wizard and choose Business development as the type
2. Set the handoff email — where you'll be CC'd when a prospect shows interest
3. Build the audience: target titles (e.g. "HR Director", "Head of Talent"), seniority, function, industry, company sizes, and locations
4. Write the cold email — subject, opener, and up to two follow-ups
5. Review and click Launch campaign

Unlike sourcing campaigns, BD campaigns launch immediately — there's no candidate experience to rehearse, so there's no draft/dry-run step. Outreach starts as soon as provisioning completes (which can take a couple of minutes).

Everything sends from PlacementFlow-managed sending domains — never your own — and prospects whose email domain matches your client blocklist are filtered out before any send.

What Happens After Launch

Prospects matching your filters are sourced, enriched, and worked through your email sequence. Sends stop automatically the moment someone replies, and every reply is classified by AI. The BD dashboard (BD) tracks the pipeline: prospects sourced, replies, interested, converted.

Working Warm Replies

Warm BD replies land in your BD qualified queue with the reply text and classification. From there:

1. Read the reply and the thread
2. Trigger the handoff — you're CC'd into the live email thread
3. Take over from your own inbox and move toward a discovery call

The Discovery Lifecycle

Prospects move through a structured pipeline:

Prospect → Contacted → Replied → Interested → Discovery Scheduled → Discovery Done → Client

• Schedule discovery — once a prospect is interested, log the discovery call date against them.
• Complete discovery — after the call, record the outcome, your notes, and the roles discussed.
• Convert to client — a successful discovery converts the prospect into a client record.

Prospect → Client Conversion (and the Free Brief)

Conversion is where BD feeds your delivery side: when you convert a prospect, PlacementFlow auto-generates a sourcing brief from your discovery notes and the roles you discussed. The new client arrives in your client list with a brief already drafted — review it, sharpen it, and your desk can start filling the role the same day.

What the AI does here

• Sources decision-makers matching your targeting, sends the sequence, and stops on reply.
• Classifies every reply so your queue holds genuine interest, not autoresponders.
• Drafts the sourcing brief from your discovery notes at conversion.
• You handle every discovery call and every conversion — the AI hands off as soon as a prospect is real, and anything involving commercial terms is always human.

Tips for Better BD Results

• Be specific about titles — "Head of Talent Acquisition" out-converts "HR".
• Target the buyer, not the company — the right person at a decent company beats a generic contact at the perfect one.
• Act fast on interested replies — same-day response dramatically increases discovery-call conversion.
• Write like a person — decision-makers reply to short, specific, honest emails.

Related articles

• How sourcing campaigns work
• Sourcing compliance, geography, and off-limits
• Create a sourcing campaign