Case Study - Aetos
How Aetos achieved a 4.8x increase in reply rates after 2 years of "email doesn't work" in utilities
After two years of failed campaigns and an outsourced agency that delivered just 1 meeting in 3 months, Meticulate proved cold outbound works in utilities — when the messaging snaps into each utility's own digital transformation initiatives.
You guys have proved me wrong. I know when we first started, I said I'd love to be proved wrong that we don't get responses from email. And we're getting responses.
Mitchell G. – Marketing
Your product design is something that absolutely needs to be done in the market. It's really dumb that this doesn't exist. You guys are absolutely on to something here.
Connor O. – CEO
THREEKIT METADATA
Industry
Energy & Utilities (Digital Twins / 3D Scanning)
Channels
Email
LinkedIn
Replaced
Failed outsourced agency
Manual phone-only outbound
Timeline
First-ever email replies within weeks of go-live
The Friction & The Fix
How a seed-stage startup cracked outbound in one of the hardest-to-reach industries on the planet
the challenge
Cold email in utilities — an industry where decision-makers don't open, don't click, and don't reply
Aetos builds 3D digital twins of physical facilities — power plants, substations, manufacturing floors — that organizations use to manage operations, maintenance, and workforce training. Their customer list reads like a who's-who of industrial America: Southern Company, Chevron, International Paper, Steel Dynamics, Pepsi, Legrand, Georgia Transmission. The product worked. The problem was getting in the door at the next utility.
Two years of cold email had produced essentially nothing. An outsourced agency burned through thousands of dollars over three months and delivered just 1 meeting and 3 leads. Jordan B., who runs prospecting, ran his own campaign and saw 45% open rates with zero clicks and zero replies. Every dollar of pipeline came from phone calls. By the time Meticulate showed up, CRO John H. was framing the engagement internally as "our last attempt at email outbound."
The reason kept being the same: utility decision-makers ignore generic vendor copy. Digital transformation leaders, reliability engineers, and O&M managers are inside their own multi-year initiatives — Connected Worker programs, Envision Tomorrow, asset management overhauls — and outreach that doesn't speak to those programs reads like noise. Aetos's previous tools couldn't get specific enough at scale, so the messaging stayed generic, and the inboxes stayed silent.
Hardest-to-reach industry
2 years of failed email
Agency: 1 meeting in 3 months
Phone-only pipeline
Generic copy in a specific-initiative buyer
the SOlution
Connected Worker messaging, anchored to each utility's own digital transformation initiatives
Meticulate built a campaign targeting the top 50-100 US utilities, anchored around a "Connected Worker" framework. Instead of a generic Aetos pitch, every email referenced the specific initiative that utility was already running — Southern Company's Connected Worker, Dominion's Envision Tomorrow, and dozens of others — turning cold outreach into a continuation of a conversation the buyer was already having internally.
1
Initiative-Specific Research at the Account Level
For each utility in the target list, Meticulate researched whether the company had an existing digital transformation initiative — corporate or facility level — that Aetos could plug into. Messaging was tailored to that initiative by name, rather than recycling generic industry copy.
2
Persona Targeting Across the Buying Committee
Outreach hit digital transformation leaders, operations & maintenance managers, reliability engineers, and site/facility leadership — manager through VP, across power generation and substation operations — so the right initiative landed with the right owner.
3
Multi-Channel Team Prospecting
5 team members connected email and LinkedIn accounts, unlocking 500 emails/day and 120 LinkedIn touches/day in coordinated sequences — replacing the phone-only motion with a true multi-channel engine the small team could actually run.
4
Webinar as a Second CTA
A co-branded webinar with Southern Company (March 31 2026) was folded directly into the prospecting sequences — content tease first, then invite. Reps now had two paths to engagement: book a demo, or register for the webinar.
the RESULT
Email works after all — when the messaging snaps into the buyer's world
Within weeks of launch, Aetos started receiving email and LinkedIn replies from utility decision-makers for the first time in the company's history. The team that was bearish on cold email is now running ABM campaigns through the platform.
Increase in substantive reply rates compared to baseline
Platform data, Jan-Apr 2026
Increase in outbound activity over email and LinkedIn
Platform data, Jan-Apr 2026
You guys have proved me wrong... we're getting responses.
Mitchell G. – Marketing (after Meticulate)
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