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The world of cold outreach is constantly evolving. Just a few years ago, it felt like everyone was aiming for volume – if you send enough emails to enough prospects, someone’s bound to reply eventually.
Today, most of us have woken up to the fact that burning a ton of leads, domains, and inboxes isn’t the way to go.
It’s expensive and inefficient.
So what does it take to get results from cold outreach? Read on to find out in our new cold outreach playbook for lead gen agencies…
What is Cold Outreach?
Cold outreach is when you reach out to prospects with whom you have no existing relationship, with the ultimate goal of persuading them to buy a product or service. Most cold outreach happens through cold calling and cold email – but some sales teams use additional channels like social media and SMS.
Because you’re speaking to people who didn't ask to be contacted, you’re unlikely to see sky-high conversion rates. Indeed, QuickMail’s cold email statistics show:
The average open rate for cold emails is 44%
Approximately 50% of cold email campaigns have a reply rate of under 10%
The average cold email click-through rate is 3.67%
Fortunately, there are some tried-and-trusted steps you can take to achieve stronger results from cold outreach, starting with choosing the right outreach channels for your audience and messaging…
How to Select Your Cold Outreach Channels
Cold outreach isn’t just about hammering the phones or sending thousands of emails a day. There are multiple channels – and choosing the right ones (or the right combination) can massively improve your chances of success.
Cold Email
Cold emailing is arguably the single most popular cold outreach channel, largely because it’s affordable and highly scalable.
A single rep armed with a decent cold email tool can send hundreds of emails, incorporating personalized messages and automated follow-ups to increase reply rates.
Of course, cold email isn’t perfect – if it was, there’d be no need to consider any other channel. Let’s consider the pros and cons…
Cold Email: Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Most prospects find email less invasive than other cold outreach channels… | …But it’s also easier to ignore than a cold call. |
| Cold email is comparatively cheap and massively scalable thanks to automation… | …But email inbox providers like Gmail and Outlook are trying to crack down on cold outreach messages. |
| Easy to boost response rates with automated follow-up emails… | …But sales teams often don’t follow up enough (or forget to follow up at all). |
| You can reach a large audience quickly… | …But this can encourage agencies to burn through prospects with low-quality messaging. |
| Emails allow you to share more detailed information than other channels… | …But sharing too much information can leave prospects feeling overwhelmed. |
Pro tip: Don’t forget to follow up with prospects. Our data shows that 55% of replies to cold outreach campaigns come from a follow-up email, with the most effective campaigns incorporating three follow-ups. Find out more in: 18 Tips for Writing a Follow-Up Email After No Response.
Cold Calling
Along with cold email, cold calling is one of the traditional cold outreach channels.
Opinion is divided on cold calling. It can be a serious turn-off for potential leads – no one likes being bombarded by unknown callers.
But, at the same time, it can deliver impressive conversion rates, with one study finding that 4.82% of cold call conversations result in booked meetings.
Cold Calling: Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Cold calling is highly persuasive if you can get a prospect to stay on the line… | …But it feels more intrusive than a simple cold email or LinkedIn DM. |
| Cold calling often sees higher conversion rates than easier-to-ignore channels… | …But it’s also way more labor-intensive than other forms of cold outreach. |
| You can get strong results by targeting a smaller number of more qualified prospects… | …But you need a large sales team to do cold calling at scale. |
Pro tip: Cold calling involves a lot of manual work, but you can save a bunch of time by automating tasks like dialing and note-taking. Learn more in How to Choose the Best Cold Calling Software to Connect with Leads.
Social Media
Social selling – specifically via LinkedIn – is emerging as a viable alternative to more traditional cold outreach channels.
Hardly surprising given that InMails have a 10% – 25% response rate, which is almost 300% higher than cold sales emails with the exact same content.
Social Media: Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Social media platforms are built for networking, so (most) users don’t mind being contacted out of the blue… | …But they generally don’t want a “hard sell” in their DMs. |
| You can find a ton of information about a prospect from their social media, helping you write personalized messages… | …But it’s hard to do outreach at scale through social media. |
| LinkedIn InMail messages have higher average response rates than cold email… | …But InMails are much more expensive to send than emails, making them less scalable. |
Pro tip: InMails are expensive – but they’re not the only way to use social media channels for lead generation. For instance, with QuickMail, you can add automated LinkedIn profile views and connection requests to your outreach campaigns, too. Learn more in The Complete Guide to LinkedIn B2B Lead Generation.
SMS
SMS certainly isn’t a recent development, but it’s a relative newcomer to the world of B2B lead generation.
However, more and more agencies are using SMS in their outreach strategies, thanks to its relatively low costs, scalability, and immediacy – with 95% of recipients opening new SMS messages within three minutes of delivery.
SMS: Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| SMS messaging is highly scalable… | …But it tends to be more expensive than cold email. |
| People typically open SMS messages within minutes of receiving them… | …But that doesn’t mean they’ll take action (like replying or clicking a link). |
| SMS is fantastic for sharing timely messaging (like special offers)... | …But the 160-character limit makes it less effective for sharing detailed information about complex services. |
Pro tip: SMS, email, cold calling, and social media can all be effective outreach channels. But for best results, choose cold outreach software that supports multiple outreach channels. For example, with QuickMail, you can build automated outreach sequences incorporating email, cold calling, LinkedIn, and SMS steps.
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How to Choose the Right Cold Outreach Tools
Once you’ve figured out which channel(s) you’ll be using to reach prospects, you need to build a sales tech stack to support your outreach efforts.
| Tool category | Example tools | Price ranges |
|---|---|---|
| Prospecting research | VoilaNorbert BuiltWith Datanyze | $0 – $995+ per month |
| Cold email | QuickMail MailFlow | $0 – $799+ per month |
| Email verification | NeverBounce Dropcontact QuickMail | $8+ per month |
| Cold calling productivity | AirCall Lime Call | $40 – $499+ per month |
| Cold outreach analytics | QuickMail Analytics | Included in all QuickMail agency plans |
Category #1: Prospecting Research
Prospecting research tools help you find prospects who match your client’s ideal customer profile and identify their contact details. Examples include:
VoilaNorbert, for finding and verifying email addresses
BuiltWith, for identifying relevant prospects based on their tech stack
Datanyze, for locating in-market prospects based on intent signals and technographic data
Further reading: 16 Sales Prospecting Tools to Power Your Outreach
Category #2: Cold Email
As the name suggests, cold email tools allow you to reach prospects at scale via cold email outreach. The best cold email platforms deliver exceptional deliverability and support features like automation and personalization. Cold email solutions include:
QuickMail, a dedicated cold outreach email platform for lead gen agencies
MailFlow, an email warmup tool to boost deliverability from new inboxes
Further reading: 8 Proven Cold Email Templates That Get Replies
Category #3: Email Verification
To do cold email effectively, you also need a tool to verify your prospects’ contact details. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a ton of bounces – which, over time, can completely trash your deliverability. Top email verification tools include:
NeverBounce, a bulk email verification tool where you can upload and verify your contact list
Dropcontact, for finding verified email addresses and enriching prospect data in your CRM
QuickMail, an all-in-one cold outreach solution with built-in email verification.
Further reading: Best Tools for Testing Cold Email Deliverability
Category #4: Cold Calling Productivity
We’ve already noted that cold calling can be pretty labor-intensive, but you can make big efficiency gains using tools like:
AirCall, to let your team quickly log call activity and automate post-call processes
Lime Call, for connecting prospects visiting your client’s website to a live sales rep over phone call
Category #5: Cold Outreach Analytics
You need a high-quality analytics platform to optimize your outreach strategy – such as understanding the types of messaging and sales cadences that deliver the most leads for your clients.
QuickMail offers the most advanced outreach analytics software on the market because we’re the only solution that tracks all lead activities back to when an email was sent. Simply put, it’s the most accurate way to keep on top of your deliverability rate and measure the impact of campaign updates.
Plus you can add custom dashboard tiles to track the data that matters most to you.
Best of all, our advanced analytics tools are available as standard with all QuickMail agency plans.
How to Build Your Cold Outreach Marketing Strategy in 4 Steps
The best cold outreach strategies involve identifying prospects who are most likely to convert, then targeting them with highly persuasive messaging via multiple channels. Showcase your client’s product and follow up effectively to generate more replies and leads.
Step #1: Prospecting
You’ve probably heard that AI tools can find you thousands of qualified prospects in seconds.
Trouble is, those tools use super generic filters, so the results are usually trash.
Save your money and start prospecting smarter by using AI to check the prospect’s website to make sure they’re a good fit for your client’s prospect.
We used to do this manually with our own outreach sequences here at QuickMail – but we’ve found that AI does it faster, cheaper, and more accurately.
Step #2: Preparation
When you find a potential customer, you need to dig a little deeper to understand:
Their needs and pain points
Likely objections and other barriers to conversion
Whether they have an immediate need for your client’s service
This might seem like a lot of work upfront – but it’ll save you a ton of time contacting prospects who just aren’t a good fit.
Step #3: Outreach
We’ve already discussed the importance of choosing the right outreach channels (and how you’ll get better results if you reach out through multiple channels).
Once you’ve identified the most effective channels for your campaign, it’s time to build an outreach sequence encompassing:
“Soft” touchpoints on LinkedIn (like a profile view and/or connection request)
A persuasive introductory email
Further reading: How to Build a High-Converting Sales Sequence
Step #4: Following Up
Too many sales teams give up at step #3.
But, as we’ve noted, QuickMail data shows that more than half of replies come from follow-up emails.
To be clear, a follow-up shouldn’t say: “Just bumping this message to the top of your inbox.” Sure, that’s what you want to say. But if the prospect’s going to respond, you need to add more value, such as:
Sharing a free tool or resource
Offering a discount or some other promotion
Highlighting an interesting statistic or trend
We’ve also seen positive results by making our outreach sequences feel more human, such as CC-ing a colleague midway through a sequence:
This is easy to do with QuickMail, but most cold email automation tools can’t handle it – so it’s an easy way to build more natural-looking sequences.
Boost Your Cold Outreach Efforts With QuickMail
The easiest thing you can do to elevate your cold outreach process is to switch up your tech stack.
If your current cold email platform doesn’t…
Make it easy to build multichannel outreach sequences including email, call, LinkedIn, and SMS steps
Share time-based data that links prospect actions back to when the email was sent
Offer AI-powered tools to help you maintain sky-high email deliverability
…then it’s time to switch to QuickMail.
Find out what we can do for your lead gen agency by booking your QuickMail demo call.
