Ultimate Guide to Creating a Multi-Channel Outreach Strategy

The more conversations you have with qualified leads, the faster you can close new deals and grow your business.

Whether you run an agency, a fast-growing startup, or a local business, you can be taking advantage of multi-channel outreach to fill your sales pipeline with deals.

This guide will walk you through everything you need to know to start running multichannel sales outreach that gets results for your business.

1. What is Multi-Channel Outreach?

2. The Benefits of a Multi-Channel Outreach Strategy

3. How to Start with a Multi-Channel Outreach Strategy

4. 3 Best Channels to Include in Your Multi-Channel Outreach Strategy

5. Software to Manage Your Multi-Channel Outreach Campaigns

Let’s jump into the guide.

What is Multi-Channel Outreach?

Multi-channel outreach is the process of using multiple sales channels to reach out to your sales leads. For example, your first point of contact could be a cold email. Then, you send them an InMail on LinkedIn or a cold call on their office direct dial.

The main reason for running a multi-channel outreach strategy is that it gives you the best chance of engaging with a prospect, even if they’re busy and miss your message on any single channel.

The Benefits of a Multi-Channel Outreach Strategy

1. Increase Your Odds of Having a Conversation with Leads

You’re reaching out to busy decision-makers. But unfortunately, no matter how compelling your offer is and how critical the pain point you can solve is, there’s no guarantee they’ll see your first email or LinkedIn message.

A multichannel outreach strategy boosts a prospect's chances of seeing your message and replying.

Studies have found that teams using 4 to 6 channels in their multi-channel outreach generate the best response rates.

Source: PFL Multichannel Marketing Report

As you reach out on different channels, decision-makers will trust that you’re reaching out to offer real value, as long as you aren’t sending multiple conflicting messages.

2. Reduce Your Platform and Channel Risk

You can’t afford to over-invest in a single channel and have all of your eggs in one basket. 

For example, suppose your sales team solely runs LinkedIn outreach campaigns to generate leads. What happens if there’s a problem with your LinkedIn outreach automation software and your account gets restricted from sending messages to leads?

Source: LinkedIn

If you were put in a situation like that, you’d be forced to find a new outreach channel that works until the issue is resolved.

If you weren’t prepared, your team would need to rush to develop a solution.

On the other hand, if you already had a cold email strategy in place, you could pivot your main sales activity into cold email, and you'd still be generating leads for your business or for the clients you're working with.

This is particularly crucial for lead generation agencies because your clients are paying for results. Even a few days without access to your main outreach channel will hurt your client campaigns and your agency’s reputation.

How to Start with a Multi-Channel Outreach Strategy

1. Start with One Channel and Work Your Way Up

Multi-channel outreach only works if you’re executing high-performing campaigns on each channel.

To ensure you’re doing that, it’s best to start slow.

Launch a campaign on one channel, for example, cold email. 

Put in the work to perfect that individual sales channel. When you’re getting consistent results and can scale it, move on to another channel, for example, LinkedIn outreach, while your cold email campaigns run in the background.

The main benefit to this approach is that you and your team will generate tangible results from each channel because you’re giving each one your full attention.

On the other hand, if you’ve never run a multi-channel outreach campaign, you risk spreading your efforts thin if you’re trying to run three to four campaigns on different channels at once. As a result, your performance on each channel will be worse.

2. Create and Warm Up Your Accounts

You can’t launch a multi-channel outreach campaign without preparing. An important part of that is warming up your accounts. When you’re ready to launch, your campaigns won’t be affected by poor email deliverability or a LinkedIn account that’s restricted from sending messages.

To warm up your cold email inbox, use MailFlow's free email warmup tool, which has a native integration with QuickMail.

Add any email addresses you’re planning to use in your outreach, and it will automatically warm them up by sending and receiving emails from our network of inboxes.

You can then check your deliverability reports from MailFlow to see if your emails are regularly landing in the primary inbox and if there are any technical problems that could hurt your campaigns.

When it comes to warming up your LinkedIn account, it’s a more manual process.

As well as optimizing your profile by completing all of the sections, you need to ramp up your activity on there by:

• Sending 10-20 connection requests daily

• Manually direct message people in your network regularly and get replies

The LinkedIn algorithm will see that you’re organically growing your account and won’t be suspicious when you ramp up your cold outreach campaigns.

3. Track Your Results to Judge Performance

It’s vital that you keep a close eye on your metrics, both on an individual channel basis and for your multi-channel outreach campaigns as a whole.

This is important for two reasons.

First, you'll be able to judge how your multi-channel campaign compares to when you were just running sales outreach on a single channel. You'll be able to determine if there is a tangible impact on your sales pipeline from running the campaigns or if it wasn't worth the extra effort.

Next, you’ll also be able to compare differences between outreach on each of your channels. 

• Did cold emails outperform LinkedIn InMail campaigns?

• Was cold calling a better way to get through to your prospects faster?

When you have your data in hand, you can make an honest assessment of performance and come to a conclusion: is multi-channel outreach worth pursuing, and does it deliver ROI?

Next, let’s take a look at some of the main channels you can use in your multi-channel outreach and the pros and cons of each.

3 Best Channels to Include in Your Multi-Channel Outreach Strategy

1. Cold Email Outreach

Cold email gives you direct access to a decision maker’s inbox. It’s one of the most powerful sales channels and can consistently deliver a 10-20% response rate if your emails are personalized to each recipient and offer real value.

First, you’ll need a list of qualified prospects.

You can use tools like BuiltWith and Clearbit to create a list of people matching your target audience in minutes.

From there, you’ll need to format them into a prospect list and include key details:

• Prospect name

• Company name

• Email address

• A unique email opening line for each one

When you have your prospect list ready, you can import them into a cold email platform like QuickMail to write out personalized email templates and send your emails automatically.

When you write your email templates you’ll include attributes wherever you need the email to be personalized for your prospect. The opening line would also be contained within an attribute, but for this example, we’ve expanded it to show the power of personalization.

When a prospect receives an email that’s tailored to them alone, they’ll be happy to reply if your pitch is relevant to them and their business.

If someone doesn’t reply to your first email, you can use QuickMail to follow up automatically. After your first email, add a new ‘Wait’ step.

A three to five-day delay between emails is enough.

Then, you can write out another email and save it.

After your designated wait time, your follow-up will automatically send and you’ll have another opportunity to start a conversation with your prospect.

When you see that your campaigns are getting consistent results, you know you can start to scale up by adding more prospects and running more campaigns in unison.

Pros:

• Direct line of communication to a prospect’s inbox

• Emails can be personalized more than almost any other sales channel can

• You can automate cold emails and have them run in the background

• Only requires an email address and a cold email tool

Cons:

• Requires 1-2 weeks of setup time

• Can’t be done without a cold email tool

• Hard to fully automate because personalization is required for every email

2. LinkedIn Direct Messaging

B2B decision makers use LinkedIn to build their network, share content, and discover content others are sharing. It’s the perfect social media platform to include in your multi-channel sales outreach.

In fact, some studies have found that LinkedIn InMails see 3x the number of replies that emails do.

The main reason is that LinkedIn gives you extra social proof when reaching out.

If a prospect can see your profile, your mutual connections, and your company before they even reply, they’ll be more inclined to reply if your profile checks out.

Like with cold email outreach, you’ll need a prospect list. The fastest way to create your list is with Sales Navigator. 

Source: LinkedIn

You can narrow down your prospect list by almost any criteria you can think of. You can save your prospects to a list, and either export that to your CRM, or work through them on LinkedIn.

Once your list is ready, you can use a LinkedIn outreach tool to run an outreach campaign just like you would with a cold email campaign.

Write your templates, schedule your messages, and hit send.

As your InMails and direct messages are sent, you’ll start to see the replies come in, and from there you can move prospects through your sales process.

You can use LinkedIn message templates that are similar to your cold email templates, and the process you’re already using is transferable. 

You can also automate the entire LinkedIn lead generation process with sales engagement tools. 

The only catch is that using automation tools on LinkedIn is against the terms and conditions, so there’s a risk that your account can be restricted.

Despite that, outreach agencies do manage to make it work. The key is to stick with low-volume campaigns and don’t run the automation tools around the clock.

Pros:

• B2B decision-makers actively use the platform and expect to network there

• You can achieve a high response rate to personalized InMails

• Social proof in the form of your profile and experience

• You can automate your outreach with Sales Navigator and outreach tools

Cons:

• People check LinkedIn fewer times throughout the day than they check their inbox, so it’s not ideal for time-sensitive outreach

• Risk of your account being restricted when using 3rd party LinkedIn outreach tools

3. Cold Calling

Cold calling is one of the most underutilized outreach channels today. 

However, once you perfect your cold calling script you can make a large number of cold calls in a relatively short period of time.

Cold calling works best when you’re using it as part of a multi-channel outreach strategy. 

Most of your prospects don’t want to get a cold call, but if they pick up and recognize you because you already sent them a personalized cold email or LinkedIn direct message, they’re likely to give you 30 seconds to pitch.

The best way to manage your cold calling is with QuickMail and Aircall. Aircall is a cold calling tool that integrates with QuickMail.

As you’re running cold email campaigns, you can add a new cold call step in QuickMail.

In this step, you add your call notes, script, and any other relevant information to mention on the call.

Then, using Aircall’s power dialer, integrated into QuickMail, you can make a call to your sales prospect without leaving your QuickMail campaign.

The major benefit to cold calling is that when your prospect picks up, it’s a more personal channel than almost any other.

It’s also crucial that you always respect your prospect’s time by keeping your cold call script brief. 

The main goal of your call isn’t to make a sale. It’s to make a connection and start a conversation that can be continued over email.

Pros:

• Personal due to having a real conversation

• Power dialers like Aircall mean you can quickly work through a list of prospect direct dials

• A perfect way to add an extra touchpoint to your cold email or LinkedIn outreach campaigns

Cons:

• Call to pick-up rate can be low as people are naturally averse to cold calls

• You can’t automate a conversation, so it can take time

Software to Manage Your Multi-Channel Outreach Campaigns

We’ve mentioned several multi-channel sales tools in this article. 

Here’s a quick summary of why each one is worth testing:

• QuickMail: Automate your cold email campaigns by sending personalized emails at scale, and following up automatically if prospects don’t reply. You can add steps such as LinkedIn messages, cold calls, or other tasks for your team to do. It’s the best platform to start more conversations using cold email.

• LinkedIn Sales Navigator: It’s essential to have a Sales Navigator subscription if you want to run outreach campaigns on LinkedIn. It gives you access to more powerful sales features and offers some protection against your account from being restricted.

• Aircall: Aircall will help you manage your cold calling campaigns. Once you load your prospects into Aircall, you can work through the list of phone numbers on autopilot. If someone doesn’t pick up, you can leave them a voicemail, and once you hang up, Aircall will automatically call the next prospect on your list.

• Zapier: Zapier is an automation tool that you can connect to all your sales tools and build custom workflows. For example, you can connect QuickMail to your CRM and have leads automatically sync to it. Or, when someone replies to your outreach campaign, your team gets a notification in Slack. Whatever workflows you can think of, you can build it in Zapier.

These tools are all you need to get started. If you notice gaps in your workflow when you’re running your outreach campaigns, then it’s time to look for solutions to fill those.

It’s important not to over-invest in tools before you need them, or you’ll end up with a pile of unused subscriptions that hurt the overall ROI of your outreach campaigns. 

In Summary

Multi-channel outreach gives you the best shot at starting a conversation with your prospect. You can engage with them on their channel of choice, and as you reach out on different channels, they’ll take note.

There are multiple benefits to running multi-channel outreach campaigns, and anyone can get started. The key is to start slowly, perfect each channel, and then scale up your outreach across different channels.

There are various tools you can use to improve your workflow. However, it’s key to never over-rely on tools and recognize that the most important parts of your campaigns are usually the parts you need to do manually: writing a personalized email or having a genuine conversation with a prospect.

When you’re ready to start running multi-channel outreach campaigns, start your free trial of QuickMail here.