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Outreach marketing lets you get in front of qualified sales prospects with a message thatâs entirely in your control.
If you want to fill your pipeline with qualified sales leads, you need to consider starting or optimizing your outreach marketing strategy.
In this article, Iâll show you everything you need to know about outreach marketing. Weâll look at what it is, the benefits, best practices to follow, and show you channels you can go and test today.
Letâs dive in.
What is Outreach Marketing?
Outreach marketing is the process of reaching out to cold sales prospects who you havenât previously had interactions with and showing how you can help them solve a problem.
Any channel that requires you to approach the prospect falls under the banner of outreach marketing. That means channels like cold email, cold calling, and LinkedIn outreach are all outreach marketing tactics.
On the other hand, channels like SEO, paid ads, or email marketing to an existing list of subscribers wouldnât fall under the definition of outreach marketing.
Next, letâs take a look at the benefits of these strategies.
The Benefits of Outreach Marketing
1. Add Unique Personalization to Every Conversation
Outreach marketing involves reaching out to people who you believe are good-fit potential customers.
That means youâre the one in control of the message.
You can personalize every email or call you make to each prospect, and everyone will see that youâve done your research into them before reaching out.
For example, if you received this email from RepurposeHouse, youâd see itâs uniquely personalized to you. It would stand out in your inbox, and if the pitch was relevant to a pain point youâre experiencing, youâd be happy to reply.
Contrast this with inbound marketing channels like SEO, where itâs hard to personalize exactly what each prospect sees, and itâs clear why some teams rely on outreach marketing for their growth.
2. You Choose your Perfect Prospects
When you run an outreach marketing campaign, you have control over your prospect list.
You can define your criteria for a prospect, then build a list full of people matching that by using prospect tools.
For example, you could use a B2B prospecting tool like UpLead or BuiltWith to create a list of people that:
Have a job title matching âVP of Salesâ or âHead of Salesâ
Work at a company generating $30+ million in annual revenue
Live in New York
Use Salesforce CRM as their sales software
Based on your criteria, youâll already know if someone is a good fit for your product or service. Then, you can create highly personalized outreach messages that will touch on pain points that resonate with them.
3. Generate Results in Days or Weeks
Inbound marketing takes time.
If youâre running social media campaigns, it can take years to build a significant following.
If youâre using SEO, it can take months to rank for key terms.
If youâre building an organic presence on LinkedIn, youâll need to find out what content works and gets rewarded by the algorithm before seeing results.
With outreach marketing, you can get instant results within minutes of a campaign starting.
If you send someone a cold email and itâs interesting, theyâll reply immediately. This is what makes outreach marketing so attractive to companies that want to generate leads quickly and grow.
3 Outreach Marketing Channels To Generate Warm Leads
1. Send Personalized Cold Emails Straight to Key Decision-Makers
Cold email is one of the best outreach marketing channels to start conversations and book meetings with decision-makers.
Itâs effective because:
You get a direct line to key decision-makers at companies of any size
You can personalize every email to each recipient
You can use cold email software to automate the whole process
Hereâs how you can implement a cold email outreach strategy:
The first step for running a campaign is to build a list of prospects. To do this, you can use tools like BuiltWith, ZoomInfo, or UpLead.
Source: Identify prospects based on their tech stack with BuiltWith
Theyâre all relatively similar, and they help you quickly identify qualified prospects based on:
Demographic data: Job titles, seniority, location, income
Firmographic data: Company size, industry, revenue, office location
Technographic data: The software and tools a company uses
Once youâve found a list of prospects matching your ideal customer profile, youâll need to format them into a spreadsheet with attributes separated into columns. Add a column for every detail you want to include in your cold emails, such as:
First and last name
Company name
Job title
Once your list is ready, head to your QuickMail account and import your prospect list, ensuring each attribute is correctly imported.
Once your list is ready, you can start a new campaign and create your email sequence.
Here, youâll start writing your templates.
Keep your template brief, but make sure to add personalization and show your recipient why itâs worth replying to you. Once your template is ready, itâll look something like this:
However, not everyone will respond to your first email.
To maximize your chances of receiving replies, add two to three follow-up email steps to your campaign.
To do this, add a delay, and write your next follow-up email.
Make sure itâs different from your original email in some way â for example, you could test a new value proposition, call-to-action, or even a new subject line.
Itâs key that you donât use your follow-up email to write something basic like âIâm just reaching out to bump this to the top of your inboxâ.
Emails like that donât add value to your prospectâs life and donât add any more helpful information that will encourage them to reply.
If someone doesnât reply to your first follow-up, you can add more delays and more follow-up emails to go out.
Even though follow-ups are an excellent way to generate more replies, if someone hasnât replied after three to four, you can end the follow-up sequence. Itâll ensure they wonât report you for spam and risk hurting your email deliverability in the future.
2. Use LinkedIn Outreach for the Social Proof Benefits
LinkedIn is an excellent channel for B2B outreach marketing. Your profile acts as powerful social proof, and whenever someone sees a message from you, theyâll instantly know what you can help with.
If you havenât yet, make sure to optimize your profile. This involves:
Getting a professional headshot and cover photo in place
Adding your work experience
Using a profile headline that clearly shows what problems you can solve
Regularly sharing helpful content
This ensures that when a prospect sees your profile, theyâll trust you and be willing to continue the conversation youâve started.
There are several ways to run outreach campaigns on LinkedIn. You could use targeted paid ads, but this can get expensive, and youâre still not fully in control of who sees your message.
The best way to run a campaign is with LinkedIn message outreach.
This involves:
Creating a list of qualified prospects using Sales Navigator
Writing a personalized message to each person on your list
Sending your messages and following up
Itâs hard to completely automate your LinkedIn outreach because the platform restricts the use of third-party automation tools.
Source: LinkedIn Prohibited Software
To avoid this, you can use tasks inside QuickMail.
These let you set reminders for your team to take specific actions. So, you could set up a campaign and at certain points, such as after your second follow-up email, let your team know itâs time to connect with your prospect on LinkedIn and send them a message.
While this involves a manual step, it means you wonât risk your LinkedIn account being restricted for using unauthorized automation tools.
When you reach out to people, use a similar approach to your cold email templates.
Make each message:
Personalized and relevant
Clearly show that you can solve a key problem for them
Direct with a call-to-action thatâs easy to act on
If you hit on these three things, it wonât be long before you start seeing your prospects replying to your LinkedIn messages and wanting to learn more.
3. Make Personalized Cold Calls to Build Rapport
Cold calling is still an effective outreach marketing channel.
Surveys found that over 50% of high-level buyers are happy to be contacted over the phone, and over 69% of buyers have accepted calls from new service providers in the last 12 months.
To run a cold-calling campaign, youâll need a power dialer.
There are various tools that include a power dialer, but weâd recommend Aircall because it has native integration with QuickMail.
A power dialer means you can upload a list of prospects and phone numbers, then automatically dial through those numbers.
You can call prospects directly from your QuickMail account, make notes, and track conversations.
This saves you from having to switch between different tools and tabs throughout the day and ensures you can quickly call through long lists of prospects.
When making cold calls, always:
Have notes on the person youâre calling so you can personalize the conversation
Use a cold calling script to help you stay on track
Keep your points brief to avoid wasting time
Use the call to confirm interest and encourage your prospect to schedule another meeting
After your call, log any important information discussed so you can bring it up in a follow-up email.
Even though cold calling is relatively time-consuming, itâs still an excellent channel to connect with high-level B2B decision-makers. Itâs highly personal and a great way to cut through the clutter in their LinkedIn or email inbox.
5 Best Practices for Effective Outreach Marketing
1. Know Your Audience
Your prospect list will make or break your outreach marketing efforts.
Itâs critical that you know who your ideal customer is. If youâre running outreach marketing for your own business, that means having a deep understanding of your best customer segment. If you run an agency and are doing outreach for clients, youâll need to spend time talking to them and ensuring the people youâre contacting are a perfect fit.
When you reach out to a prospect list thatâs a perfect fit for what youâre selling, itâs easy to generate replies.
2. Always Add Personalization to Improve Reply Rates
Your prospects are busy people, and you need a way to ensure your outreach message stands out from the crowd.
Personalization is the best way to do this.
When crafting an outreach message, across any channel, you need to:
Use a personalized icebreaker that proves youâre only reaching out to them. This could mean bringing up recent company news, mentioning their new hire, or letting them know you listened to them on a podcast they were featured on.
Always use their first name at the start of an email
Referencing their company name
Bringing in a custom P.S. note, if itâs necessary
Having social proof thatâs highly relevant to their industry
Personalization means going the extra mile and making sure every part of your outreach email template or cold call script is relevant to each individual recipient.
3. Multichannel Outreach Can Ensure No Message is Missed
If your prospect is hard to reach, consider using multichannel outreach marketing.
This involves reaching out across multiple channels. For example:
Step #1: Send a cold email
Step #2: Connect with your prospect on LinkedIn
Step #3: Send a personalized LinkedIn message
Step #4: Send another email
Step 5: Make a cold call if they havenât yet replied
All good sales engagement platforms, including QuickMail, have features that enable you to send multichannel outreach as part of an outreach campaign.
You might find that you get higher reply rates on different channels, so itâs always a good idea to test and find out how your prospects react.
4. Use Smart Follow-Ups to Increase Your Chances of a Reply
We looked at the data for 65+ million email journeys sent with QuickMail. We discovered that 55% of replies to cold outreach campaigns come from a follow-up.
Most cold outreach marketing campaigns have a similar target audience: busy decision-makers. These people wonât always see your first outreach effort.
By following up, you show that you care about winning their business and have something theyâll think is worth hearing about.
When youâre following up, you have the chance to:
Add new value propositions to show why itâs worth their time
Switch your call-to-action to something lower or higher commitment
Run A/B tests to learn what your list cares about
If youâre using a platform like QuickMail, itâs easy to add follow-ups. First, add a delay after your first email.
Then, choose the next step you want to take (send an email, create a task for your team, or make a cold call are just some of the options), and QuickMail will automatically create your follow-up step.
Itâs essential to add follow-ups when creating your outreach marketing plan and it gives you the best chance of getting replies.
5. Measure and Optimize Results
To get the best results from your outreach marketing, you need to dig into your metrics.
Look at key metrics like:
Open rate for your cold email outreach
Reply rate to your emails and follow-ups
Reply rate to your LinkedIn outreach messages
Total number of meetings booked
Total number of new deals closed from your outreach campaigns
You can track metrics for your cold email outreach campaigns in your QuickMail dashboard and can track your meeting booking rate in your CRM.
Iâd recommend setting your targets before you start an outreach marketing campaign. That way, you can start to monitor results as a campaign is running and make optimizations as your campaign is running to ensure the results match your expectations.
Wrapping Up
Outreach marketing is a powerful way to connect with qualified leads for your business.
Youâre in complete control of:
Who you contact
The message you send
Your offer
Your call-to-action
Itâs an excellent method of ensuring your leads move through a predefined sales process, and you can ensure someone has all of the information they need at every stage.
The channels weâve looked at, including cold email, LinkedIn outreach, and cold calling are all highly effective but donât be afraid of testing new channels that you discover.
If you follow the best practices weâve laid out, such as always vetting every prospect on your list, taking time to add personalization, and adding follow-up steps, youâll have a strong chance of starting conversations.
When youâre ready to start using cold outreach to start conversations with decision-makers in your market, you can start your 14-day free trial of QuickMail.
