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If you’re looking to build an outreach strategy that generates leads for your business, this article is for you. We’ll show you actionable outreach strategy examples you can implement to start conversations with prospects and fill your pipeline.
We’ll look at:
By the end, you’ll be ready to put these examples to practice in your business.
Let’s jump straight in.
What is an Outreach Strategy?
Your outreach strategy is the method you use to get in touch with qualified prospects.
The outreach strategy examples we’ll focus on in this guide are cold email, LinkedIn outreach, and cold calling.
Why those three?
Well, they have one key benefit: they’re direct. You don’t need to rely on any algorithms, and you don't need to pass through gatekeepers to get in touch with the right person at a company.
You can reach out to them directly and start a conversation.
Choosing Your Outreach Strategy: Key Considerations
1. Your Ideal Customer
The first consideration is your buyer. Depending on who you’re reaching out to, different strategies may be more effective.
For example, if the person you’re targeting is active on LinkedIn, you might want to reach out to them with an InMail. On the other hand, if they’re quiet on LinkedIn, you might have a better chance of getting a reply if you reach out with an email instead of an InMail.
2. Your Lead Generation Budget
Next, you need to consider your budget.
If you’re at an enterprise-level company and you can afford to run ad campaigns across multiple platforms for an extended period, then that could be an effective hands-off strategy.
On the other hand, most companies might see better ROI by sticking to a laser-focused outbound strategy using cold email and LinkedIn messages.
Look at the resources available to you, and keep that in mind when choosing your strategy.
3. Your Timeline
The speed at which you want to generate new leads will affect your choice of strategy too.
Want to be having conversations with qualified prospects within the next month? You’ll need to focus on outbound channels like cold email or cold calling.
Have six months? Consider SEO or running ad campaigns with multiple touch points to build awareness and engagement.
There’s no single channel that’s best for every business. You need to experiment and test, and only then will you know which one is working for your company.
Outreach Strategy Example #1: Cold Email
The first outreach strategy example we’re going to look at is cold email.
Why Use Cold Email?
There are several compelling reasons why cold email works as an outreach channel. Here are some of the main ones:
It’s personal: you can reach out to company founders, CEOs, and key decision-makers with a personalized message
It’s scalable: Using cold email software you can send multiple emails at once
It’s predictable: when you’ve found a targeting and email template combination that works, you can accurately predict results. For example, you might be able to email 1,000 prospects and you know you’ll receive at least a 10-15% reply rate and be able to close 2-3% of those deals.
There’s no other channel that matches the level of personalization that an email does, and no other channel that gives you direct access to someone’s business email inbox.
How to Use Cold Email as an Outreach Strategy
There are a few key steps to running a successful cold email campaign.
First, prospecting.
Choosing who you reach out to has a major impact on the success of your campaign.
If you target people who are a perfect match for your product or service, you’ll get results. If you’re targeting the wrong people, you’ll struggle even if your email templates are perfect.
By spending time on building your email list you’ll be able to spend time learning about each person you’re emailing which is going to help you improve your cold email personalization and tailor your template to the individual.
You can use tools like ZoomInfo to automate your prospecting process. However, even with these tools at your disposal, it’s always best to review your list manually and remove any irrelevant prospects from it before reaching out.
Prospecting tools are a great way to speed up the process, but they can include false positives.
Once you have a list of prospects, it’s time to reach out to them.
You can use a cold email platform like QuickMail to manage this process.
First, you’ll need to write out your opening cold email.
You can use attributes in the QuickMail editor to personalize each email to your recipients. This is going to show people that you’ve done your research and boost reply rates.
Once your opening email is ready, you can add follow-up emails. These will be sent to people who don’t reply after 2a predetermined delay (typically, three to five working days is enough).
Use your follow-up emails to add extra value, test a new call-to-action, and remind your prospect of how you can solve a problem in their business.
When you get a reply, your prospect is automatically removed from a campaign so they don’t receive any more automated emails, and you can track your total reply rate in your campaign dashboard.
Turning Cold Email Leads into Clients
The main goal of your cold email campaign isn’t to get new clients. The main goal is to start conversations and learn about how you can help someone solve their problems.
Use call-to-actions in your emails that allow your prospects to easily respond and learn more about what you’re offering them. For example:
Is [pain point] something you’re trying to solve at {{company.name}}?
Does that sound interesting?
Do you have 15 minutes next week to talk about this?
Even busy decision-makers will be able to respond to CTAs like these. Keep it simple, and you’ll see good results.
The best way to continue the conversation is with a call. You can use a tool like Calendly to facilitate booking meetings with your prospects. When you’re on the call you can answer questions your prospect has and walk them through how your product or service can solve their problems.
Outreach Strategy Example #2: LinkedIn Outreach
Why Use LinkedIn Outreach?
LinkedIn has over 830 million members, all on the platform to build their professional network. It’s an excellent way to connect with B2B decision makers and improve your brand recognition at the same time.
As well as that, it’s convenient. You have a huge number of prospects and tools like Sales Navigator that let you filter through potential leads without ever leaving the platform.
You can then use your lead list to run LinkedIn lead generation campaigns or export leads off the platform to engage with using other sales outreach strategies.
You can get high engagement rates to InMail messages, and at the same time, be building your brand by sharing content and updates.
How to Run a LinkedIn Outreach Campaign
The first step is building your prospect list. As mentioned in the previous section, you can do this using Sales Navigator.
You can search by filters like:
Industry
Company size
Job title
And much more
Then, you can save leads to lists to keep your prospecting organized.
When your prospect list is ready, it’s time to reach out.
The first way you can get in touch with prospects is with LinkedIn InMails. The Sales Navigator subscription plan you’re on will dictate how many InMails you can send per month.
Source: LinkedIn
These work well because they’re automatically sent to the top of someone’s LinkedIn inbox, and users will receive an email notifying them that they’ve received an InMail.
You can also run connection request campaigns. This is where you work through your list, connect with each person and leave them a short personalized message designed to spark a conversation.
This can work equally well as InMail’s even though there’s no fee. It’s more organic, and prospects won’t immediately think you’re trying to sell to them.
If you don’t get a response, you can send a follow-up message after a few days and increase your chances of a reply.
Outreach Strategy Example #3: Cold Calling
Why Cold Calling Works
Cold calling is arguably the most personalized way to get in touch with decision-makers.
The main downside of cold calling is that people aren’t always willing to pick up the phone to a number they don’t recognize.
However, if someone does pick up and is willing to spend 5-10 minutes talking to you on the phone, you can get much further in terms of relationship building than you can with almost any other sales channel.
How to Get Results from Cold Call Outreach
The number one way to improve your cold calling results is by doing your homework on everyone you call.
When someone picks up the phone you need to show them within the first few seconds of the call that you’re reaching out to them specifically to solve a problem in their business. If they see that you’ve done your research, they won’t mind sparing a few minutes to listen.
Another key way to improve results is to have a cold call script. Cold calls move fast and having a script ready means you can make sure you cover the key points you want to share and ask qualifying questions.
Finally, use cold calling software. You can’t afford to work through a list containing hundreds of prospects manually. All good cold calling software like Aircall includes a sales dialer.
Aircall even integrates with QuickMail so you can call leads that you’re engaging with over email without leaving the platform.
If someone doesn’t pick up, you can leave an automated voicemail before you move on to the next prospect and dial again with one click.
It’s a powerful way to quickly work through a cold call list without needing to manually dial each number.
Best Practices that Apply to All Of These Outreach Strategy Examples
1. Your Prospect List is Critical
No outreach strategy example we’ve shown here is a silver bullet to generating leads. You can’t simply email thousands of people with the job title ‘CEO’ and expect to land a new client.
No matter which outreach strategy you choose, spend time building your prospect list and researching everyone who you’re going to reach out to.
If the person receiving your cold email, LinkedIn message, or cold call can see that you have done your research and have an offer that’s relevant to their business, they’ll be happy to reply.
2. Personalization is Required
Whether you’re sending a cold email or working through a cold call list, you need to personalize each interaction.
Use your prospect’s first name, mention their company name, and even use an icebreaker in your email or call that shows you’ve actively researched them.
For example, you could mention a blog post or podcast they recently published, or mention how you saw they won a business award recently.
You can even mention something as simple as a Tweet they posted or LinkedIn status.
The key is that the email they receive hasn't been sent to anyone else.
3. Use Social Proof
Your prospects hear multiple sales pitches on LinkedIn and in their inbox every week.
To stand out, you need to show that you can get results.
The best way to do that is by adding social proof to your cold outreach template.
This can be as simple as a sentence like:
Our agency recently helped [similar company] generate 30 warm leads per month using cold email.
We helped a [similar company] grow traffic to their ecommerce site by 150%
I worked with [similar company] to improve landing page conversions by 135%
Providing real examples and success stories will show leads that you’re actually getting the results you’re promising. As well as that, it gives your leads an opportunity to ask questions about how you got those results, and kickstart a conversation.
Wrapping Up
These outreach strategy examples are some of the best ways to engage with prospects and start a conversation.
None of them offer a shortcut to getting new customers though. You need to make each sales channel fit your unique business, offering, and most importantly, your buyer.
That means you need to offer real value in your outreach and prove why it’s worth your prospect having a conversation with you.
Once you find an outreach template and process that works, you can scale up and it won’t be long before you’re able to generate new leads and customers on a consistent basis.
When you’re ready to start sending cold emails that help you generate new leads, you can try out QuickMail with a free trial.
