Best Sales Outreach Strategies for 2024 [+Actionable Tips]

If you feel like you’re not connecting with enough leads, don’t worry—you are not alone.

Many sales professionals struggle to transform their efforts into actual sales success.

Luckily, you come to the right blog!

This blog offers simple yet powerful strategies to enhance your sales outreach in 2024. We’ll explore the latest actionable tips you should use to make every outreach count, turning every potential into profit.

With these insights, you’ll soon be turning leads into actual sales opportunities. So, let’s get started.

Sales Outreach Strategy – Table of Contents

What Is Sales Outreach?

To understand Sales Outreach in the simplest terms, think about a situation you might find yourself in.

Say you’re offering a solution (product or service) to help businesses solve their challenges. You can monetize your solution only when those businesses come to know it exists.

This is where sales outreach comes into play.

It can help you get the word out to prospective customers, build meaningful relationships, understand their pain points, and position your solution as “The Best Fit” for their needs.

What Are the Two Types of Sales Outreach?

Sales outreach can be split into two: inbound sales outreach and outbound sales outreach

Yes, you heard it right! If you have a confused look on your face, it’s understandable. But it will all make sense once you go through this section.

Let’s start with the paradoxical one!

Inbound Sales Outreach

Inbound sales outreach is when you contact prospective customers who have found your business thanks to your inbound lead generation efforts.

They have provided their contact information by downloading an ebook, subscribing to your newsletter, attending your webinar, etc.

This type of prospect or lead is called a warm lead. They have shown interest in your offering and want to know more about it.

Next, let’s check out the redundant one!

Outbound Sales Outreach

By now, you pretty much know how this method works, but nevertheless, we’ll explain.

In outbound sales outreach, your sales team members connect with decision-makers who have little to no clue about your business or solution.

In the inbound method, you’d have an existing list of leads; in this method, you’ll have to find prospects yourself.

For this, you’ll need an additional prospecting tool.

We are letting you in on a secret!: If you’re struggling to find ideal prospects for your business, we have the perfect solution for you.

Check out Lead Finder!

It can help you precisely pinpoint your prospects from over 700M contacts across 60 M+ companies with laser accuracy.

All thanks to the advanced filters we built into it. 

Both methods can bring in qualified leads that you can convert into paying customers.

If you have much time to wait, you can go the inbound sales route. But if you want faster results, you should take the proactive approach—find and contact prospective customers.

Why Is Sales Outreach Important?

If you’re on the fence about the power of sales outreach, then make sure to read this section thoroughly

You may have a mind-changing moment here!

Think of all the opportunities you have missed until now.  

That’s the potential number of deals you could have closed if you had an effective sales outreach plan with you.

How, you ask? By turning the art of reaching out into a science.

Sales outreach is about making your solution visible to those who need it most and in a way that resonates with them. This enables you to convert strangers into interested leads and interested leads into devoted customers.

So, why is sales outreach important? Because it’s your gateway to unlocking untapped potential and turning what-ifs into what’s next.

What Is a Sales Outreach Strategy?

A sales outreach strategy is like your game plan for winning over new customers

Your sales outreach plan sets the stage, showing you the perfect times and ways to contact future clients, crafting messages that catch their eye, and keeping the conversation going.

Whether you’re drafting compelling emails, making impactful phone calls, or connecting via social media, this strategy acts as your compass, ensuring every interaction moves the needle toward meaningful connections.

Here’s what it aims to achieve:

• Reaching out to new potential customers to grow your customer base. 
• Informing leads about what makes your offerings unique and valuable. 
• Building trust to establish credibility with your target audience. 
• Sparking new relationships to expand your network.
• Closing deals to drive revenue.

The next section discusses the various strategies to get your message out to prospective customers.

So stay tuned and keep reading!

4 Sales Outreach Strategies That Can Boost Your Revenue in 2024

In the previous sections, we strengthened your foundation about sales outreach. Now it’s time to get to the action sequence!

Here, you’ll learn about the 4 powerful strategies that have been game-changers for countless sales professionals.

With our updated tips, these strategies can help you cut through the noise and connect with your potential customers more effectively than ever.

So let’s get into it.

1. Cold Emailing

Wonder if cold emailing still works? You might be surprised.

The right cold email can open doors to new business you didn’t know was there.

The magic ingredient? Making it personal and truly valuable

Here’s the secret to how you can make each email count:

1. Research

You should start by understanding your prospects as much as possible. Get an idea about their business, industry challenges, and the hurdles they might face.

This insight will allow you to craft messages that feel they were made for them. It impacts your prospects’ minds that you’re not just another cold email in their inbox but a potential solution to their problems.

2. Subject Line

As the saying goes, “First impression is the best impression.” The subject line is your make-or-break moment.

You should use it to make an immediate connection, think of what matters most to your prospects, and how you can write that in a few words.

Remember, whether you offer a clear benefit or address a pain point, your subject line should compel the prospect to click on your email.

3. Value Proposition

Now is your time to shine.

In your main email body, highlight how your product or service can solve the prospects’ issues.

Read More: How to Write a Cold Email to Get More Opens & Replies? (2024)

Pro tip: You should focus on framing your solution in the context of their needs, making it clear why you’re reaching out and how you can make a difference.

4. Call to Action (CTA)

Be specific about the next steps. A vague CTA leaves room for indecision.

Whether you want them to schedule a call, sign up for a demo, or just hit reply, your CTA should be as clear as day. 

Read More: 100+ Cold Email CTAs (Call to Action) to Book More Meetings

5. Follow-Up

Wait! The conversation doesn’t end here. Cold emailing isn’t a one-time affair.

A successful cold email campaign has a sequence of emails after the initial cold email.

Read More: How to Write a Follow-Up Email in 2024? (Examples & Templates)

This ensures that if the prospect missed the initial mail, the follow-up would get noticed.

Remember, persistence pays off, but always keep it respectful and relevant.

Hush! Keep this between us: What if we told you there is a tool to help you with all the above?

A tool that can help you find prospects most relevant to your ICP. 

A tool that can help you create personalized cold email sequences.

A tool that can make sure your messages reach your prospects’ inboxes when they are ready to engage.

Seems too good to be true! Well, check out Saleshandy and see it for yourself.

2. Cold Calling

Cold calling might sound intimidating or outdated to some, but it’s still a powerhouse tactic in the sales toolkit.

It’s that direct line to a potential customer, offering a chance to spark interest where there was none before.

The challenge is doing it in a way that resonates rather than disrupts.

1. Preparation is Key

Before you dial your prospect, take your time to do a little bit of homework. Know who you’re calling and why they might need your solution.

This will help you transform your cold call into a conversation that the prospect is actually interested in.

2. Solve, Don’t Sell

Here’s the game changer – be the one who offers solutions, not sales pitches.

Imagine leaning into the call, ready to listen and understand, then offering something that genuinely makes their day better.

That’s when your prospects start seeing you as not just as another caller but as someone who’s there to help.

3. Listen More Than You Talk

Have you noticed how much you can learn when you let the other person talk? Give it a try.

Let them share, vent, or dream out loud.

You can then pick up exactly what they need, making it a breeze to show how your solution fits perfectly into their puzzle.

When done right, you can turn a potentially skeptical listener into interested prospects, one call at a time.

Both cold emailing and cold calling have their own advantages and disadvantages but are equally effective sales outreach strategies.

3. Direct Messaging – LinkedIn

With this native tool from LinkedIn, you can discover the right connections and better understand them before you contact them.

You can precisely tailor your search, using filters ranging from job roles and companies to industry types and beyond.

Sales Navigator is like having a secret guide that helps you send messages that really get noticed. It shows you the best people to talk to and gives you hints about the perfect time to reach out. 

This means your messages can be spot on, talking to the right person about the right thing at the right time.

4. Personalized Images/Videos (Experimental)

When all of your prospects’ inboxes are overflowing with text, be different. Send them a personalized video!

This creates a unique and memorable experience for your prospects.

In the video, you can easily break down complex concepts, directly address the prospects’ pain points, and visually show how to provide a solution.

What Are Some Common Challenges in Sales Outreach?

You can apply the techniques you learned in the earlier section to flood your sales funnel with potential leads.

But before that, it is important to acknowledge some common obstacles that you’re likely to face in the near future.

Knowing what’s to come can prepare you to take corrective action. 

Common Challenges in Cold Emailing

Cold emailing heavily relies on your ability to get your prospects’ verifiable contact information.

Imagine crafting the perfect message only to have it bounce back because the email address was outdated or incorrect.

A higher bounce rate will also affect your sender’s reputation and deliverability score.

For a more comprehensive understanding, read: Email Deliverability Definitive Guide for 2024

If your email accounts have a low score, your email will end up in your prospects’ spam folder rather than their inboxes.

Then comes the spam filters themselves.

All email service providers have their own algorithms for flagging spam messages. You should be carefully aware of the sending limits of your email account.

Additionally, these algorithms also check for spammy words or sentences. So, avoiding sentences that make exaggerated claims and promises is better.

Read More, to Know More: How to Avoid Spam Filters When Sending Emails in 2024

Continuing this journey towards scalability. It doesn’t get easier!

This is similar to walking on a tightrope.

To reach many prospects, you’ll have to sacrifice the personal touch that makes each message resonate with its recipient.

On the other hand, losing the personalization will cost you, as your prospects may not be able to resonate with your messages.

You need to have your balancing act together.

Also, manually reaching out to prospects will be viable only until some point. After this, keeping track of all the replies and follow-ups you have to send can be challenging.

If you want to overcome this challenge smoothly, consider email automation tools.

But you can easily overcome all these challenges with the right cold email tool that can guide you through every step, ensuring you’re following the latest best practices in the industry.

Common Challenges in Cold Calling

With cold calling, you’ll face new challenges, each requiring a keen understanding and strategic approach to overcome.

First off, getting past the gatekeeper.

These individuals’ sole job is to shield busy professionals (key decision-makers) from unsolicited calls. This makes it difficult to get the initial contact.

Then, there’s the matter of first impressions. You have mere seconds to grab and hold the prospect’s interest before they decide whether to continue the conversation or end the call.

So, making sure your opener is both engaging and concise is crucial.

Then comes the balance between persistence and intrusion. This is a delicate subject.

How often should you call back? How do you ensure persistence without crossing the line into annoyance?

Finding the right rhythm is key to maintaining a positive prospect relationship.

And don’t forget about follow-up fatigue, aka burnout.

This is caused by having unrealistic expectations or feeling pressured to follow up with everyone, respond to every message, or close every deal, leading to stress, anxiety, and frustration.

At times, you’ll also have to deal with prospects who might get frustrated by your unsolicited call.

Keep your cool in these situations and handle them appropriately by apologizing and assuring them you’ll add them to your organization’s no-call list.

Common Challenges in Direct Messaging on LinkedIn

Like the sales outreach challenges you have seen with cold emailing and cold calling, direct messaging on LinkedIn has its unique set of obstacles.

Standing out in an already crowded inbox is the first hurdle, where making your personal and professional message is key to capturing your prospect’s attention. 

Your goal is to foster a conversation that leads to nurturing a trustworthy relationship.

But there is only a fine line separating that from a forced sales pitch.

Moreover, nurturing these connections requires a steady, patient hand, focusing on long-term engagement rather than immediate gains.

This may not align with your sales targets, forcing you to take an aggressive approach that may lead to disengagement.

Furthermore, measuring the effectiveness of your direct messaging campaigns presents its own challenge.

Unlike cold email campaigns, where open and click-through rates provide clear metrics, gauging the success of LinkedIn messages requires a more nuanced approach.

Instead, you need to track response rates and engagement levels and assess the quality of interactions that lead to meaningful conversations. These can be difficult to track as they cannot be directly measured.

Lastly, overcoming content saturation on LinkedIn is increasingly difficult.

You need a few key ingredients with a vast amount of content shared daily. First, creativity helps your message grab attention.

Insight into your prospects’ needs lets you tailor your communication. And a deep understanding of their challenges and interests ensures your message adds value to their professional lives.

Common Challenges in Personalized Video

Lastly, the innovative use of personalized videos also comes with a fresh set of hurdles.

The resource-intensive nature of creating bespoke content for each prospect demands a significant investment of your time and creativity.

Then there’s the technical skill needed for production.

Unlike typing an email or crafting a LinkedIn message, videos require technical skills. The process can be challenging without expertise, from editing to ensuring the right audio.

Moreover, personalization vs. scalability poses a significant challenge. Tailoring content for each prospect creates an undeniable impact, but doing so at scale can be resource-intensive.

You may also find it puzzling to measure, track, and quantify the impact of these personalized efforts. 

With personalized videos, traditional metrics like view counts only scratch the surface. Understanding engagement depth—did they watch till the end, share it, or prompt a reply?—requires sophisticated tools and a keen analytical approach.

As you can see, each sales outreach strategy has some challenges that overlap with each other and its own unique ones.

If you find yourself struggling with any of these challenges, then the sales outreach tips and best practices in the next can be of great help.

10 Actionable Tips and Best Practices To Build Your Own Sales Outreach Strategy

While sales outreach strategies remain evergreen, the process and industry standards keep changing from time to time.

You must stay updated, or you’ll end up as just another email or a random call in your prospect’s mind.

Let’s take a look at the 10 latest tips and best practices that you should incorporate when planning your sales outreach strategy.

1. Create an ICP and Buyer Personas

Your Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Personas are your personal guides to help you find the right person who may be interested in your business solution.

Starting your sales outreach with these is similar to throwing darts with your eyes closed. You’re lucky even to hit the board.

Your ICP is a hypothetical description of the company that would get the most value from your offering. This includes industry, company size, and specific challenges they face.

Whereas buyer personas take it a step further and zoom in on the individuals making the buying decisions within those companies.

This document has details that include job roles, pain points, goals, and personal preferences.

For example, if you’re selling an email marketing tool, your ICP might be small to medium-sized B2C companies.

The buyer persona could be “Marketing Mary,” a mid-level marketing manager struggling to increase her email open rates and looking for an intuitive solution that offers detailed analytics.

Make sure to have these as detailed as possible to ensure your messages are targeted, relevant, and, most importantly, welcomed by those who receive them.

2. Segment Your Audience (based on common pain points)

Once you’ve done with your ICP and buyer personas, the next step is to segment your audience.

This is where you divide your broad list of prospects into smaller groups based on shared characteristics or pain points.

This allows you to tailor your messaging and outreach strategy to address the specific needs and interests of each group.

Take the previous case where you’re selling an email marketing tool.

One group of prospects might be struggling with low open rates, while another might be struggling with crafting compelling content.

Each of these segments presents a unique opportunity to personalize your outreach.

For “Marketing Mary” and others like her, who are focused on improving open rates, your messaging can highlight features of your email marketing tool that optimize subject lines or send times, backed by analytics that prove their effectiveness.

The key is to use the insights you have about your audience to create segments that are meaningful and actionable.

3. Set SMART Goals

Sometimes, aimless wandering around can be calming. 

But that is not the case when it comes to sales outreach.

Without setting the proper goals you want to achieve, you’d end up mindlessly spending a lot of resources with little to show for it.

This is where SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goals can help you set objectives that are aligned with the long-term success of your business.

Your SMART should be “Increase demo sign-ups from startup companies by 30% within the next quarter.”

This sets the direction toward where your sales team should concentrate their efforts for the next quarter. This focus ensures that every action they take is a step toward achieving these well-defined objectives.

4. Choose Your Channel for Outreach

Choosing the right channel for your sales outreach is a key step in sales outreach.

You should find the perfect intersection where your target audience’s preferences meet your ability to deliver compelling messages effectively and efficiently.

However, the choice of channel goes beyond just where your audience is most active.

It involves a strategic look at what resources you have at your disposal—be it a talented team capable of crafting engaging email campaigns, the budget for paid advertising on social media, or the tools necessary for creating standout personalized videos or direct messages.

Balancing these considerations with your marketing and sales budget ensures that your outreach efforts are not only targeted and effective but also sustainable over the long term.

5. Personalize Your Messages

Personalization has become the norm in today’s sales and marketing outreach. Generic messages aren’t going to cut it anymore!

If you want to stand out and away from all the noise in your prospects’ inboxes or calls, you should show that you know them personally and understand what they are going through.

In fact, when you personalize your cold emails beyond the first and last, you have a better chance of instantly creating a positive connection.

You have a higher chance of getting a positive response even with your first cold email.

Tailor your message to fit their unique challenges and interests. 

Did they recently celebrate a big win on social media? Mention it.

Are they facing a common issue in their industry that your offering can solve? Highlight that.

All these efforts show you care, making prospects more likely to listen to what you have to say.

6. Follow-Up With Consistency

Have you ever been in a situation where you were so busy that you missed your work colleague calling you to remind you to drink water? (Stay hydrated!)

If they didn’t call you more than once, you wouldn’t have noticed them.

Similarly, your prospects might also be engrossed with their work and would have missed your first email or call.

If you took that as a sign of them not being interested in your solution, then that’s an opportunity that you missed out.

Always follow up on your prospects. But also make it a point not to annoy them!

What is the best way to be president and not a pest?

Our internal research team has found that a 7-phase follow-up strategy that’s spaced appropriately works wonders.

Create a sequence of emails that gently remind them of who you are, the solution you provide, the benefits you bring, and the next step they should take (CTA).

Must-Follow: Make sure all your emails have a one-click ‘Unsubscribe’ button.

7. Make Sure Your Sales and Marketing Teams Are Aligned

Another best practice for sales outreach is making sure your sales and marketing teams are aligned and have shared goals.

Imagine a reply race where your marketing team smoothly passes on the baton (qualified leads) to the sales team.

This interaction can be efficient and effective only when all your team members are on the same page.

Regular meetings and shared objectives are key.

Make sure both teams understand the buyer personas inside out and agree on what defines a qualified lead. This way, marketing knows they’re attracting the right audience, and sales can tailor their approach to what’s been promised and promoted.

8. Share Relevant Case Studies To Establish Credibility

If someone came to you with an offer so tempting, would you take it or would you think for a second?

Sometimes, your offer can be too good to be true to your prospects.

Well, would you believe us if we told you that one of our customers closed 60+ clients, 9 million using our cold email platform?

Well, unless we should give you proof → How Sedin Technologies closed 60+ clients worth $9M With Saleshandy, you wouldn’t have.

Similarly, share your case studies in your follow-up cold email sequences so your prospects can see how your offer helped someone like them.

Pro Tip: Share case studies related to your prospect’s industry or niche.

9. Use Automation Tools To Save Time

To scale your sales outreach and save time and effort, consider buying a sales automation tool.

With these tools by your side, you can automate entire sequences, schedule sales outreach campaigns, make sure your message lands in your prospects’ inboxes at the right time, and so much more.

With automation tools bringing in booked meetings, demo calls, and so on, you can start focusing your resources on converting these incoming leads into paying customers.

Psst! Here again, with a secret just for you:  Saleshandy, your friendly cold email automation tool that scales your outreach to new heights.

10. Record Every Interaction in a CRM

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool is like the next personal assistant that your team needs.

With a CRM tool, you can keep track of every interaction you have had with all your contacts.

A CRM tracks everything from the first interaction, be it a call or email, to the last meeting where you converted them.

Moreover, a CRM also acts as a database of information about your prospects. This allows your teams to collaborate and personalize their sales and marketing efforts to resonate with prospects.

By analyzing the interactions and data available, you can gain insights into how you can close your next deal more effectively.

The 10 tips and best practices you learned in this section can greatly impact your sales outreach. So, be sure to follow them and reap the benefits.

Ready to Generate More Leads Through Your New Sales Outreach Strategy?

You have learned all there is to know about sales outreach and the various strategies to reach prospective customers.

Now, it’s time to put them into practice.

Follow the tips and best practices this blog shares to generate more qualified leads and eventually scale your business to new heights.

FAQs

1. How often should I follow up with a prospect if I don’t receive a response to my initial cold email outreach?

Our experts recommend taking a 7-phase follow-up that’s spaced accordingly:

• Day 1: Initial cold email
• Day 3: 1st Follow-up
• Day 7: 2nd Follow-up
• Day 14: 3rd Follow-up
• Day 21: 4th Follow-up
• Day 28: 5th Follow-up
• Day 38: Final/Breakup Follow-up

2. How can I effectively segment my audience for more personalized outreach?

To effectively segment your audience, start by analyzing your existing customer base and identifying common characteristics, such as industry, company size, role, challenges, and engagement with your content. Use this information to create distinct segments.

For example, startups in the tech industry facing scaling challenges might be one segment, while established companies looking for efficiency improvements might be another.

3. What strategies can I use to ensure my sales and marketing teams work together effectively?

If you want to ensure your sales and marketing teams are aligned and working together, then you can do a few things.

1. Hold joint meetings where both teams can discuss strategies, share insights, and update each other on their progress.
2. Utilize a CRM platform where both teams can access and contribute information about prospects and customers
3. Setting up shared KPIs related to lead generation, conversion rates, and customer satisfaction can also help align efforts towards common objectives.