Outbound Sales Strategies That Work

Email Outreach

“Email has an ability many channels don’t: creating valuable, personal touches—at scale.” –David Newman.

How Email Outreach Works 

Email remains one of the most personalized ways to contact outbound leads. 

Cold outreach email campaigns that apply segmentation and include tailored solutions help cold prospects feel seen and understood. This customized approach helps sales reps build meaningful relationships with their target audiences. 

In other words, by segmenting your audience and personalizing your emails, your messages reach those most likely to find them relevant. This also makes it easier to build win-win relationships.

Effective email outreach campaigns include:

• A relevant and clear purpose for reaching out
• Thoughtful automated sequences
• An attention-grabbing subject line
• Personalized benefits language
• A clear call to action (CTA)
• Compelling body content
• Professional signatures
• Social proof
• Follow-ups

Successful email outreach campaigns also factor in email deliverability best practices. 

Some examples include:

• Staying compliant with email regulations, i.e., CAN-SPAM and GDPR
• Keeping your sending reputation intact with dedicated IP addresses 
• Avoiding spam trigger words in your subject lines and email body
• Personalizing the email’s “from” name
• Including a clear unsubscribe link
• Maintaining a clean mailing list
• Using a double-opt-in process
• Monitoring your sender score

Email Outreach Tips

With that foundation in mind, here are five strategies we recommend working into your weekly email outreach routine:

1. Send Personalized Emails

• Capture your prospect’s attention by adding them to a segmented email list with other leads that share their characteristics and needs.
• Share tailored content across your email segments — be sure to personalize individual emails by including the prospect’s name, pain points, and your one-of-a-kind solution. 
• Use behavioral triggers and AI to automate segmentation, A/B testing, and email campaign sending. 

For instance, look at the following example from Form Health, a weight loss program that offers prescriptions for patients with diabetes and obesity. The brand uses guided selling sequences to send emails tailored to its customer groups automatically to send emails tailored to its customer groups automatically. 

For example, the following email contains relevant and helpful content for its diabetic customer segment. Diabetic prospects in this customer group appreciate helpful literature, such as learning about Contrave vs. Mounjaro or what dietary adjustments to make.

2. Use a Catchy Subject Line

• Brainstorm attention-grabbing subject lines, and A/B test them to learn which leads to more open rates, clickthroughs, and conversions.
• Try subject lines with questions or statistics to grab the recipient’s attention.
• Personalize subject lines when possible by including the recipient’s name or business.
• Be original and stand out from other marketing campaigns by A/B testing creative and intriguing subject lines (i.e., “You’ll never guess what happened, Mark …”)

3. Create a Compelling Offer

• Highlight compelling offers that line up with your prospect’s core needs and pain points 
  • Here’s how:
    • Identify customer problems
    • Define the dream result
    • Minimize perceived risks
    • Stack additional value onto the offer
• When relevant, consider creating a sense of urgency with Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) messages or deals. 
• Time your offers according to special events, holidays, deals, and anniversaries

Crafting compelling offers and timing them right is a simple way to nudge aligned leads to conversion. 

Take StudioSuits, renowned for its quality men’s tweed jackets. During Cyber Monday sales, it leverages email marketing to engage customers and newsletter subscribers. 

Sending out limited-time discounts and exclusive offers creates a sense of urgency, prompting potential buyers to act quickly. This approach drives immediate sales and fosters long-term customer loyalty, positioning StudioSuits as a go-to destination for premium menswear.

Another way to time your offer is your offer is to consider specific milestones along the customer journey.

For instance, let’s say you’re selling on behalf of a lending firm, and you’re targeting students navigating their way through higher education. These students often face the daunting challenge of managing their finances, especially when funding their education. 

In this case, your compelling offer could be “no-fee” private student loans. For many new students, you could offer these during peak college scouting seasons, such as a few months before semesters begin and during the summer before the official Fall semester starts. 

4. Include Case Studies or Social Proof

• Build trust and remove skepticism by providing case studies and social proof in your email outreach campaigns. 
• Consider creating special “before and after” campaigns that showcase the results and success of your product or service.
• Highlight core stats and other data points that reveal tangible success.

For instance, the following screenshot from Revealbot, an ads automation tool, showcases three impressive “wins” its clients have had. Interested prospects can click “Read the story” to read the official case study for each success metric.

5. Follow Up

• Send a sequence of follow-up emails and respect the ideal timing between each email (research best practices for your specific industry)
• Ensure each follow-up email includes valuable content, case studies, and social proof. 

Use follow-up email templates by your email marketing provider.