Outbound sales can be challenging; however, with the right tools and strategies—including automation integrations—you can streamline the process and maximize your success. 

Take Propensity, for example. It's a powerful ABM platform designed to find and cultivate leads within your ideal customer profile (ICP). However, its true potential is unlocked when used alongside a sales automation platform. While Propensity is perfect for targeting accounts and warming up leads, it's essential to have a sales automation platform for when those leads are ready for direct email, LinkedIn, or call nurturing. 

This guide will provide best practices for effectively automating your outreach campaigns and give you insights into how to succeed when scaling outreach via email, LinkedIn, and calls. That way, once Propensity leads require actioning at volume and via automation tools, you'll be able to avoid common pitfalls such as getting labeled as spam—an issue that all but ensures your outreach attempts fall flat.

 

Getting Started

Exclusion Lists

The very first item on the agenda should be cleaning your lists. Start by ensuring your exclusion lists for both contacts and accounts are current. This prevents you from reaching out to individuals who have previously unsubscribed, are already clients, or are irrelevant accounts. This ultimately saves time and ensures compliance with email marketing regulations.

Rep Assignment

Once the volume of outreach increases, you'll want to ensure the effort to connect is equally spread across your sales team. It's best to assign each sales representative up to 1,000 contacts per month - but no more. This manageable number allows for personalized and targeted outreach, increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversion.

Email + LinkedIn + Calls: A Multi-pronged Approach For Best Results

Part of your outreach strategy should be to connect with prospects in various ways. By spreading your outreach across multiple channels, you can build recognition with your prospects and give your leads ways to communicate with you on their terms.

For example, while someone may not pick up an unknown number, they could respond to a LinkedIn connection request or click on a link in an email that directly addresses their interest or pain points. Each touchpoint begins to build familiarity. The more personal you make the messaging, the more likely it will resonate with the potential customer, increasing the likelihood of a response. Therefore, no matter the touchpoint, always keep messaging personal, relevant, and customized to the account's unique interests or pain points. 

With that in mind, let's break down each of the three outreach types (email, LinkedIn, calls) and discuss the best practices you should follow for each to get the most out of every strategy. 

 

Part 1: Email Outreach

Automated Emails

Automating cold outreach is critical; however, before you begin, you must set up email accounts from which you can send out automated messaging to potential clients. You'll want to do this from a separate domain to protect your company's central domain from any potential reputational impact. Once a domain's reputation falls, it's more susceptible to spam filters and blacklisting, which is something you want to avoid at all costs. 

Reasons for Warming Up New Email Addresses

Once you've set up your domains and emails, the next step will be warming them up. Why? Well, not all emails are created equal, and newly created emails and domains are treated with a healthy level of suspicion by email service providers (ESPs) who want to protect users from spam accounts. 

You'll need to spend some time (a few weeks at least) warming up your email accounts to:

1. Establish sender reputation. ESPs like Gmail, Outlook, and others monitor sender behavior to determine whether emails are legitimate or spam. A new email address with no sending history may be treated with suspicion. Gradually increasing email volume helps build a positive sender reputation.
2. Avoid spam filters. Sending a large volume of emails from a new address can trigger spam filters, leading to high bounce rates and blacklisting. Warming up helps prevent this by gradually increasing the volume and engagement.
3. Improve deliverability. A well-warmed email address offers better deliverability rates, meaning more emails reach the recipients' inboxes rather than being diverted to spam folders.
4. Ensure engagement. During the warm-up phase, you can gauge recipient engagement and adjust your strategies accordingly. High engagement rates (opens, clicks, replies) during this period signal to ESPs that your emails are valuable and desired.

All of this work will go towards building your email/domain's overall quality score. 

 

Quality Scores

The quality score of your email lists is a critical factor in influencing your email-sending strategy. Quality scores range from 0 to 100 and are determined by various metrics that indicate the health and effectiveness of your lists. Higher quality scores suggest better list hygiene, engagement rates, and sender reputation, while lower scores indicate potential issues that could lead to higher bounce rates and spam complaints.

Building a quality score happens over time. The older a domain is, the less likely it will be marked as spam. However, other factors influence a domain's quality score as well. These include:

• Engagement rates: KPIs to watch include open, click-through, and reply rates. Higher engagement rates translate to higher scores.
• Bounce rates: Frequency of emails bouncing back due to invalid addresses. High bounce rates lower your quality score.
• Spam complaints: Number of recipients marking your emails as spam. Spam complaints will quickly reduce your quality score.
• Unsubscribe rates: This is the rate at which recipients unsubscribe from emails. Large volumes of unsubscribes will affect scoring.
• List Hygiene: Lists not regularly cleaned or updated to remove inactive or incorrect addresses will reduce quality.

A quality score of 90 or higher is considered good. If a score hovers between 50 and 80, it needs work. Most email providers see senders with scores below 50 as spammers and will immediately move those domains to junk. A new domain will likely start well below 50; therefore, actions must be taken to warm it up before using it within your automation platform.

 

Best Practices for Elevating Your Quality Score 

New domains need at least 30 days to warm. Over 30 or more days, you can do a variety of things to help the process along. 

To incrementally bump up your score, try:

• Narrow your ICP & optimize for relevancy. The better you segment your audience, the more personalized your messaging will be at scale. 
• Using Warm-up Inbox, Mail Reach, or other email-warming tools to build a solid reputation.
• Getting email authentification set up via SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. This prevents scammers from sending forged emails on your behalf.
• Sending emails to trusted parties first and sending to no more than 50 to 150 per day. Remember that you can always set up multiple email addresses to send out larger volumes. 
• Gradually increase your send volume. Start slow and send in batches, incrementally adding more emails until you’ve reached your desired sending capacity. This process should happen over weeks, not hours or days.
• Use legitimate contacts. Avoid purchasing email lists. Instead, use organic contacts who have opted in to receive emails. This reduces the spam complaints and increases engagement rates. The leads you receive via Propensity have all been acquired using ethical data practices.
• Randomize your copy. Syntax such as {Hi|Hello|Hey} allows for variety in messaging. Higher variation translates to higher deliverability rates. 
• Keeping your bounce rate low. To ensure this, check your lists for incorrect emails. You can use tools like Zerobounce or Scrubby to make the task easier. Propensity uses tools like these to validate your contact list for you.  
• Checking your domain's reputation via Talos and MX Toolbox.

You'll need to adjust the volume of your email sending based on the quality score of your email lists. As a rule of thumb, use these sending limits:

• Lower Quality Scores (Score Range: <50): Limit yourself to 25-50 emails/day to avoid reducing your quality score.
• Higher Quality Scores (Score Range: >80): Send 50-200 emails/day per email account (up to 1,000 emails per week).

 

The Who, What, When of Emails

Propensity users are always looking for advice on what types of emails to send or if there's an ideal time to send an email blast. Here's our advice:

Send during traditional office hours. 

There isn't necessarily an ideal time or day of the week, but you should automate your emails to send only on weekdays (Monday to Friday) and during typical business hours (9 to 5) to increase your open rates.

Keep subject lines short and sweet. 

We've found that subject lines of four or fewer words have the most impact. Be compelling but direct. Emojis help catch the eye but must be relevant to be effective.

Sender names should be recognizable. 

When creating an email, ensure your sender name is relevant and recognizable. Remember that your sales representatives will likely try to connect with prospects via LinkedIn or by calling. If the recipient can connect the dots, you're more likely to get clicks, your open rates will be higher, or you have a higher chance of connecting via another medium (like LinkedIn).

Stay away from sales language. 

While the end goal may be to land the sale, these early email efforts should be crafted to encourage curiosity and engagement. Use outreach at this stage to educate or inform, not sell.

 

Propensity's Email Sending Guidelines Based on Quality Scores

As you build your reputation, you'll want to start slow in terms of the number of emails sent. Here's a brief overview to give you an idea of the maximum number of emails you should be sending and the strategy you should be leveraging according to the overall quality score of your email:

Lower Quality Scores (Score Range: 0-79)

Daily Sending Limit: 25-50 emails per day.

Weekly Sending Limit: Up to 250 emails per week.

Strategy: Focus on improving your list quality before scaling up. Validate email addresses, re-engage inactive subscribers, and remove any that consistently bounce or mark your emails as spam to incrementally increase quality.

Higher Quality Scores (Score Range: 80-100)

Daily Sending Limit: 50-200 emails per day.

Weekly Sending Limit: Up to 1,000 emails per week.

Strategy: Maintain high engagement by sending personalized and relevant content. Monitor engagement metrics regularly to ensure continued high performance and adjust your sending volume accordingly.

Sample Warm-Up Schedule

Even if you follow best practices, warming must happen over time, so start slow. We suggest this cadence to help you grow the number of emails you'll ultimately be able to send from each address:

Week 1: Send 10-20 emails per day to highly engaged contacts.

Week 2: Increase your send rate to 30-50 emails per day.

Week 3: Increase your send rate further to 50-100 emails per day.

Week 4 and beyond: Gradually increase your send rate until you reach your target volume.

By following these steps, you help ensure that each email address gains a solid reputation with ESPs. This multiplies the likelihood that emails will be successfully delivered and engaged with once you begin full-scale campaigns on your chosen sales automation platform. While there is no way to "speed up" the process, this foundational work sets the stage for more effective and efficient email marketing efforts.

 

The Sign of a Healthy Email List and Quality Score

To maintain your email list and quality score, keep these KPIs top of mind:

Spam Risk

Being labeled as spam is the death knell of your email campaign - and Google has been cracking down on spammers. You'll want to aim for a spam block rate below 0.3% and ideally at 0.1%. You can help avoid the spam label by staying away from high-trigger words such as: "free," "guarantee," "try now," and "no risk."

Bounce Rate

In B2B, the industry average for bounce rates is 10%. Your goal should be at or below this threshold. To avoid higher bounce rates, validate email lists before sending to maintain this rate.

Unsubscribe Rate

An unsubscribe rate of 0.1% to 0.3% is ideal. You can reduce the likelihood of unsubscribes by ensuring your messages are to the point. Avoid attachments and large images (that increase load times) or adding multiple links.

Click Rate

Strive for a click rate of over 2%. If you have 5%, you're nailing your emails! Ensure your email content is always relevant and personalized.

Open Rate

While this KPI varies by industry, an open rate of 40% or more should be your goal. You can improve open rates by using a recognizable sender name and keeping subject lines short.

 

Best Practices for Managing Quality Scores

Once sufficiently warmed, maintaining your email quality score remains an ongoing commitment. It's essential to keep an eye on your score's health, even after you've invested sufficient time in building its reputation. Once you've established your email, continue to maintain and improve your score via:

• List validation. Regularly clean and validate lists to remove invalid/inactive addresses.
• Engagement monitoring. Track open, click, and reply rates to measure recipient interest and engagement.
• Content relevance. Send targeted and personalized content to promote engagement and reduce the likelihood of being labeled as spam.
• Feedback loops. Use feedback loops from email service providers to monitor spam complaints and take corrective action.

By continuously monitoring email list quality, you can optimize your outbound email campaigns for better performance and lower the risk of being flagged as spam. This approach ensures that you maximize the potential of Propensity and your sales automation platform to drive successful email lead generation and conversion efforts.

 

Part 2: LinkedIn Outreach

Email outreach is just one part of the puzzle. The most successful outbound sales approaches rely on a multi-pronged approach, and LinkedIn is another avenue your team can use to connect to and actively engage with prospects.

However, LinkedIn has its own unique set of rules to keep in mind. For example, a user can only ever have 30,000 first-degree connections. While that might sound like a relatively high number, you must carefully consider who you want to connect with to avoid exceeding that number over time. Additionally, LinkedIn has a strict connection request limit of 20 to 25/day or 100/week. If a sales representative hits their limit, they'll have to wait for it to reset, which happens 7 days after their first invitation was sent.

LinkedIn will also restrict your ability to send invites if you send too many invitations too quickly or if too many invitations are ignored or marked as spam. To avoid getting flagged by LinkedIn, sales representatives must adhere to LinkedIn request limits (20+/day or 100/week). 

 

LinkedIn's SSI Score

Users with a high Social Selling Index (SSI) score, however, have a unique advantage when it comes to making connections. These highly-scored individuals can send up to 200 connections a week. Any individual user can monitor their SSI score and work to improve it over time. 

Sales Representatives who want to get their SSI rating up can:

• Ensure their public profile is complete and optimized for sales
• Sync LinkedIn with email contacts
• Sign up for Sales Navigator
• Connect with open profiles
• Connect with group members or event attendees
• Engage on the platform with existing connections
• Share relevant content
• Personalize outreach
• Ask existing connections for recommendations

 

Best Practices for Sending Connection Requests and Messages via LinkedIn

Similar to email, to make each connection request count, it's critical that the messaging is personalized and relevant. Connection requests should be concise, include the reasoning for the request, seek common ground with the reader, and, most importantly, not come across as a sales pitch.  

Once you've connected, it's also important to keep sales sequences moving and respond promptly (within 24 hours) to new connections to maintain engagement and build meaningful relationships with prospective buyers. 

 

Part 3: Phone Calls to Prospects

Beyond email and LinkedIn outreach, there is also the humble phone call to consider. This can be the most time-consuming part of outreach, as there is no automated alternative to dialing up a client (beyond the act of organizing a call cadence). That's why saving this type of outreach for the highest tier of prospects is essential.

 

Best Practices for Calling Prospects

Sales representatives should limit outreach via calling to only the most top-scored accounts. A reasonable aim for call volume should be 50 to 100 calls per day for a sales representative handling 1,000 leads. Remember: not all leads will be warm enough to warrant a call.

A suggested cadence for calls should be:

No Response:

1st attempt: Leave a voicemail with the relevant details and contact information to allow the client to call back if they like.

2nd attempt: Follow up after 3 business days with relevant details and contact information. 

Follow-ups: Follow up at a regular cadence every few days.

Response With Interest:

Schedule a phone demo immediately. After the demo, ask if other decision-makers would also be interested. Clarify the next steps to keep the conversation going if the call doesn't end in an immediate sale. 

Response Without Interest:

Ask if another party at the company may be interested in learning more. Otherwise, remove the contact from the call list.

Remember that patience wins the day. It might take up to 8 cold calls before reaching a prospect, and 93% of converted leads take up to 6 call attempts. 

 

Conclusion

By following these best practices, you can maximize the effectiveness of your outbound sales efforts using Propensity and your sales automation platform. A structured approach ensures you maintain high engagement rates, minimize spam risks, and consistently achieve your sales targets. The secret to success is letting time do some of the work and understanding that outbound sales is a numbers game. It may take multiple attempts to connect and engage with a lead. However, by being persistent, keeping messaging personal, and spreading your energy across several touchpoints, you increase your chances of building relationships that translate to sales.