Sales Cadence for Outbound Sales: Practices with Examples

You might get a lot of promotional emails from websites or DMs on your social media accounts about the launch of a new product or a feature.

Usually, you don’t pay attention to these emails as your mind automatically considers them “less valuable” than an email from someone you know. Because you are thinking from the perspective of a customer. 

To understand what goes behind the scenes of how these unusually large numbers of messages end up in your inbox, you have to look through the eyes of a sales rep and learn a bit about something known as sales cadence.

So, in this blog post, I will help you learn more about sales cadences and how you can use them in your outbound sales strategies. Also, I will provide you with best practices and examples to let you see how sales cadences automate your outreach. Having said that, let’s jump in and take a look at what is an outbound cadence.

What is an outbound sales cadence?

To be able to achieve their quota, your sales agents have to contact potential customers with an outbound sales cadence. If you don’t already know, sales cadences or sales sequences are a predefined set of actions, meant to be triggered when certain conditions are met.

For instance, based on your engagement channels, a sales cadence can include emails, messages, social media operations, or calls like the outbound sales platform, Zixflow. It lets you add phone calls, emails, SMSs, and WhatsApp messages to your cadence sequence.

Sales cadence best practices 

Outbound cadences are a crucial part of your outbound sales. With them, you can reduce much of your manual work and focus only on replying to prospects who have shown interest in your offerings. With that said, here are some of the sales cadence best practices to make sure you use them effectively.

Number of touchpoints 

One of the first things you have to decide when building your outbound cadence is to figure out how many touchpoints you want to include in your cadence. A touchpoint refers to an interaction or engagement you had with a prospect.

As per the study by the Rain Group, you have to interact 8 times with a new lead, in general, to schedule a meet-up or get any other kind of conversion. Although a meeting is just the first step. You have to have many conversations with a prospect until they finally turn into a customer.

For this reason, your outbound cadence should typically incorporate multiple touchpoints, spaced over a particular period of time. The purpose is to maintain consistent sales engagement and build a relationship with the prospect.

Mix up your engagement channels

When it comes to outbound sales cadences, using a multi-channel engagement strategy to send your messages can increase the chances of reaching your prospects through their preferred channels. 

For example, let’s assume that you are contacting a prospect and instead of relying on just one primary channel for communications, you can make use of different channels like this:

• Email: Start by sending an introductory email about your company and its offerings to highlight the value proposition. Personalize the message by using relevant pain points and include a clear CTA.
• Phone call: A few days later after the introductory email, you can follow up with a call to discuss the prospect’s needs further and offer additional insights.
• Social media messaging: A week after the call, send a message on social media platforms like LinkedIn, referencing your previous interactions. You can also share relevant content like case studies or research to showcase the benefits of your solutions.
• Follow-up email: The last step in your cadence sequence is to send a follow-up email that summarizes the benefits of your offerings, addresses any remaining issues, and reiterates the call to action. 

Use compelling subject lines

Using compelling subject lines in your emails is crucial for grabbing the attention of your prospects and increasing the open rates of your emails. By making use of attention-grabbing phrases from the beginning you clearly communicate the value of your product or service.

For example, here are some of the engaging subject lines you can use in your outreach campaigns:

• Increase your sales conversions by 30% with our proven strategies.
• Struggling with lead generation? Are you making these mistakes?
• The secret strategies top sales reps use to close big deals.

These will not only make your prospect take interest in your email but also increase the likelihood of clicking that CTA for conversion.

How to use sales cadence for outbound sales?

Sales cadences are a beneficial tool that will allow you to take your outbound sales to the next tier. With that said, let’s look at how you can use outbound sales cadences to improve your outbound sales.

Ensure maximum engagement

One of the biggest advantages of a sales cadence is that you can use it to make sure you engage with your prospect at every stage of the sales pipeline. By creating a cadence and defining a sequence, you can send and follow up with your prospects automatically without having to manu.

For instance, when building a sales cadence in Zixflow, you can add different channels for different steps each having a unique message for overall engagement. 

On top of that, by engaging with prospects at each touchpoint, you can share useful resources and industry trends to position yourself as a trusted advisor and increase the prospects’ willingness to engage.

Personalize your outreach

Adding on to the previous step, personalizing your outreach is crucial to make sure your audience is engaged with your messaging. Also, by personalizing the messages, you increase your chances of getting a conversion since your message would be relevant to the recipient's needs. 

There are a couple of ways to tailor your outreach. These are:

• Addressing the receiver using their name
• Ensuring that your message revolves around their interest and needs

For instance, Medium is a platform that does both of these things perfectly. Medium addresses its subscribers using their names and recommends Medium articles that match their activities on Medium. This way, Medium boosts traffic to its website and promotes its platform along with its premium subscription.

So, it doesn’t take much to craft personalized outreach messages. All you have to do is engage prospects in a step-by-step manner. 

For example, you can start by introducing your business and your offerings. Next, explain the benefits of using your products and share how it has helped your previous customers. Finally, try to convert leads into customers. 

To achieve this, you'll need a sales cadence platform that is flexible enough to allow you to customize your cadences the way you want. Zixflow is a fully customizable automation platform that lets you set up tailored cadences to send personalized messages. 

On top of that, it comes with pre-built cadence templates you can use to create cadences within minutes. You can also edit the messages in each step to ensure your outreach efforts are relevant to your audience. 

Engage with prospects promptly

One of the biggest deal breakers for potential customers is when they don’t receive an immediate or quick response to their message. In fact, 82% of customers anticipate a reply from a business in under 10 minutes.

For this reason, you should set up a separate automation to send a reply mentioning you have received the prospect’s message and will reach out to them soon. 

For example, using Zixflow, you can put in place workflow automation to send a confirmation message to your prospects. At the same time, you can also inform your sales or support staff about it so they can quickly respond to it. 

Nurture your prospects 

“Lead nurturing is far more effective than standard e-mail campaigns and does not require an excessive amount of effort.” – Daniel Tan

Imagine you’re looking to outsource some of your business operations to an agency. You’d first search for a suitable one, try to find more about its offerings, and its past performance, and then you’d make a decision. 

The same is the case with your outbound prospects. Before they become your customers, they would try to find out everything about your business and how it can benefit them. So why not offer this information upfront?

Nurturing your prospects means convincing them that your product or service can make their lives easier or help them improve their efficiency. And for that, you can use a sales cadence. 

With sales cadences, you can easily engage with your prospects and provide them with the necessary details they need to make a purchasing decision. This way, you can shorten the sales pipeline and build rapport with your prospects. 

Again, you would need sales cadence software to set up an outbound sales cadence to nurture your leads into paying customers. And Zixflow enables you to create customized cadences to nurture your prospects however and whenever you want. 

You can change the intervals between each step and choose the time to send messages to ensure maximum reach. This allows you to boost engagement and come across as a trusted aid that genuinely wants the best for your prospects. 

Knock outbound sales out of the park with sales cadences

I know that it can be a bit challenging to get started with outbound sales initiatives and convert outbound leads into customers. However, that doesn’t mean it is impossible. 

With outbound sales cadences, you can make it possible to expand your reach and acquire new customers. Another good thing about using outbound sales cadences is you don’t have to worry about or keep track of manually sending outreach messages. 

Now a question arises, which software should you use to run your outbound sales cadences? There are many sales automation software available in the market. So you should go for one that is easy to use, allows you to customize your cadence, and offers detailed reports on how well your cadences are performing. 

Fortunately, Zixflow comes with all of these capabilities to make sure that you have the required tools to be successful in your outreach efforts. So why not try out the platform yourself? It’s free and if you face any difficulty utilizing the platform, reach out to our support team. We are always just a call away!