If you are looking to scale your outreach, you've likely come across Instantly.ai. This cold outreach software, launched in 2021, promises to help you find, contact, and close your ideal clients.

But before you commit to it, there are a few things to consider. 

Is it worth the investment? 

What do others have to say about it? 

And how does it compare to other tools on the market?

If you're ready to get answers to these questions, dive into our review that reveals:

• Notable Instantly.ai features
• Downsides to using it
• Real users’ opinions on the tool
• How much it costs

We’ve even added a list of 12 alternatives, just in case Instantly features do not fulfil your business needs.

Let’s jump right in!

Instantly.ai or alternatives?

Instantly.ai is one of the cold email software and an email management platform that has quickly become popular for email outreach. 

This cloud-based tool allows users to set up automated email campaigns with follow-ups to reach leads at scale.

Users can add leads to their campaigns by either importing a CSV file with lead information or using Instantly.ai’s native B2B Lead Finder tool.

The software also offers a Unibox, which consolidates all email conversations in one place and various options for message personalization. 

Speaking of personalization, to enhance your outreach, you can use its:

• Pre-set or custom variables
• Spintax - multiple variations of a text to avoid repetition
• Liquid syntax - dynamic text based on data

Additionally, Instantly.ai supports A/Z testing, which lets you test up to 26 different versions of email copy.

Data from Instantly.ai can be pushed to different CRMs and tools via Zapier webhooks.

However, the platform also has a built-in CRM that helps track lead statuses and enables you to make calls and send SMS directly from the platform.

Finally, the software can verify your leads' emails, reducing the chance of bounces and protecting your domain's reputation.

With the basics covered, let’s take a closer look at Instantly.ai’s main features.

Instantly.ai features

Unlimited email accounts

Instantly.ai allows you to connect and manage unlimited email accounts.

As they like to say, this enables you to:

‘’Infinitely scale your outreach.’’

However, despite being able to connect unlimited email accounts, the tool caps the number of active leads and emails you can send per month based on the subscription plan.

Nonetheless, Instantly.ai is still useful for email outreach, especially for those who need to reach a large number of leads quickly.

Why? Because you can use all connected accounts in the same campaign. 

This is possible due to the software’s inbox rotation feature. This feature alternates sending emails from different accounts. In turn, it helps you send more emails daily without triggering automation detection.

Unlimited email warm-up

Instantly.ai is one of the few sales outreach tools (or outreach tools in general) with a built-in unlimited email warm-up functionality. 

This means that you can warm up every new email address that you connect to it to ensure that:

• Fewer emails end up in spam
• Your sender’s reputation remains optimal 

B2B Lead Finder

Instantly's B2B Lead Finder is a database with 160M contacts designed to help find leads that are highly relevant and accurate.

The feature relies on a range of filters — some of which match Sales Navigator filters. These include:

• Job Titles
• Location
• Industry
• Employees
• Revenue
• Domains
• ...etc.

What's more, the feature supports keyword-based searches and lets you apply multiple filters simultaneously. This helps you better narrow your search and pinpoint the most promising leads according to your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and buyer persona.

Another useful feature of the Lead Finder is Lead Enrichment. To use it, upload a list of contacts, and the system will enrich it with additional data. 

Instantly.ai disadvantages

Instantly.ai excels in many aspects. However, certain disadvantages make it less than ideal and position other tools as superior.

Instantly.ai doesn’t support multichannel outreach of any kind.

Moreover, email sequences that you can create with Instantly.ai are pretty basic. You can’t set them up to adjust based on your leads’ behavior. So, if your leads don’t respond, there’s not much you can do.

Why, yes, messages can be personalized. Unfortunately, rich media content, including images and GIFs, can’t.

Analytics could also be improved to provide deeper insight into campaign performance. Additionally, there is no option to export stats to CSV or PDF.

While Instantly.ai claims you can scale your outreach infinitely, that's not quite accurate. In fact, their basic plan lets you send 5,000 emails per month only. Consequently, the mid-tier plan limits you to 100,000 emails, and the top plan caps at 500,000 emails. 

Plus, they limit the number of leads you can upload to the platform. Depending on the plan, you can either upload 1,000, 25,000, or 100,000 leads.

Finally, while the tool can enrich your leads’ information, including their emails, this functionality will cost you extra. Not to mention, there are limits to how many leads you can enrich.

This is a huge con, considering that a certain tool lets you send tens of thousands of emails a month and verify as many emails as you want at no additional cost.

But we’ll get to that shortly.

What Instantly.ai reviews say

While doing the research, we stumbled across both positive and negative Instantly.ai reviews.

As for the positive aspects, we noticed many users are praising the interface.

For instance, one of them, Jonas R, says:

‘’The automation of follow-ups and the user-friendly interface make it incredibly efficient for managing my cold outreach campaigns.’’

On the other hand, Zirva Z. has pointed out certain flaws in her review:

‘’The leads aren't great, and being limited to adding only 100 at a time is really frustrating.’’

She also went on to mention that:

‘’It's not very useful unless you have a really high budget.’’

Instantly.ai pricing

Instantly.ai has 2 main pricing categories  — Sending & Warmup and Leads — with multiple sub-plans.

Sending & Warmup is the pricing plan for sending and warming up emails. 

As such, it doesn’t include access to the B2B Lead Finder and is divided into 3 individual sub-plans. 

The pricing varies and is determined based on the number of leads you can upload and emails you can send.

Meanwhile, Leads plans are meant to streamline prospecting and entail full access to the B2B Lead Finder feature. 

There are a total of 4 of these. They differ in price depending on the number of leads you can verify and include:

But remember, if you want to use Instantly.ai to send and warm up emails and generate leads, you can’t purchase a plan from a single category. Instead, you’ll need one from each.

This means that the price of using the software can quickly skyrocket. 

For instance, if you were to subscribe to their lowest-tier subscriptions, you’d pay a total of $84 for both each month. On the other hand, their highest-tier plans combined set you back an exorbitant $850 a month. 

That said, you might be better off using a tool that offers much more at a lower price.

12 best Instantly.ai alternatives

Are you interested in exploring other software on the market? If so, here are 12 compelling alternatives to Instantly.ai that may provide you with better value for your money.

1. Skylead

Well, hello - that’s us! 😊

Skylead is a LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software for agencies and alike who want to scale their business.

It's commonly used by:

• Sales professionals and entrepreneurs who aim to free up as much as 11 hours a week for booking 3x more meetings.
• Marketing professionals seeking to distribute content and secure more backlinks.
• Recruiters on the hunt for the best talent.
• Lead generation agencies focused on acquiring high-quality leads for their clients. 

The biggest difference between Instantly.ai and Skylead is the support for LinkedIn outreach. 

As a matter of fact, our software allows you to create multichannel campaigns that combine different LinkedIn and email outreach actions. All thanks to our Smart sequences.

The tool also lets you personalize messages with AI data-enriched variables, liquid syntax, and spintax, and preset and custom variables. While at it, you can even engage in A/B testing to determine how to best approach leads. 

However, what truly sets Skylead apart in the personalization department is our native image and GIF personalization feature.

Not to mention, Skylead also offers infinite email warm-up, courtesy of our partnership with an email warm-up tool, Mailivery.

Finally, our tool comes with advanced reporting capabilities and even supports CSV and PDF exports. You can also integrate it with any CRM or tool you like, using Zapier webhooks or API.

Now, let’s get deeper into our features that are changing the outreach game as we know it.

Account-based prospecting

The best way to find your ideal leads is to find your ideal companies first. That is exactly what Skylead offers - account-based prospecting. With it you can:

• Create account lists directly in Skylead
• And discover contacts by company to reach out to them.

In other words, once you add your companies, Skylead can help you find and match contacts within those selected companies. This way, you can focus on your target companies that are most likely to convert and have greater lifetime value.

AI data enrichment

Apart from email discovery and verification, we introduced a game-changing feature - AI data enrichment, which you can use to:

1. Enrich contact & company data
2. Prompt AI to get specified info or generate personalized icebreakers for each contact
3. Use all gathered info directly inside your sequences as variables.

It’s Clay-like in what it can discover, but it’s connected to your outreach workflow, so you avoid constant tool switching and data importing.

LinkedIn automation

Skylead is a cloud-based LinkedIn automation tool.

It’s the best among other types of LinkedIn automation tools (browser extensions & desktop apps) in that:

• It exists on the ‘’Cloud’’. This means that it doesn’t require an Internet connection or power to run.
• It comes with a dedicated IP address (proxy) that shields your activity, an integrated inbox, and the possibility of adding multiple accounts.
• The tool mimics human behavior, browsing through LinkedIn and scrolling just as a human would. 

Now, with Skylead, you can automate much of your LinkedIn prospecting and LinkedIn lead generation through targeted outreach campaigns.

To create one, you can use the following lead sources:

And, yes, you can connect any LinkedIn Premium, Sales Navigator, or Recruiter account to the software.

Once you do, you can use Skylead to:

• View your leads' profiles
• Follow them
• Send them invites to connect
• Automate LinkedIn messages and LinkedIn inMails

However, the tool isn’t limited to performing actions on LinkedIn. So, feel free to add emails to the mix — including the email discovery and verification feature — and turn the tool into a complete multichannel outreach platform.

Email automation

Much like Instantly.ai, Skylead lets you add unlimited email accounts to help you send tens of thousands of emails a month. 

However, unlike it, it doesn’t limit the number of active leads you can have. You can input unlimited leads, allowing you to reach out to more people.

If you were wondering how it’s possible to send thousands of emails a month, well, it’s because our tool supports inbox rotation. This means that Skylead alternates sending emails from different accounts to keep you within safe limits on each.

Infinite email warm-up

To make sure your emails land where they are supposed to, your mailboxes must be warmed up.

Luckily, Skylead has partnered up with an email warm-up tool, Mailivery, to make this a reality.

This tool allows you to warm up infinite email accounts to stay away from spam and protect your senders’ reputation. Completely free of charge for all our Skylead users.

Email discovery & verification

Namely, our software can find and verify your leads’ emails. In turn, it reduces the chances of bounces that impact deliverability and your sender’s reputation.

And guess what? You can take advantage of this feature without breaking your campaign creation flow. 

Just add the Find & Verify Email step to your sequence for the tool to find and double-verify the existence of your leads’ emails.

The best thing about this feature is that it has one of the highest, if not the highest, email-finding probabilities on the market. 

Not to mention, it’s both unlimited and comes at no extra cost. In other words, as long as you’re subscribed to the tool, you can use it as much as you want. 

This makes Skylead more cost-effective than Instantly.ai, which requires a separate subscription to enrich emails.

Smart sequences

And that brings us to the star of the show: Smart sequences.

In essence, they are algorithms that combine the above-mentioned LinkedIn and email actions with if/else conditions. As a result, you get coherent outreach flows that unfold according to the way your prospects behave.

For instance, let’s say you tried adding a lead to your network on LinkedIn, but they haven’t accepted the invite.

If this were a simple sequence, you’d get stuck at this step and miss the opportunity to get to the lead.

But with Smart sequences, you get to maximize touchpoints by covering every possible scenario.

In this case, you can add the ‘’If Connected’’ condition to your campaign and then define the following steps.

For example, you can set up Skylead to automatically message your lead when they accept your connection request. If they don't, you can try to locate their email address, and if the tool finds it, send them an email. But if that doesn't work, you can always send an InMail to maximize getting in touch with leads.

Of course, there are a thousand more ways this can go. Smart sequence builder is your playground, so feel free to experiment with different branching paths.

Or, you can try our tried and tested Smart sequences templates inside the tool for guaranteed results!

Smart inbox

Smart inbox, although serving the same purpose as Instantly.ai’s Unibox, is far superior. That’s because it not only aids email management. It also lets you manage your conversations on LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, and Recruiter, whether it’s messages or inMails.

But what makes our Smart inbox truly irreplaceable is the opportunity to label chats. These labels are great because they can help you keep track of ROI and conversions. That said, you can choose between a couple of predefined ones or add your own.

Image & GIF personalization

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And we agree, which is why we introduced our image and GIF personalization feature.

Believe it or not, by personalizing visuals for each recipient, you can increase your response rate to more than 63%.

That said, our image and GIF editor lets you upload any picture you like and personalize it with:

• Your lead’s name
• Their and/or your profile image
• Their and/or your company logo
• A custom message

The choice is yours! Either way, you’ll surely leave a lasting impression. 

In fact, just look at the astonishing 76% response rate we got using the following visual!

Advanced analytics

Speaking of results, Skylead comes equipped with advanced analytics, which are available on the Reports page. 

Here, you can see how all of your campaigns are performing or examine the stats for a single campaign.

That said, there are 3 ways to observe results:

• In a graph form, to visually compare oscillations between different metrics;
• In table-view, to observe fluctuations on a daily basis;
• Step-by-step, to see how your A/B tests are performing.

Unlike Instantly.ai, Skylead even lets you download these reports. The good news is that there are 2 different formats to choose from: CSV and PDF.

What Skylead reviews say

Skylead reviews are positive, with people praising it for what it has helped them accomplish.

For instance, Daniel Hoffmann, a Managing Director at Toplevel Performance, has said that:

“Since I’ve started working with these clients and using Skylead, I have earned approximately $33.000.”

In the meantime, NewPoort's founder, Toine Boelens, has highly praised our Smart sequences email finder and verifier:

‘’If/else conditions in Smart Sequences are also great. It's low code, so it's great because I'm not good at coding yet. I also like the Find & verify business email step, which finds email addresses most of the time. So you get, like, two ways you can get in touch with the client. ‘’

Instantly.ai vs. Skylead

Pricing

All of Skylead’s native features + access to InboxFlare come with a monthly subscription of only $100 per seat.

AI data enrichment acts as an add-on. What makes this pricing truly different is simple: our core value is not to make money from these credits, and it will never be our business model. Credits are priced based on the actual costs of our third-party providers (OpenAI, Bright Data, etc), and we offer a special rate of $1 for 100 credits. 

To test out the tool and its functionalities, feel free to take advantage of our 7-day free trial period. Moreover, our customer support remains available for a 1-on-1 onboarding call—completely free of charge!

2. Lemlist

Lemlist is a cloud-based tool primarily used for email outreach. Nonetheless, its higher-tier subscription supports multichannel outreach, letting you add automatic LinkedIn actions and calls to the mix.

In terms of LinkedIn automation, the tool can visit your leads' profiles, invite them to connect, and send them a message. Moreover, you can add conditions to your sequences to cover several outreach scenarios.

You can also perform any other action on LinkedIn. However, you’ll need to add it as a manual step to your campaign, the same as calls.

The software offers advanced personalization features, including custom images, intro lines, and dynamic landing pages. 

It's also known for Lemwarm, a built-in email warm-up tool that helps emails stay away from spam.

Now, even though Lemlist comes with an email finder and verifier, like Skylead and Instantly.ai, it limits the number of emails you can discover and verify by plan. In fact, even with their most expensive plan, you can only discover and verify up to 1,000 emails a month. If your needs exceed this, you can purchase additional credits. However, this comes at a cost of $1 per 100 verified emails.

That's not it for limitations, though. For instance, you can't connect unlimited email accounts to the tool. Moreover, although Lemlist offers a B2B lead database with over 450M contacts, the quality of leads isn't the highest.

This is somewhat compensated for with the Chrome extension for prospecting on LinkedIn. However, considering that Chrome extensions inject code into LinkedIn that may jeopardize your account, you might want to think twice before using it.

Instantly.ai vs. Lemlist

Pricing

3. Apollo

Apollo.io is a multichannel sales engagement platform that combines email, LinkedIn outreach, and cold calls in seamless sequences. 

It allows users to set up campaigns that feature both automatic and manual emails.

When engaging leads via LinkedIn, Apollo can automate connection requests, messages, and interactions with posts. 

However, its multichannel sequences—known as Playbooks—are relatively simple. Namely, unlike Skylead's Smart sequences, they don't unfold according to your lead's behavior, making them less than ideal.

Regarding integrations, the platform natively integrates with tools like Pipedrive, HubSpot, and Slack. 

The software also has A/B testing capabilities, which help optimize outreach efforts. Additionally, it comes with a built-in AI writing assistant that those previously using ChatGPT for sales writing may find convenient.

Now, in terms of pulling leads into a campaign, Apollo does it through its databases of over 275M contacts. However, certain users have complained about the quality of these leads.

Like Lemlist, the platform can also scrape new leads from LinkedIn. However, this process, yet again, involves using a Chrome extension and could lead to account penalties.

Instantly.ai vs. Apollo

Pricing

4. Smartlead.ai

Smartlead is a robust email outreach tool designed to automate and streamline lead generation efforts. 

It supports unlimited email accounts and email warmups, features inbox rotation, and uses a Master Inbox for streamlined email management. 

The platform offers advanced personalization options like variables, spintax, and liquid syntax, along with split testing capabilities for up to 26 email variants. 

Smartlead also integrates with various CRMs, including HubSpot, via API and webhooks.

However, it has some drawbacks. 

For example, it lacks image and GIF personalization and an email discovery feature that Skylead has.

And while you can create subsequences for each campaign to make it reactive to your leads' behavior, you must break the campaign creation flow to do so. Not to mention, you can only add leads to your campaign through a CSV file or HubSpot.

Instantly.ai vs. Smartlead.ai

Pricing

Pro and Custom plans support adding additional seats, with each costing $29 a month.

5. Mailshake

Mailshake is a cloud-based tool designed primarily for sending emails and follow-ups. 

Nonetheless, it does have a Chrome extension that transforms it into a multichannel outreach and may lead to getting your LinkedIn account restricted. You can use it to set up simple outreach sequences to automatically:

• View your leads' profiles on LinkedIn,
• Send them invites to connect,
• And messages.

At the same time, you can use the extension for cold-calling purposes, as it comes with a built-in dialer and call recorder. However, this option is available strictly for leads based in the US and Canada. 

Moreover, you can integrate the tool with more than 1,000 software via Zapier webhooks. In terms of native integrations, there are those with Pipedrive and HubSpot.

A/B testing is supported, too, and so is inbox rotation. Unfortunately, you can't connect unlimited email accounts to Mailshake as you can with Skylead and Instantly.ai. In fact, the highest-tier subscription limits you to a maximum of 5 accounts.

LinkedIn automation and calls are restricted to the highest-tier plan, too.

Lastly, the use of a Chrome extension for LinkedIn actions risks account restrictions.

Instantly.ai vs. Mailshake

Pricing

6. Woodpecker

Woodpecker is a tool that automates emails and follow-ups to help individuals connect with ideal clients.

What's great about it is that it lets you connect as many email accounts to it as you want, just as Skylead, Instantly.ai, and Smartlead do. The same can be said about inbox rotation.

Sequences you can create with Woodpecker are condition-based. This means they adapt according to the way your leads behave.

With Woodpecker, you can A/B test up to 5 different variations of your message copy. And if you have trouble writing, its AI writing assistant is there to help.

Moreover, the tool supports plenty of 3rd party integrations, such as the one with Dux-Soup. This integration allows its users to tap into LinkedIn outreach, not just email, but it will cost you more.

That said, not everything's ideal with this tool. 

Why, yes, the Dux-Soup integration turns Woodpecker into a multichannel outreach solution. The catch is, however, that they must subscribe to Dux-Soup’s Turbo plan for this to be made possible. This raises the cost of a subscription that's already steep and depends heavily on the number of contacted prospects.

Instantly.ai vs. Woodpecker 

Pricing

The exact cost of the Cold Email and Agency plan is determined by the number of leads contacted. It ranges between $29 for 500 contacted leads and $395 a month for 25,000. 

Although price points for these plans are the same, they differ in one thing: the Cold Email plan is designed for individuals, whereas the Agency plan is meant to be used by teams. That said, the latter supports adding additional users at the price of $27 per user.

Additionally, the Dux-Soup integration adds an extra $55 a month to the subscription.

7. Salesloft

Salesloft is a cloud-based sales engagement platform ideal for sales teams that want to automate workflows and connect with more prospects. 

Its Cadences—a form of campaign—integrates email, phone, and Sales Navigator tasks, though only emails are automated.

Nonetheless, the platform shines in email tracking and advanced analytics, offering A/B testing and customizable email templates. 

However, Salesloft only integrates with Sales Navigator, missing support for LinkedIn Premium and Recruiter accounts.

Additionally, it lacks the Smart sequences that Skylead has, which limits touchpoints with leads. 

Users have also complained about a less user-friendly interface and a buggy dialer.

Instantly.ai vs. Salesloft

Pricing

At this time, Salesloft doesn’t disclose its pricing details for either of its plans: Essentials, Advanced & Premier. Instead, upon visiting the "Pricing" page, their bot prompts you to contact their team for a tailored quote.

However, the information on the Internet suggests that users are paying anywhere from $75 to $125 per user a month.

8. Outreach.io

Outreach.io is a complete sales engagement platform designed to streamline the sales process for enterprise teams. 

It integrates email, phone, LinkedIn, and live chat into a unified workflow, allowing for seamless multichannel outreach.

The platform lets you create personalized outreach sequences with automated follow-ups and response-based triggers. However, any actions on LinkedIn that are part of your sequences must be completed manually.

The tool integrates well with popular CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot for smooth data synchronization.

Key features include robust email tracking, detailed analytics, A/B testing, and a library of customizable email templates. 

Outreach.io also provides AI-driven sentiment analysis, call scheduling, and a pipeline calculator to estimate necessary sales expenses.

Its conversation intelligence tool, Kaia, offers real-time call transcription and insights, enhancing sales interactions and coaching.

In terms of cons, it's worth noting that the platform can be expensive for small businesses. Furthermore, no free trial is available, and the interface is complex.

Also, the platform connects to Sales Navigator accounts only and caters primarily to sales professionals. As such, it may lack features that marketing experts and lead generation agencies need, such as email discovery and verification.

Lastly, users can connect a maximum of 2 email accounts to the tool unless otherwise outlined in the contract.

Instantly.ai vs. Outreach.io

Pricing

Much like Salesloft, Outreach.io doesn’t disclose pricing details to non-users. Instead, the price is customized and heavily depends on the number of users within a team.

However, we did some research online and found that one user was quoted $130 per month per user, with a minimum requirement of 20 users.

9. QuickMail

QuickMail is an effective outreach tool that goes beyond email campaigns. 

It supports multichannel outreach, combining email, LinkedIn, calls, and SMS to help you reach your prospects where they are.

Linked outreach actions that QuickMail can perform are automatic and include:

• Profile views
• Connection requests
• Messages

Contrary to tools like Skylead, which let you import leads directly from LinkedIn, QuickMail offers 2 import options: a CSV file or Google Drive.

The tool comes with a built-in email warm-up and an inbox rotation feature that maintains high deliverability rates. It supports A/B testing and natively integrates with popular CRMs like Pipedrive and HubSpot. Nonetheless, you can integrate any tool with it via Zapier.

While email verification is available, QuickMail relies on 3rd party tools for this. 

Similarly, Image and GIF personalization, while there, isn't native. For this, you’ll need Hyperise, which incurs additional costs.

Moreover, if you want to use LinkedIn in your outreach, you'll need QuickMail’s Chrome extension, which can put your account at risk.

You can add unlimited team members to your QuickMail account. However, you can connect a maximum of 50 email accounts and 15 LinkedIn accounts to the tool. And this is for the highest-tier subscription.

Instantly.ai vs. QuickMail

Pricing

10. Snov.io

Snov.io is a cloud-based multichannel outreach tool that lets you create automated campaigns that combine emails and LinkedIn touches. These include profile visits, post likes, messages, and connection invites.

The platform lets you add "triggers" to your sequences, similar to Skylead's if/else conditions. These make your outreach smart and adaptable based on how your prospects react. 

Additionally, Snov.io comes with a built-in email warm-up tool and a CRM. While the CRM isn’t the most advanced, it has enough functionality to be a good choice for those on a budget.

Snov.io can verify your leads' emails, but this feature isn’t unlimited. In fact, the number of emails you can verify depends on your plan. 

Furthermore, for LinkedIn automation, you’ll need to pay an extra $69 per LinkedIn account you want to add to the software.

While Snov.io's LinkedIn automation is cloud-based, the tool prompts you to use their 2 Chrome extensions: 

• One for prospecting on LinkedIn
• Another for finding leads' emails across the web. 

However, if you choose to use them, be cautious, as a Chrome extension is not the safest way to do prospecting on LinkedIn.

Instantly.ai vs. Snov.io

Pricing

11. Salesblink

SalesBlink is one of the best Insantly.ai alternatives for cold emailing. 

It uses its AI, BlinkGPT, to craft smart email sequences with follow-ups that adapt based on your leads' behavior. 

Plus, with its email warm-up feature, your messages are more likely to land in your leads’ inboxes instead of their spam folders.

SalesBlink lets you connect unlimited email accounts and automatically rotates them while sending emails, thus keeping you within safe limits. 

Furthermore, it comes with a Unified inbox that keeps all your conversations in one place, similar to Skylead, Instantly.ai, and Smartlead.

Although SalesBlink supports adding multichannel tasks to your sequences, these tasks need to be done manually, making them compliant with LinkedIn's ToS.

The tool also provides email verification, but this feature is limited. Simultaneously, it isn't available to subscribers to the lowest-tier plan.

Instantly.ai vs. Salesblink

Pricing

The number of emails you can send with the software depends on your plan. 

For example, the basic plan lets you send up to 6,000 emails, while the top tier allows up to 100,000.

12. Hunter.io

Hunter.io is a tool renowned for its email finding and verification capabilities.

It boasts a user-friendly interface and frequently updates its database with new publicly available emails. 

One of its standout features is the ability to invite team members and grant role permissions, which makes team collaboration much easier. 

Additionally, Hunter.io offers multiple cold email templates and supports integrations with various CRMs and software via Zapier.

However, there are some limitations. For example, you can only create outreach campaigns if you connect a Gmail or Outlook account. Other email service providers are not supported. It also lacks features like A/B testing, advanced message personalization, and email warm-up.

Furthermore, the tool requires a bit of a learning curve, and the support response time can be slow. 

Instantly.ai vs. Hunter.io

Pricing

How to cancel Instantly.ai subscription?

If you’re not satisfied with Instantly.ai, you can cancel your subscription and try another tool from our list.

Here's how:

1. Log in to your account.
2. Go to the Billing page.
3. Under your active plan (s), find the "Cancel plan" button. Click it to confirm your cancellation.

If you have one plan only, you can use it until the end of the billing cycle.

However, if you have both a Lead Finder and Email Outreach plan and cancel only one, the cancellation of said plan takes effect immediately.

Also, if you want to cancel multiple plans, keep in mind that you'll need to cancel each one individually.

Lastly, to confirm your plan is canceled, look at the date listed next to the plan on the Billings page.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

What is instantly.ai?

Instantly.ai is an advanced email automation tool designed to help individuals manage their email campaigns more effectively. It offers a range of features, including unlimited email accounts, email warm-up, B2B Lead Finder, and a Unibox.

What does Instantly AI do?

Instantly.ai automates various aspects of cold emailing and customer relationship management. It helps users manage multiple email accounts, warm up emails to improve deliverability, find new leads, and keep track of them. The platform also consolidates all emails into a single inbox, making it easier to manage conversations and follow-ups.

How to use instantly.ai?

Using Instantly.ai is easy. Just create an account, add and configure email accounts, and use the email warm-up feature to prepare your accounts for sending. Then, create and launch your email campaigns and manage interactions through Unibox. Finally, use the tracking and analytics page to analyze campaign performance.

Is instantly.ai free?

Instantly.ai is not free but offers various pricing plans to suit different needs and budgets. Each plan provides access to a range of features, allowing you to choose the one that best fits your requirements.

Does Instantly AI have a free trial?

Yes, instantly.ai offers a free trial for new users. This allows you to test out the platform and its features before committing to a paid plan.

How many emails can you send with Instantly AI?

The number of emails you can send per month depends on the plan. For instance, the lowest plan limits you to sending 5,000 a month, whereas the Custom plan allows you to send more than 500,000.

Instantly.ai vs. alternatives: What’s the better option?

And there you have it—our deep dive into Instantly.ai and its top 12 alternatives.

As you’ve discovered, Instantly.ai has some powerful features.  But it's not perfect, mainly because of the lack of multichannel outreach support that tools like Skylead have.

That said, if your strategy relies heavily on engaging prospects across multiple channels, Instantly may not be for you.

Luckily, your perfect alternative is out there, waiting for you to discover it.

We've given you the options. Now, it's up to you to try them out.

But why not start with Skylead? 

With a 7-day free trial, you can experience the true power of email and LinkedIn automation combined.

So, come chat with us, sign up, and begin scaling your outreach — to infinity and beyond!

Are you planning to use a new email domain for cold outreach? In that case, hold off on launching that outreach campaign just yet! There's one step you need to take first - warming it up. Skip it, and your emails might end up in spam. Or worse, not delivered at all. Luckily, you don’t need to be a technical wizard or an email deliverability nerd to get it right. Today, we’ll walk you through how to warm up a new email domain. We’re talking essential setup steps and a safe warm-up schedule you can follow day by day.

Now, let’s get your domain inbox-ready, shall we?

What is email domain warm-up?

Email domain warm-up is the process of gradually sending emails from a new domain to establish trust with email service providers (ESPs) such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo.

Why does that matter, though?

Because email providers don’t just let anyone show up and blast emails at scale.

Think about it this way - a new domain is like a stranger at the party. Until it proves it’s legit, it won’t be trusted. And that’s why sending too many emails too soon can set off spam filters or lead to blocks.

So, essentially, by warming up, you’re telling ESPs:

“Hey, I’m real! I send valuable emails, and people want to hear from me.”

Are IP warm-up & email warm-up the same as domain warm-up?

You may have heard terms like IP warm-up or email warm-up thrown around, and while they sound similar, they’re not the same thing.

IP warm-up focuses on building a reputation for a dedicated IP address. If you’re on a shared IP (like most senders are), this doesn’t apply to you.

Email warm-up, on the other hand, is about making sure your individual email account has a good engagement history. And while it’s helpful, it’s not enough on its own.

Now, as far as domain warm-up is concerned, it’s all about the domain itself (e.g., yourcompany.com), and it’s the piece most providers care about long-term.

That begs the question: what happens if you skip it? Well:

• Your emails might land in spam (or get blocked altogether).
• Your sender's reputation could take a hit early on.
• You may struggle with low open rates, bounces, and delivery issues, even if your emails are high-quality.

How domain reputation works

If domain warm-up is the “how,” then domain reputation is the “why.”

Your domain reputation is like a credit score with email providers. The better it is, the more likely your emails are to land in the primary inbox. Meanwhile, the worse it is, the more likely they get flagged, throttled, or dumped in spam.

And just like a credit score, you build (or break) your domain reputation over time.

Here’s what influences it:

• Engagement rate - Are prospects opening, clicking, and replying to your emails?
• Spam complaints - Are they marking your emails as spam?
• Bounce rates - Are you sending to valid email addresses?
• Authentication - Do you have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC set up?
• Sending behavior - Are you sending consistently, or randomly?
• List quality - Are you emailing people who actually want to hear from you?

Even the age of your domain and your past sending history matter.

Now, if you’re planning to do cold outreach, it’s smarter to do it from a subdomain (e.g., outreach.yourcompany.com) rather than your main domain, the reason being that subdomains have separate reputations. So, if your cold emails run into deliverability issues, your main domain (yourcompany.com) will remain safe.

Pre-warm-up checklist

Before you send even a single email, there are a few technical boxes you need to tick.

Wait 24–48h before sending

We get it, you want to start sending asap. But firing off emails right after buying a domain is a major red flag to ESPs. Give it at least a day or 2 to settle before configuring anything.

Set up your domain authentication

This step is non-negotiable because, without proper authentication, ESPs are far more likely to treat your emails as suspicious.

These are the 3 main records you need to configure:

• SPF - Confirms your domain is allowed to send emails through a specific mail server.
• DKIM - Adds a digital signature to your emails to verify they haven't been altered.
• DMARC - Tells email service providers what to do if an email fails SPF or DKIM checks.

You (or your IT team) can set these up in your DNS settings. And if you're not sure how, your email provider likely has a step-by-step guide.

WHOIS visibility and domain TLD

Most people overlook these when setting up a new domain, thinking they don’t really matter.

But they do. And by a lot.

WHOIS is basically a public record that shows who owns your domain. Now imagine an email service provider checks that record and finds… nothing. That’s a red flag. Masked or hidden ownership can make you look suspicious. That said, unless you have a good reason to keep your info private, it’s better to keep it visible.

Now let’s talk about that dot-something at the end of your domain - the top-level domain (TLD). Whether it’s .com, .co, .io, or something else, your TLD can impact your deliverability. That’s because some extensions (e.g.,.xyz, .click,.top) are often associated with spam and can get you flagged before you even hit ''send.'' So, if you'd like to stay on the safe lane, we recommend you stick to trusted, familiar TLDs (.com, .org, .co, etc.).

Prepare your sending infrastructure

As we already mentioned, if it’s possible, it’s best to use a dedicated sending domain or subdomain (e.g., sales.yourcompany.com).

That said, we recommend you avoid sharing a sending domain across transactional and cold outreach campaigns, as it can mess with reputation signals.

Also, double-check if you’re sending from a shared IP or a dedicated IP. If it’s dedicated, you may need to warm that up too. Meanwhile, if it’s shared, the IP may already carry a reputation (good or bad), which can affect your deliverability.

Clean & segment your contact list

You want to start your warm-up with people who are actually likely to engage with your emails; those who’ve opted in, replied in the past, or regularly open what you send.

What don’t you want? Old, unverified, or scraped emails belonging to people who have no clue who you are. That’s how you rack up bounces, spam complaints, and zero engagement, all of which will kill your domain reputation before it’s even had a chance.

How to warm up a new email domain: Step-by-step guide

If you’re using Skylead, our LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software, we’ve got good news - you won’t need to worry about any of this. Thanks to our partnership with the email warm-up tool, Mailivery, you can warm up infinite mailboxes at no extra cost. We’ll show you how to enable it in a bit.

But if you’re curious what the process looks like manually or want to understand what’s happening under the hood, here’s a safe warm-up schedule you can follow.

Quick heads-up before we get into it: when you’re warming up a domain, you’re really warming up 1 email account from that domain. You can’t warm up 10 inboxes at once and expect everything to go smoothly. Start with one, warm it up properly, and only then start adding more accounts into the mix.

Week 1: Start small

This week is all about easing in. Start by sending 10 to 50 emails per day.

Make sure you’re sending to your most engaged contacts - people who are likely to open, click, or even reply. These positive signals help build your domain reputation early on.

Also, avoid sending generic messages. Instead, write simple, personalized emails that sound like something you’d actually send. The goal? Get replies, not just opens.

Week 2-3: Gradual volume increase

If your bounce rate is low and you’re not getting spam complaints, you can slowly start increasing your daily volume.

A rule of thumb is to double the number of emails you send each week. So, if you started with 50/day, you can move up to 100/day in week 2, then 200/day in week 3.

You can also expand your list a bit to include moderately engaged contacts. But don’t go straight to cold leads just yet. Also, stick to a consistent sending time and frequency to help ESPs recognize your pattern.

Week 4+:  Reach full volume

By now, if everything’s looking good (and your emails are getting solid engagement), you can start scaling your sales outreach.

Begin including cleaned, verified contact lists (even if they’re colder), but keep an eye on bounce and spam rates. Use tools like Google Postmaster Tools or your warm-up platform to monitor how your domain is performing.

Best practices for successful warm-up

When warming up your email domain, it’s not only the number of emails sent that matters. How you send them and what you send are equally important. To get the best results (and avoid landing in spam), here are a few simple warm-up habits to follow.

Use a tool to do it for you

If manual warm-up sounds like a chore, it’s because it is.

That’s why Skylead comes with an infinite email warm-up included, courtesy of our partner, Mailivery. 

Mailivery is a warm-up tool that works quietly in the background to build your domain and sender reputation over time. It sends and receives emails on your behalf, mimicking human behavior and generating realistic engagement so your email account looks trustworthy to email service providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Zoho.

And the best part? It’s part of your Skylead subscription and, as such, comes at no extra cost!

Here’s what you get with Mailivery:

• Easy setup in just a few minutes - Mailivery’s setup is native, fast, and compatible with all email providers, including custom SMTP. You only need to switch warm-up on in Email settings, and it will run in the background.
• Safer sending volume ramp-up - Mailivery gradually increases email volume at the right pace, helping accounts warm up naturally without looking suspicious.
• Built-in domain health checks - SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and blacklist status are monitored to help ensure safer warm-up and stronger deliverability.
• Daily sending volume control - You can track deliverability for each account and set the maximum number of emails it can send per day.
• Warm-up status tracking for every account - Each connected email account will show warm-up status, so you know when accounts are ready for outreach.

To enable Mailivery-powered warm-up, open your Settings in Skylead and access the Email settings section first. Then, locate the email address you wish to turn the warm-up for, click on the 3 dots in the right corner, and then hit ''Start warmup''.

A pop-up will appear asking you to set daily email and response rates. Once set, don't forget to actually toggle the ramp-up (warm-up) button on and add your Google App password (or that of another provider) for changes to take effect.

Give it a couple of minutes, and Mailivery will begin sending and receiving emails based on a strategy tailored to your domain.

Use non-spammy language

You might be excited to get replies, but that doesn’t mean you should shout for attention. That said, avoid all-caps email subject lines,too-good-to-be-true claims, and language that screams clickbait. Phrases like “Act now!” or “You’ve won!” might work for lottery scammers, but they certainly don’t belong in cold emails. Instead, stick to clean, honest, human messaging. It builds trust faster than you think.

Keep your content real

If your email reads like it was written by a robot, by all means, don’t send it! Use plain language, keep it short, and focus on getting replies. The goal during warm-up isn’t to sell, but to show email service providers that real people are interacting with you.

So, write like you’re talking to one person. Because you are.

Monitor your deliverability & reputation

Keep an eye on how your domain is performing. You can do so through Google Postmaster Tools. Or, if you’re using an email warm-up tool or a cold email software with the warm-up infrastructure built in, that information may already be readily available on the tool’s dashboard. While at it, pay special attention to the following metrics:

• Spam rate
• Domain reputation score
• Deliverability score

You can also run your domain through blacklist checkers (e.g., MXToolbox) to make sure you haven’t been flagged by mistake.

Clean your list regularly

Your contact list isn’t something you set and forget. In fact, approximately28% of emails on your list get stale within 12 months. So, to make sure you’re only sending to people who might care and reply,  you’ll need to regularly remove bounced addresses and prune inactive recipients. This helps maintain high engagement and keeps your reputation strong.

Troubleshooting common email domain warm-up issues

Even with a solid plan, things can still go sideways. That’s just email outreach for you.

Here are the most common warm-up hiccups, what might be causing them, and how you can fix them before they spiral into something worse.

High bounce rate

You’re seeing a bunch of emails bouncing back. Not ideal.

This usually points to one of two culprits: your DNS setup or your list quality.

Firstly, head over to your DNS settings and make sure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are set up properly. Then, double-check that your list only includes clean, verified emails. Anything scraped, outdated, or guessed can ruin your domain reputation.

Low engagement or opens

If barely anyone’s opening or interacting with your emails, don’t panic. Yet.

Take a step back and look at your subject lines. Are they actually compelling, or do they sound like every other cold email out there? Also, check if your message feels human. Are you writing like you’re talking to someone, or are you using a professional email tone?

Finally, make sure the people you’re reaching out to are the ones who are likely to care, rather than everyone everywhere.

Emails still go to spam

You’ve done the basics, but your messages keep ending up in the spam folder. It might be a volume issue. Are you warming up too fast? Pull back a little and give your domain more time to earn trust. Also, recheck your domain authentication setup. One missing DNS record can make a huge difference in how inbox providers treat your emails.

You got blacklisted

It happens, and it sucks. But it’s not the end of the world. Firstly, check if your domain or IP has been flagged by running a blacklist check. You can use a tool like MXToolbox for this.

If you find yourself on a list or see that your IP is blacklisted, pause your sending immediately.

Then dig into why it happened. Look at your bounce rates, spam complaints, sending frequency - anything that might’ve triggered it. Fix the root issue, submit a removal request if needed, and resume warm-up slowly once you’re cleared.

Authentication errors

If you’re getting error messages tied to your authentication records, chances are something wasn’t entered correctly in your DNS.

So, head to your domain registrar and double-check that your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records match exactly what your email provider recommends. One typo or missing character can throw off the entire process. Once they’re in place, give it a bit of time, as DNS changes can take a few hours to take effect.

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Frequently asked questions about how to warm up an email domain

How long does it take to warm up an email domain?

It depends on how many emails you plan to send daily. But generally speaking, you’re looking at a warm-up period of 3 to 5 weeks. You need to ramp up slowly so you don’t trigger spam filters or hurt your domain reputation early on. If you’re using a warm-up tool like Mailivery, the process can be more efficient and safer, since it adjusts the warm-up pace based on your domain’s performance.

How do you warm up your new email?

Start small. Send a few emails per day to people who are likely to open, click, and reply. Then gradually increase your volume week by week. Stick to personalized content, avoid spammy language, and don’t go straight into cold outreach. Or, if you want to skip the manual effort, enable automated warm-up through an email warm-up tool like Mailivery.

Does cold emailing hurt domain reputation?

It can, if done wrong. If you’re sending emails to scraped or unverified contacts, skipping warm-up, or using spammy language, you’re almost guaranteed to tank your reputation. But when done right - with proper warm-up, clean and verified prospecting lists, and personalized outreach - cold emailing won’t hurt your domain. In fact, it can actually help your reputation grow over time through consistent, healthy engagement.

Should I use a new domain or a subdomain?

If you’re sending cold emails, use a subdomain (e.g., sales.yourcompany.com,  hello.yourcompany.com, etc.). This way, even if your inbox runs into deliverability issues, your main domain stays safe. Subdomains carry their own reputation, so you’re not risking the email performance of your transactional or internal comms.

What if I only send 100 emails/day?

That’s a low enough volume that you might not need a long warm-up phase, but you still shouldn’t skip it. Even at 100 emails/day, your domain needs to build trust first. Warm up gradually over 1-2 weeks, focus on engagement, and monitor your domain’s performance before going fully live.

Warm up your new email domain today to protect your outreach tomorrow

You’ve seen why you need to warm up your domain. You’ve also seen how to warm up your email domain. Now here’s the deal: Warming up isn’t some optional step. It’s the one thing standing between you and the spam folder.

So, take it slow. Be consistent. Give your domain the chance to build trust before you hit “send” on that big campaign.

And if you’d rather not do it all manually? Let Skylead + Mailivery take care of it for you on autopilot. 

Start your 7-day free trial with Skylead today to get infinite email warm-up from day 1 and safely scale your email outreach!

Not thinking through a cold email opening line can cost you a response, a call, or a scheduled demo. 

The most common mistake rookies make is to invest time into coming up with a catchy subject line and then fail miserably once the email is opened. What makes a sales rep a top-notch performer is the ability to write attention-grabbing email introductions and to structure their writing in a way that is compelling enough to keep you reading all the way through. 

When writing an email opening line, keep in mind that you have around 6 seconds to capture the interest of someone you’ve never met in person. This time is even shorter for a busy decision-maker. Long story short, you don’t have words to waste. Therefore, start strong. 

Since lots of people are struggling particularly with email introductions, we’ve decided to write a short guide on how to write genuinely personalized email opening lines that catch your lead’s attention, make them want to keep reading, and finally, make them wish to respond. 

By the end of this blog, you’ll learn: 

• Why your email opening line matters;  
• How to safeguard your domain and prevent high bounce rates;
• 6 most common mistakes when writing email opening lines;
•  12 email opening line templates for 12 outreach scenarios.

Let’s get started! 

Why your email opening line matters

Cold emails can be used for pretty much anything - getting that perfect job or landing a really good deal for your business. 

So, even if you’re not a sales rep, selling is a crucial part of our everyday lives. We sell our knowledge, our expertise, our point of view, face-to-face or in writing. However, cold emailing is a specific task, and its success depends on various factors.

• How well you targeted and researched your lead;
• How relevant and to-the-point your personalization is;
• If your subject line made your lead curious enough to open the email;
• If your email opening line was compelling enough to keep them interested in reading more;
• Whether you included some kind of a hook;
• If there’s a call to action, etc.

When it comes to email opening lines, their purpose is to build rapport with your lead and to convince them to keep reading. Such an important task for such a short paragraph, isn’t it? But the rules of sales have changed, and not much can we do about it. Relevance and personalization became a straight path to success, and the sooner you abide by the new rules, the faster you’ll begin to see the results. 

However, before we move on to the email opening line templates, let’s quickly go through several important points when sending cold emails that could potentially compromise the effort you’ve put into writing a good email sales copy. 

Business email verification: Safeguard your domain 

Many resources talk about how to find your lead’s business email addresses, as it’s obviously a minimum requirement for cold emailing. However, the second minimum requirement for cold outreach to be successful is that emails are delivered. Despite this, not many mention the importance of email verification and how skipping this step could seriously harm your domain in the long run. 

Namely, high bounce rates are one of the top reasons, alongside excessive volume and consistency, complaint rate, and being blacklisted by too many users, for poor email deliverability. High bounce rates represent the percentage of email addresses that didn’t receive your message because it was invalid and therefore returned by a recipient’s mail server. The more times this happens, the higher the chances are for your emails to end up in a spam folder instead of the primary Inbox. 

While you can solve the above threats by investing time into planning your outreach and making every email matter, there is only one way to lower your bounce rates - and that is to use LinkedIn automation tools and cold email software such as Skylead that find and verify business emails for you. In case a business email address is not verified, the platform won’t send the email, as it may affect your domain health. 

If you’ve never used sales engagement platforms of this kind, check how Skylead assures higher email delivery rates. 

6 most common mistakes when writing email opening lines 

• You start your email with Hi, my name is;
• Your email is not straight and to the point from the start;
• Your email introduction talks about how “amazing” you or your company is;
• You opened your email in a generic way;
• There’s no name or last name of the person you are writing to;
• Your email opening line is too long.

12 email opening line templates for 12 outreach scenarios 

#1 Connect after you’ve met in person 

Template 

Hello {{firstName}},

It was really nice chatting with you at {{eventName}} {{timeOfTheEvent}}. I found your point of view on {{topic}} interesting and decided to get in touch with you personally. 

[...]

Example 

Hello Anna, 

It was really nice chatting with you at the 2022 Marketing Trends & Predictions event last Tuesday! I found your point of view on the development of social media marketing for small businesses interesting and decided to get in touch with you personally. [...]

This email opening line works because it specifies right away where you met and what you spoke about. The more precise you are, the more you show that you listened and that you genuinely cared for what someone had to say. Additionally, the tone is friendly, casual, and complimentary. Use this email introduction to connect and network or develop the conversation in a sales direction. 

#2 Reach out to a content creator on LinkedIn 

Template 

Hello {{firstName}},

{{time}} I came across your LinkedIn post on {{topic}} that helped {{lead’sEndResult}}. I have been following you and your content on LinkedIn, and I must tell you that applying your advice {{yourEndResult}}. 

Example 

Hello Jerry, 

A month ago I came across your LinkedIn post on objection handling that helped your Sales Team scale LeadUp by 30% in revenue in just 3 months! I have been following you and your content on LinkedIn, and I must tell you that applying your advice increased my conversion rate by 10%. 

[...]

This email opening line works because it shows that you are truly following their content, that you admire their work, and that the lead’s advice was valuable for you, too. Use this email introduction to offer a solution that your lead could benefit from, or that is complementary to the lead’s business. This approach will be just perfect for your LinkedIn lead generation message, as well.

#3 Investigate on the solution that your lead’s already using  

Template

Greetings {{firstName}},

I saw that your company is using {{solution}} for your {{purpose}}, is that correct? I hope you don’t mind me reaching out directly. I just wanted to ask you if you could change one thing about {{solution}}, what would it be? 

Example

Greetings Martha! 

I saw that your company is using GetResponse for your newsletter automation, is that correct? I hope you don’t mind me reaching out directly. I just wanted to ask you if you could change one thing about GetResponse, what would it be? 

[...]

This email opening line works because it shows you’ve done your research and are reaching out to your lead with facts and concrete reasons. Furthermore, you are not trying to pitch your solution right off the bat, but are investigating customer satisfaction first and building rapport. Use this email introduction to offer your solution that has the competitor’s weakness as a unique selling point. 

#4 Use your lead’s review as a reference 

Template 

Hello {{firstName}},

I saw that you recently reviewed {{lead’sProduct}} on {{reviewWebsite}} and expressed concerned regarding their {{concern}}. I know how frustrating that situation can be, so I wanted to take a moment and introduce {{yourProduct}} that might solve that problem for you. 

Example 

Hey Jasmine, 

I saw that you recently reviewed PopBy on Capterra and expressed concerns regarding their customer support. I know how frustrating that situation can be, so I wanted to take a moment and introduce Meety that might solve that problem for you. 

[...]

This email opening line works because you are reaching out to your lead with a verified pain point they are experiencing. You want to see if they would be interested in hearing more about your product because it would directly solve the issue they expressed in the review.

#5 Reach out to an attendee of your event/LinkedIn event 

Template 

Hello {{firstName}}, 

It was great seeing you at {{eventName}}. I just wanted to thank you personally for participating and ask if you found the event useful for {{company}} and the {{industry}} industry in general. If yes, I have something that might interest you! 

[...]

Example 

Hello Ross, 

It was great seeing you at the Social Selling Strategy For Medium-Sized Businesses Event. I just wanted to thank you personally for participating and ask if you found the event useful for TransFly and the transportation industry in general. If yes, I have something that might interest you! 

[...]

To clarify, this email opening line works because it states in detail the event that the lead attended, the company they work for, and their industry. Moreover, it indicates that you did your research and want to offer a solution that might specifically help their business/industry.  

#6 Ask a question to pitch a solution 

Template 

Hello {{firstName}},

I came across your LinkedIn profile as I was researching {{occupation}}. I just wanted to ask {{question}}. 

Example

Hello Steve, 

I came across your LinkedIn profile as I was researching SEO & Web Content Specialists. I decided to contact you directly as I am curious to know if you’ve ever got valuable results in less than 20min when researching keywords and keyword synonyms? 

[...]

This email opening line works because it shows you researched your lead before reaching out to them. You know their niche and the niche’s pain point/rooms for improvement, and you might have a solution that could help them save time and improve their service/product.

#7 Email a lead who commented a post on LinkedIn (or anywhere else)

Template 

Hello {{firstName}},

I am writing to you regarding your comment on {{user’sName}} LinkedIn post. I wanted to send a resource that might help you understand {{painPointLeadExpressed}}. If this clarifies a bit the issue you mentioned in the comment, there’s more where that came from!  

Example

Hello Jane, 

I am writing to you regarding your comment on Josh Duane’s LinkedIn post. I wanted to send a resource that might help you understand where and when to use personalized GIFs and Images, and how to make them. If this clarifies a bit the issue you mentioned in the comment, there’s more where that came from!  

[...]

This email opening line works because you are reaching out to your lead with the intent to help them. Additionally, you are offering a resource to solve a problem or issue they expressed in a comment on someone’s LinkedIn post (or anywhere else). Use this email introduction to later pitch your product that has this feature in particular, for example. 

#8 Make a reference to a mutual connection (potential collaboration) 

Template 

Hello {{firstName}},

{{mutualConnection}} from {{company}} spoke highly of you and your professional achievements, your {{achievement}} in particular! That’s why I decided to directly reach out and speak about a potential collaboration. 

Example

Hello Jenna, 

Marta Jamerson from FlyHigh spoke highly of you and your professional achievements, your development of Sales Techniques for smaller Sales Teams in particular! That’s why I decided to directly reach out and speak about a potential collaboration.

[...]

This email opening line works because mentioning a mutual connection right away is a smart move. It gives you certain credit, and whoever sees a familiar name will most likely keep reading. Furthermore, it shows that you know what the lead is doing, what their achievements are, and that those are the ones you are writing them for. 

#9 Give value and then offer your service

Template 

Hello {{firstName}},

I came across your {{product}} the other day while researching {{solutions}} and immediately spotted a few things that you can change to {{endGoal}} (déformation professionnelle, hehe, sorry!). This tip might help you see this side of your business in a new light. 

[...]

Example 

Hello Tiphany, 

I came across your website the other day while researching Marketing Automation Tools and immediately spotted a few things that you can change to improve your visitor’s experience (déformation professionnelle, hehe, sorry!). This tip might help you see this side of your business in a new light. 

[...]

This email opening line works because you are giving value (a free gift) to your potential customer, even if they don’t decide to hire you for the above service. Use this email introduction to hook your service and show the quality of your work. 

#10 Follow up after a cold call

Template 

Hello {{firstName}},

Great talking to you today! As promised, I am sending you a quick summary of the topics we covered over the phone this morning. 

Example 

Hello Kate, 

Great talking to you today! As promised, I am sending you a quick summary of the topics we covered over the phone this morning. 

[...]

This email opening line is an excellent reminder, even if the cold call didn’t go the way you wanted to (and even if it did). This is your second chance to interest your lead in knowing more, or you can investigate deeper into their pain points and areas for improvement.

#11 Create a need to pitch your product 

Template

Hello {{firstName}}, 

When was the last time {{company}} {{yourService}}? 

Did you know that - 

{{whyLead’sWayIsNotGoodForBusiness}} 

What if we changed things up a bit? 

Example 

Hello Anthony, 

When was the last time EightUp organized a team-building event that was more than food and drinks after work hours? 

Did you know that - 

- 75% of employees find team buildings of this kind useless, draining, and forced to attend?

- Only 10% of employees claim that they actually bonded with someone from another department during the team building of this kind?

- 83% of employees wish they could learn more from team buildings and actually bond with colleagues that are higher up the hierarchy? 

What if we changed things up a bit? 

[...]

This email opening line works because it shows concrete statistics that the lead’s way of doing certain things is not productive (or maybe even counterproductive). Moreover, you can offer a 180° turn to the way they are doing business. 

#12 Reach out to a churned user 

Template 

Hello {{firstName}}, 

I have exciting news for you! {{yourCompany}} now has a {{upgrade}}, which allows you to {{benefit}}. Let me briefly present all of its advantages. 

Example

Hello Angela, 

I have exciting news for you! Skylead now has a native Image and Gif personalization feature, which allows you to include personalized GIFs and Images into your outreach routine with just a few clicks. Let me briefly present all of its advantages. 

[...]

This email opening line works in case you reach out to a churned user. It lets them know that now you have something that they named as the reason to stop using your product. It's always good to reach out and try to resell them the improved version of your product from the start. 

Frequently asked questions

How to personalize these templates for different industries without losing the initial impact?

For personalizing templates across industries, focus on customizing your approach. To do this, weave in sector-specific language and reference current industry trends or news. This ensures relevance and maintains the original's engaging effect while speaking directly to the recipient's interests and challenges.

How to establish the balance between humor and professionalism in cold emails to maintain credibility?

Balancing humor and professionalism requires a nuanced approach. In other words, consider your audience's industry culture and tailor your humor to be light and relevant to your message. Aim for humor that enhances, rather than undermines, the professional quality of your email, ensuring it's appropriate and adds value.

How to form follow-up strategies when an initial email with a catchy opening line doesn't receive a response?

When a catchy opening line doesn't prompt a response, develop your follow-up email strategy by offering new information or value. Highlight a different aspect of your proposal or share a recent success story related to their industry. This approach can re-engage their interest and demonstrate persistence without being pushy.

Summary

The hardest part of any important task is getting started in the first place, isn’t it? 

Now, we gave you 12 email opening line templates to get through to your leads from the very first email. 

Use these templates as they are or as an inspiration for your own scenarios. 

Additionally, what also worked for our Sales Team was combining these email introductions with personalized GIFs and Images and sending them out to leads found by prospecting on LinkedIn. This practice skyrocketed their reply rates and, to be honest, also improved their ability to write good follow-ups after no response. 

And in case you are searching for a solution that will find and verify business emails for you, has a native feature for personalizing GIFs and Images (and includes them in your emails with just one click), and that can speed up your prospecting and outreach by 60%, sign up for Skylead's 7-day free trial and see for yourself how much we rock! 

You’ve got a tool or a product to market? Or do you need to share your content and reach a wider audience? If the answer is yes for both questions, say no more. This is our call to action for you to discover outbound marketing and its benefits.

After sending hundreds of thousands of emails to potential customers using Skylead software in the past couple of years, it’s safe to say that we’ve gathered unique insights into best cold outreach practices and emerging sales trends. Not to mention that we’ve managed to skyrocket the number of users from 2,500 to 10,000 in just 9 months! It’s all been written in our sales e-book. Thanks to our software, you can do the same.

So what is it about cold calling and outbound prospecting that seems so promising? In this article, we will share our knowledge and explain what outbound marketing is, its main benefits, and how it is different from inbound email marketing. Finally, you’ll learn from examples and see all the secrets of crafting the perfect outbound email for your marketing efforts.

What is outbound email marketing?

Outbound email marketing is one of the traditional forms of direct email marketing, where you reach out to potential customers by sending unrequested “cold” emails. In fact, it is similar to cold calling, where your potential customers are somewhat or completely unfamiliar with your product or service.

However, the main goal of outbound marketing as a marketing strategy is:

• to build a solid connection with your target audience
• spark interest in exploring your product
• raise brand awareness

The outreach game goes something like this: first, you finish your outbound prospecting, then you craft an outbound email marketing strategy, and finally, send cold emails and follow-ups to your prospects.

You can use cold emails as a powerful weapon to reach out to potential leads. Although these cold emails may be unsolicited in nature, the key to good outbound marketing is to be persistent, patient, and ready to test, adapt, and optimize your approach along the way.

What are the benefits of outbound email marketing?

Some benefits to keep in mind are: reaching a wider audience (more exposure means more potential conversions), fast results (scheduled outreach at the right time means immediate action on your lead’s part), and strategic targeting (targeting a specific audience and their pain points means a higher response rate).

When it comes to building brand awareness, you can always use digital marketing with all of its segments that need to work together, like social media, SEO, and content marketing. These powerful tools can help with getting your service or product out there, but outbound email marketing? This is where the real exposure comes in.

What is the difference between outbound and inbound email marketing?

While it could seem like outbound and inbound email marketing messages are the same, the approach we use in these two types of emails is different. The main difference is that inbound marketing works with leads who already gave you permission to contact them, opted-in, or showed general interest in your company’s products or services.

Inbound email marketing benefits:

• Interested potential customers
• Results over time
• Lead nurturing
• More engagement = more loyal relationships with your target audience
• Cost-effective

With inbound marketing, you wait for your qualified prospects to get hooked on your content. The content is purposefully placed to catch their attention, as it matches with the target audience's pain points and your ICP.

On the other hand, when it comes to qualified prospects for outbound marketing, leads can also match your ideal customer profile (ICP) perfectly. One thing to note: a qualified prospect enters the sales pipeline with outbound prospecting efforts, so it’s safe to say that using both inbound and outbound marketing for lead generation can largely benefit your sales and marketing efforts.

Lastly, both inbound and outbound marketing use lead management, but the process differs, as the way we label the steps as we go along. That why various businesses and B2B email marketing agencies use a CRM like Hubspot to help them with lead management and keeping track of the conversations with prospects.

Understanding the key components of outbound email marketing

Contacts 

One of the foundational elements of outbound email marketing is collecting contacts. After outbound prospecting efforts, you should have a narrowed list of emails from your target audience that matches your ICP. Additionally, you can automate lead generation by researching your prospects on LinkedIn and letting Skylead do the work for you with our Email discovery and verification feature.

Accounts

Engaging directly with varied audiences over the years has helped shape our understanding of outbound email best practices. This is why we know that managing and grouping your contacts through accounts is a must for streamlined, well-operating sales efforts. This way, you make sure that you and your colleagues do not reach out to the same contact twice.

Segments

Categorizing your contacts into different segments once they respond can help with tracking the results of your outbound email marketing campaign. Therefore, a helpful feature to use is Skylead’s Smart Inbox which lets you label your prospects by the level of interest, specific data points, next step in the campaign, or practically anything you want.

Lists

Last but not least, email lists are a collection of prospect emails acquired thanks to lead generation techniques. You can use a CRM such as Hubspot or Salesforce to view and organize your prospect list. After acquiring the right contacts, the next step is to send that first email with a strong CTA.

Note that it is never a good idea to purchase email lists unless you want your email to enter the prospect’s spam folder or bounce, which can damage your domain.

Crafting the perfect outbound email campaign

We've learned as much from the few email campaigns that didn't hit the mark as from the many successful campaigns. This is why we know that creating the perfect first email, along with follow-up emails, is crucial. Let’s look at some of your options for a successful outbound email marketing campaign.

Email templates

Contacting people out of the blue has its challenges. If you want to avoid being ignored or your leads hitting unsubscribe, you should focus on proven strategies - implementing email sequence templates for inbound or outbound email marketing. Email templates ensure consistency and branding and can be very efficient when it comes to cold outreach. Building good email sequence templates, testing, and improving them is the best advice we can give you for outbound marketing.

Personalized templates

In the vast sea of received daily emails, you need to allow your prospects to tell the difference between promotional emails and your outreach attempt. This is where personalized emails come in, as they let you send relevant content to potential prospects, increasing the open rate and overall email deliverability and response rate. 

For example, Skylead has thoroughly tested text & image personalization in cold emails, and we came to the conclusion that the response rate jumped to 63%. With that in mind, you can use a different, personalized approach for each segment and list of prospects and level up your outbound marketing game, thus skyrocketing your return on investment.

Integrating with other marketing channels like LinkedIn

We’ve teased about it before, but now it’s time for you to consider making your outbound outreach bigger and louder by integrating other marketing channels. Multichannel cold outreach is what amplifies your outreach efforts and gives you an opportunity to reach more people, faster. But how?

We’ve tested and trialed many outreach methods but came to the conclusion that using multichannel outreach means reaching all leads from your list, one way or the other. By incorporating another channel and combining the two, we get a chance to reach people who are not as active on one channel or the other, thus getting more responses.

That is precisely why we’ve created both features in Skylead - a startup and a LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software that focuses on, you’ve guessed it, multichannel outreach. We’ve helped over 15,000 users with their cold outreach, skyrocketing their numbers and revenue. 

You can use our Smart sequence builder to create campaigns from scratch or use some of our proven templates to skyrocket your outreach as we did. Our first-to-market Smart sequence feature combines two outreach methods and scales up conversion rates and return on investment, thus supercharging your outreach efforts.

Best practices for outbound email marketing messages

Crafting compelling subject lines

From our experience, what makes or breaks your outbound sales email is the email subject line and the pre-header text. They can determine whether your prospect opens, deletes, or marks your email as spam. Be sure to know your target audience well, and A/B test your content frequently. How do we know? We’ve tested it out.

We came to the conclusion that the best formula is using personalization. Firstly, this means dropping your lead’s first name or company name into the subject line. Secondly, you can reference their online activity or a mutual connection to grab their attention immediately. Try it out, and you’ll see instant results.

Keeping your email short

After running numerous outbound campaigns and testing shorter and longer content in emails, we’ve figured out a behavioral pattern: there’s a series of split-second decisions your prospects make when they see an email. First, if the subject line catches their eye, they decide to open the email. 

The second decision happens right after, when your prospect is looking at the email body. We came to an understanding that if the email seems too long, the prospect might make the decision not to read the email, regardless of content relevance. This is why we believe it is crucial to keep your content short and concise.

Personalized intro

If you’re reaching out to someone, outbound style, at least make the effort to personalize the intro. This includes adding some personal information about the prospect besides their name and showing them that you’ve done your research well. Our sales team has done it by using our tool, Skylead. The response rate for a hyper-personalized sequence we’ve tested has increased from the industry standard of 8.5% to 35%. Not bad for just a little extra effort, right?

Clear purpose

In your email copy, make sure to state your purpose clearly! Your prospect needs to understand your intentions right away. Of course, being clear doesn’t mean being blatant, so make sure to find a subtle balance.

CTA

They say a good call to action should be the last thing your prospect reads and the first thing they do. Therefore, make sure to craft your CTA in an unimposing yet clear manner.

Timing and frequency considerations

When people said that timing is everything, they had outbound email marketing in mind. Hence, sending an email at the right time can affect your conversion rates. One more important thing to note is the frequency of sending each follow-up email, as it can shield you from ending up in your lead’s spam folder. Research suggests that a single follow-up can increase the reply rate from 9%-13%. Also, make sure to wait at least 3-5 business days between follow-ups.

Ensuring mobile-friendliness

If we know that the majority of email views come from mobile devices (41%), then it’s safe to say that your email should be mobile-friendly so your mobile open rates are high. To optimize your cold email, keep the subject line (35 characters) and pre-header text (85 characters) within the character limit You should also left-align your email copy and opt for a single-column layout. Most email campaigns aren’t optimized for mobile, so make sure to use this information to your advantage!

Bonus tip: Always test your email on a mobile device before sending it out to ensure that the formatting and visuals appear as intended.

Email example:

Executing your outbound email strategy

Whether you’re sending a welcome email, newsletter email, or promotional email, the execution is similar in each campaign. However, implementing an outbound email strategy is a bit different, given the cold nature of the campaign. What differs is the tone of voice and your overall approach. Nonetheless, most strategy outlines look like this:

1. Choose a relevant email list (with your target audience in mind)
2. Design your signature (logo, design, etc.)
3. Personalize your email (subject line, relevant content, tone of voice)
4. Create follow-ups (in case the lead is not responding immediately)

This is considered the foundation of any email marketing strategy. But, as we’ve said, that’s not all there is to it. When you’re looking to implement an outbound email strategy, there are things to keep in mind before and after the campaign starts. Here are some helpful tips to consider before launching your campaign:

• Send emails from a real person (for higher open and response rates)
• Follow email or spam regulations and the GDPR (to avoid spam filters or your email accounts getting banned)
• Hyper-personalize your outreach (by using the Image & GIF personalization feature for a higher email  response rate)

After launching your cold email campaign, it is important to note that you need to continue working on improving and refining it. This is where A/B testing comes into play. In fact, QA, A/B testing, and spam testing lead to a 28% higher return on investment, so be sure to use them continuously as the campaign goes on.
Skylead gives you the option to A/B test your content copy and create up to 5 text variants. Managing a good outbound campaign means you need to optimize and adapt on the go for optimal results. You don’t want to end up in your prospects’ spam folders, do you?

Using automation in outbound email marketing

There’s a lot of manual work involved in executing a successful outbound marketing campaign. But what if you use marketing automation instead? Using outbound email automation software can cut hours of manual work, which you can use to focus on other parts of your outbound campaign.

Here are some other advantages of marketing automation:

• Faster outreach (for faster results)
• Automated outbound prospecting (with the email discovery feature)
• Better tracking (analytics, content success, and lead behavior)

Moreover, good automated outreach tools have all the features that support a successful outbound email campaign, such as:

• A/B testing content copy
• Email discovery
• Integrated inbox
• Hyper-personalization
• Using other communication channels (apart from email)

Skylead is all about automation and, coincidentally, one of those tools. 😉

Jokes aside, Skylead is a LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software and can help significantly with automating your outbound campaigns. With our tool, you can utilize multichannel outreach and scale up your outbound outreach efforts.

Measuring the success of your outbound emails

As we’ve learned from sending thousands of emails ourselves, once your campaign is live, that’s not where your hard work stops. In fact, this is where the real work begins. We cannot stress this enough! Tracking and interpreting email metrics is the most important part after the outbound campaign launch.

Key metrics

• Open rates - This is one of the most important metrics for email marketing. It shows you the average number of open emails from your campaign. If you want to analyze the effectiveness of subject lines, pre-header text, and sender names, you should consider your open rate numbers.
• Click-through rate - This metric measures the number of times your prospects clicked on any links or CTAs that were inside your email. Click-through rate is important for determining email engagement.
• Conversion rate - This metric indicates the number of people that converted (did the end-goal action) from your specific email or campaign in general. It determines the overall success of your campaign.
• Bounce rate - The bounce rate shows you the number of contacts that “bounced” or didn’t receive your email. This usually happens when the email address is inactive, fake, or outdated. To avoid having a high bounce rate, and staying out of trouble with your email service provider, make sure that your email addresses are legit, or simply use tools that support Email discovery and verification. You’ll get verified emails only and thus significantly lower your bounce rate.
• Spam complaints - This metric shows you how many times your email was marked as spam. Spam complaints could happen due to irrelevant content, spammy-looking subject lines, or unsolicited emails.
• Unsubscribes - This metric is meant to show you the number of people who unsubscribed from your email list. Having a high unsubscribe rate could mean one of two things: the content isn’t relevant for your audience, or your emails aren’t being sent to the right prospects.
• Mobile open rates - The number of emails opened on mobile devices.

Other metrics

Other metrics to track include deliverability rate, best-performing links, revenue per email, email sharing rate, etc. Despite the numerous things that you can track, from our experience, too much data leads to indecision. Therefore, make sure to follow the metrics that align with your campaign end goals for easier decision-making.

Finally, you should always use your analytics to adapt and constantly refine your outbound email marketing campaigns. Numbers are your allies here and can significantly help with overall campaign success.

Examples of outbound marketing

To give you some examples of outbound email outreach, we’re going to show you how it’s done with the help of Skylead’s Smart sequence builder. This is how you build a sequence in the Skylead app:

1. Go to your Skylead campaigns dashboard and click on “Create new campaign”. 📢

2. Name your campaign.

3. Paste a LinkedIn search URL, or add some other source out of six possible lead sources.

4. Adjust your campaign settings and click on “Create campaign.”

5. After you click on “Create campaign,” a popup will appear. You can choose one of two options. Click on the “From scratch” option.

6. The next step is adding your campaign elements, actions and conditions to form your outbound campaign.

We’ve tested and perfected the following sequence as an example of a simple outbound outreach campaign. We believe that outbound outreach campaigns are far more effective when you use the multichannel approach. Therefore, this sequence combines email and LinkedIn outreach, with added email, LinkedIn message, and InMail examples for two different outbound campaign scenarios:

Open rate: 63%

Scenario #1: Content distribution or event promotion

If you want to get more eyes on your content or more sign-ups for events, these templates will be a perfect way to do so.

First email:

Subject: {{solutionToPainPoint}}: Exclusive {{typeOfContent/Event}} Inside

Hi {{firstName}},

Facing {{painPoint}} challenges? We've got a solution.

We’ve created a {{typeOfContent/Event}} to specifically address these issues.

Check out our {{content/EventName}} and get hands-on experience on how to achieve {{results}}.

Cheers,

{{yourName}}

Follow-up email:

Subject: Missed Our {{typeOfContent/Event}} on {{painPoint}}?

Hi {{firstName}},

Just checking in about our exclusive {{typeOfContent/Event}}. It's tailored to help you achieve {{results}} by addressing {{painPoint}}.

Does this {{typeOfContent}} resonate with you? We would love to hear your thoughts.

Best,

{{yourName}}

LinkedIn invite to connect message:

Hi {{firstName}},

Your work in {{specificField}} caught my eye. We’ve created something that will turn the tables on {{painPoint}}. I think you'd find it very useful and inspiring, so I wanted to reach out and connect on it.

LinkedIn message:

Hi {{firstName}},

Thanks for accepting my invite. Here’s a link to {{content/EventName}}, which focuses on {{painPoint}}. I really think you, as a {{occupation}}, will benefit from it.

Please let me know if this hits the spot.

InMail message:

Subject: Let's Tackle {{pain point}} Together!

Hi {{Recipient Name}},

Noticed we missed connecting earlier, but your expertise in {{specific field/interest}} truly stands out. I wanted to reach out to share {{content/event name}}, aimed at {{pain point}}. Considering your background, I think it's perfect for you.

Does this hit the spot for you, as a {{occupation}}? I would really love to hear your thoughts on it.

Scenario #2: Product promotion

If you’re a lead generation manager, these templates might come in handy.

First email:

Subject: Get {{results}} With This Tailored Solution 

Hi {{firstName}},

I've been following your posts on LinkedIn because they talk about {{specificField/Interest}}, which I always love to see myself. Without taking too much of your time, I would like to showcase a product, {{productName}}, that reminded me of some of the challenges and topics you've discussed. It offers a unique approach to {{painPoint}}

I thought it might resonate with you. Mind if we jump on a call and talk more about it?

Warmly,

{{yourName}}

Follow-up email:

Subject: {{productName}}: A Fit for Your {{occupation}} Workflow?

Hi {{firstName}},

Revisiting our chat about {{productName}} – its features seem to align well with your work in {{specificField/Interest}}. To be more specific, with {{productName}} you can: 

1. {{benefit}}
2. {{benefit}}
3. {{benefit}}

How about it? Would you like to jump on a call, so I can get to know your precise workflow and create a tailor-made strategy that you can use to reach {{results}}.

Best,

{{yourName}}

LinkedIn invite to connect message:

Hi {{firstName}},

I was blown away by your posts on {{topic}}! As I also share your passion for {{topic}}, I wanted to connect and exchange our experiences.

Perhaps there is a potential for a collab.

LinkedIn message:

Hi {{firstName}},

Thanks for linking up! Your forward-thinking approach with {{topic}} sparked a thought - what would you say if I told you that {{productName}} can help with {{painPoint}} and deliver results?

Would you be up for a quick chat about it?

InMail message:

Subject: Let’s Speed Up Your Workflow With {{productName}}

Hi {{firstName}},

I noticed we hadn’t had a chance to connect earlier. Your amazing post on {{topic}} really stands out from the crowd. It got me thinking about {{productName}}, which seems tailor-made for {{painPoint}} that you’ve highlighted in your post. With {{productName}}, you can:

1. {{benefit}}
2. {{benefit}}
3. {{benefit}}

I would really love to chat about it since I believe you can greatly benefit from it.

Let me know when you’re available so we can discuss the potential.

Frequently asked questions

Is cold email outbound marketing?

Yes. Sending cold emails is the foundation of outbound marketing. When done right, it could help with brand awareness or bring traffic to your website. It can even act as a lead magnet, thus being one of the most powerful channels of outbound marketing.

How can one effectively measure and optimize the performance of outbound email campaigns to improve future strategies?

To effectively measure and optimize outbound email campaigns, focus on metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. Utilize A/B testing for subject lines, content, and send times to refine your approach based on data-driven insights.

Are there specific examples of how outbound email marketing has significantly impacted business growth or lead conversion rates?

Outbound email marketing can significantly impact business growth by nurturing leads into customers and enhancing brand awareness. Specific case studies highlight increased lead conversion rates and ROI when personalized, targeted email strategies are employed.

What are the most common challenges businesses face when starting with outbound email marketing, and how can they address these challenges effectively?

Common challenges in outbound email marketing include ensuring high deliverability, maintaining GDPR compliance, and crafting engaging content. Addressing these challenges involves using reliable email marketing tools, staying updated on email regulations, and continuously testing and adapting email content strategies.

What are 3 advantages of outbound marketing?

With outbound marketing, you can reach a wider audience but also use strategic targeting to narrow down prospects, find a niche, and enhance your results. Finally, you can get faster outreach results if you contact your prospects at the right time and with the right call to action. 

What are the advantages and disadvantages of outbound marketing?

While you can reach more prospects with emails and target your niche well, there are some disadvantages to outbound marketing. Cold outreach could damage your reputation: people tend not to trust emails from unknown senders. Additionally, outbound marketing costs more, depending on the outreach size and the tool you use.

How effective is outbound marketing?

Very effective. If we know that 99% of email users check their inboxes every day, we know that your prospects will surely see your email. It’s up to you to make the content stand out and underline the importance of your CTA, turning a cold into a warm lead.

Is it OK to cold email companies?

No. However, if companies comply with regulations, sending cold emails is legal. Nonetheless, if they do not opt in, you may risk damaging your company’s reputation by sending unsolicited emails. Ultimately, this practice might lead to recipients marking your emails as spam or simply unsubscribing from all future communication.

Conclusion

The immense potential of outbound email marketing is what kept you going through this article to this very point. If your goal is to reach more leads faster, grow your audience, and build brand awareness, then outbound email marketing is your best tactic. 

From years of experimenting and testing it out ourselves, we’ve managed to grow our own company and establish Skylead as one of the leading automation tools out there. If we could do it with our own tool, imagine what you can do with it.

To follow up or not to follow up?

Your first email got ignored. We’re sorry to hear that. Most of the time, that will be the case, and that is why you should focus your attention on follow-up emails. But why bother?

What if we told you that by sending a single follow-up, you increase your response rate by 9-13%? And if you keep sending more follow-ups, you can increase the response rate by three times?

We’ve come to find that crafting a good follow-up can be challenging. First, you must grab your prospect’s attention and point it to your email in an overly crowded inbox. Second, you need to make sure to put the right information in all the right places. Why? Well, to get a response and, hopefully, book a call.

Sounds complicated, doesn’t it? Do not despair. We’ve got you covered! Our sales and marketing teams came together to write this article only to help you learn and explain:

• How to write a follow-up after no response; 
• The dos and don'ts of follow-ups and what to avoid; 
• How can follow-ups increase your response rate;

Bonus: You also get to enjoy tested-for-efficiency follow-up email after no response templates.

What is a follow-up email?

A follow-up email represents a message sent to a prospect you’ve already contacted before. Usually, the main intent behind a follow-up is to remind the prospect of your first email, request additional information, or remind them of an important meeting or event. 

Follow-up emails are a star of the show in the B2B world, which includes sales, marketing, job hunting, recruiting, and customer communication. When it comes to sales, you can use them for lead generation, warmup, and lead management. The same goes for recruiting and job hunting, too. 

Why is it important to send follow-up emails?

Always remember that there could be a number of reasons why your prospects aren’t responding after the initial email. Here are some:

• They are too busy.
• They forgot to respond.
• The message is not clear.
• They are not the decision-makers.
• They are genuinely not interested. (in this case, use objection handling to win them over)

What we can conclude from our experience and the experience of others is that sending follow-up emails pays off.

When it comes to sales, our sales team assured us that this statistic is true: sending follow-ups can increase the chances of a response by 25%. If we know that 70% of salespeople stop after one email, then you can use this info to your advantage and incorporate follow-ups into every outreach attempt. 

In fact, we’ve witnessed firsthand that follow-ups are crucial for B2B sales outreach, and if you’ve done prospecting on LinkedIn right, you will have a higher chance of hitting that sales quota in no time. Just ask our sales team!

When applying for a job, sending follow-up messages after a one to two-week wait can be a professional way to further underline your interest in the position. Moreover, you’ll get to find out the stage of the hiring process. Lastly, this could encourage HR to take another look at your resume, thus possibly giving you a second shot at the job.Lastly, lead management is only done right with a handy CRM and when follow-ups are heavily involved.

When should you send a follow-up email after no response?

In sales and outbound marketing, sending cold emails creates a need for follow-ups. In outbound email marketing, you are reaching out to potential prospects for the first time without them stating their interest prior. This is why follow-up emails are necessary, but the question is when should you click send your email for the second or third time?

From our experience, picking the right time to send a follow-up email can affect the open and response rates significantly. The norm is to wait anywhere from 2-5 business days before you touch base with your prospects again. The trick is to put yourself in your prospects’ shoes - they might be busy, or they still haven’t had a chance to read or respond to your email. 

Sending premature follow-ups can make your prospects lose interest and end potential communication before it even starts. For example, you can send the first follow-up after 5 days, giving them enough time to read the email. In case there’s no response after the initial wait, you send a second follow-up for a gentle bump-to-top in their inbox.

How to write and send a follow-up email after no response

Andrea, our Head of Sales, once said: “A follow-up email after no response should be powerful enough to offer the right value and inspire the desired response at the same time.” The question is, how do we deliver an email with such strength? Our sales team has the knowledge and experience, so open your notes, people. The class on “Writing and sending follow-up emails by Skylead” begins now. 👇

Subject line 

Have you heard? Crafting an eye-catching subject line is directly correlated to a higher open rate. Good email subject lines and pre-header text combined are what help prospects make the decision whether or not to open and read the email. If you didn’t have a chance to catch their attention the first time around, use your follow-ups for a second chance for a first impression.

When creating compelling subject lines, our sales team recommends following these simple rules:

• Keep it short and to the point.
• Our CEO, Relja, says that catchy subject lines should be under 55-60 characters for web inboxes and under 30 characters for mobile inboxes.
• Limit punctuation marks (our research suggests that more than 3 punctuation marks may look like spam)
• Avoid all caps and exclamation points.
• Be careful with emojis (we’ve found out through testing that you should use 1 emoji at a time and that you shouldn’t replace words with emojis to avoid not being clear)
• Personalize your subject lines.

Pro tip: Always A/B test your subject lines for efficiency. From our testing, we found that a high open rate is an indicator of a good subject line. Subject line optimization based on real-time results can significantly improve your response rate over time. 

Follow-up email subject line examples

For Web Inboxes (55-60 characters):

1. {{firstName}}, this is your future workflow using SaaS! 🚀
2. VIP sneak peek: You unlocked new features 😎
3. {{firstName}} I need your advice
4. {{firstName}}, let's make Q4 legendary together
5. Your Q4 game-changer inside
6. {{firstName}}, let's co-create magic for {{companyName}} ✨
7. Tick-tock! Your Free Trial is Ending 🕰️
8. Marco? Polo! Seeking Your Response

For Mobile Inboxes (under 30 characters):

1. Your secret SaaS weapon 🌟
2. Let’s join forces 👊
3. Shortcut to {{benefit}} 🙌
4. {{firstName}}, get started 🆓?
5. Time to grow, {{companyName}} 🌱
6. Does this work {{firstName}}?
7. Supercharge your {{workflow}}! ⚡
8. Missing chat: Still tuned in?

Opening

Once you’ve caught their attention, our sales account executive, Pavle, says that how you greet them is what determines whether they’ll keep on reading. Avoid intros like “Just checking in to see if you’ve read my last email” or “I’m just following up on my previous email.” Such intros are overused and could imply blaming the prospect for not responding, which is a big no-no in sales communication. Instead, say something like this:

1. I know we’ve talked about {{painPoint}}...
2. As we quite recently connected, I thought it’s only fair you know something about me as well…
3. Hi {{firstName}}! I can’t believe how time has flown by since the last time we spoke. I just saw your post on {{topic}} and thought it was amazing. Anyway…

Let’s review the follow-up email after no response opening rules:

• Start with a friendly greeting.
• Briefly remind the prospect of your original email by restarting the conversation (like in the examples above)
• Clearly state the purpose of your follow-up.
• Don’t be afraid to get creative and use humor in outreach.

Bonus hack: Personalize intros - by adding some personal information about your prospect, you show them general interest and that you’ve done your homework. People want to feel special, so be sure to go that extra mile to show them that they are not just another prospect to you. 

Our sales team tested our hyper-personalized sequences, and the results show that the response rate increased from the industry standard of 8.5% to a staggering 35%.

Follow-up email opening examples

1. Hey {{firstName}}!

Between caffeine doses and back-to-back meetings, my previous email about {{ToolName}} might've slipped through. Thought I'd pop back into your inbox. How does it look from your end?

2. Morning {{firstName}}!

Did my last email decide to play hide and seek in your inbox? 😅 I chatted about some exciting rates and am curious to hear your thoughts.

3. Hello {{firstName}},

Knowing how swamped we can get, I figured I'd circle back. Our conversation about a possible partnership had me excited. Where do you stand on it?

4. Hi {{firstName}},

Last time, I dropped a hint about {{ToolName}}'s shiny new feature. Just like waiting for the kettle to boil, I'm here, curious: Any thoughts brewing on your side?

Still having trouble with your email opening lines? Try reading our guide to attention-grabbing cold email opening lines. Don’t skip out on the templates!

Body

We’ve covered the follow-up email openings after no response. Now, let’s dive into our sales team's tricks of writing a great email body:

• Be concise - clearly written emails win over prospects.
• Keep it short - from our experience, longer emails could negatively affect the response rate.
• Be specific - no need for filler phrases and words.
• Be polite and professional - People value manners, and if you’re not being too aggressive, you might get a chance to pitch.
• Offer value - People want to see the value behind your offer. If you’ve done your prospecting well, you’ve caught some people who can largely benefit from what you’re selling. Be sure to add some extra value by underlining some known issues that your tool/product/service fixes for them or by sending educational content.

Our pro tip: “Do not think of each follow-up as spam. Think of them as added value with each new message you send.” 

Closing & call to action

Our sales team says that when you write a closing and a final CTA, you need to create a perfect environment for your prospect to respond. That means:

• No vague statements - Do not confuse your leads with overly complicated demands at the end of the email.
• A clear and short call to action - Sales experts agree that a good CTA is the last thing your prospects read and the first thing they do.

Follow-up email closing examples

1. How about next week? Does Wednesday at 11 PM work for you?
2. Dive into the feature's details by hitting reply.
3. Plot our next collaboration chapter? Choose your preferred time here.
4. Respond with "Let’s do this," and I’ll send more educational content your way.

Still feel like you need some help with your CTAs? Check out our guide on creating a powerful sales email call to action in sales emails, and don’t skip the CTA examples part!

Using automation tools to send follow-up emails

Now that we’ve covered crafting follow-up emails after no response, let’s look at the next step - sending follow-up emails. Outreach emails might be hard to track, especially if you have a lot of prospects in your inbox. Plus, keeping track of the number of follow-ups sent, the context, and the goals for each specific lead can be challenging.

Now, before your outreach turns into a huge mess, you should ask for some help. And you know what? It sounds like what you need, dear salesperson, is sales engagement tool for lead organization and follow-up email sequences.

Let’s look at the numbers one more time. Andrea says that from our experience, the first and the last follow-ups get the most attention:

1. with the first follow-up, the response rate increases by 43%
2. the last follow-up - “breakup email” receives a 53% response rate

That’s a lot of follow-ups to keep track of. However, by using automation and email message sequencing, you can rest assured that all your messages are being delivered in a particular order. Now, your question is: where can I find such a platform or tool? 🤖

How to do it?

This is where we come in, with a big grand entrance, only to introduce our LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software, Skylead, and our all-star, first-to-market feature Smart Sequences. With the help of our Smart sequences, you can supercharge your sales engagement efforts! Smart sequences are algorithms that allow you to combine if/else conditions with LinkedIn and email actions. This way, you can create scenarios based on your prospects’ behavior, ensuring you get a response from them one way or the other.

Use Skylead to:

• Find your ICP and matching leads by using account-based prospecting
• Create smart message sequences 
• Add hyper-personalized elements such as AI data enriched text or images & GIFs
• A/B test your content, analyze, and optimize campaigns
• Keep track of each follow-up in the Smart inbox and label leads that require additional follow-ups.

Apart from follow-up message sequences for sales, marketers can also benefit from our tool. By using marketing automation, you can get more web traffic, drive conversions, and raise brand awareness.

Either way, using SaaS tools or doing the work manually, you can organize your follow-up emails after no response in a sequence. In Skylead, setting your follow-ups in a sequence is as easy as 1,2,3, and the sending process itself is done for you.

Tips for writing effective follow-up emails

Our sales force, Andrea and Pavle, are back to help you by spreading their knowledge and gifting you with more tips on how to write effective follow-up email copy. Keep this in mind: hard work does not stop at the first email - it continues and increases. First off, let’s look at the do’s.

Start with a strong opening.

A strong opening is like a good first impression. Well, in this case, it's a second first impression, so make sure to avoid overused phrases and email cliches at all costs.

Use storytelling in the follow-up sequence

There are many approaches you can take with your sequence strategies, and one of them is storytelling. For example, you could invite them for an online coffee, and the entire sequence can have a coffee conversation theme.

The idea is to reveal one value to the pain point at the time in every following email, enhancing its value as you go. You can speak about the value in ascending order of importance, with each email being more important than the last.

Personalize your follow-up emails whenever possible.

Personalization shows you’ve made an effort to get to know your leads. And despite the fact that you’re reaching a certain target group, it doesn’t have to seem automated. You can use Skylead and our image & GIF personalization feature to add some sparkle to your follow-ups. You can also add dynamic text to follow-ups to increase the level of personalization in outreach.

Get to the point quickly.

From what we’ve seen and from what you can tell from your own experience as an email reader, losing your prospect's attention is easy. It only takes a few mistakes, and your email is done for. Avoid all this by getting to the point quickly. No long sentences, no short novels, just facts and a little bit of creativity to keep them reading and ultimately doing the CTA.

Space out your follow-up emails.

If you’re being too salesy and aggressive, you’ll lose a good portion of your prospects. No one wants to be bothered, especially in the case of cold outreach. Make sure to space out your follow-ups anywhere from the standard 2 to 5 business days.

Pro tip from Skylead’s sales team: Give your prospects enough time to respond. Some of them might be too busy to go through your emails and have not had a chance to read them yet. Sending too many follow-ups after no response doesn’t seem like a friendly reminder or check-in but rather a pushy salesman trying to shove their product/service down their prospect’s throat.

Show credibility.

Cold outreach can be tricky. It’s hard enough you’re trying to establish contact out of the blue, but you’re also asking for something. Prospects are usually not so trustworthy with cold emails, so in order to show them that you’re serious, you need to show credibility. 

We’ve mentioned that every follow-up email should add extra value. Use each follow-up to show them your accomplishments - link to credible sources, testimonials, and case studies that can help them decide whether or not to trust you.

Offer value.

Your prospect’s first thoughts are usually, “Why is this person contacting me?” or “What is this person trying to sell?”. By following our rules of writing follow-up emails after no response from the section above, you’ll lead them straight to the point with your follow-up email, underlining the value of your product or service. 

Throw some numbers around. People respond to numbers and statistics well. Prospects appreciate value, and if you offer them a solution to a niche problem, the conversation will just keep flowing. 

Be empathic.

Another pro tip from our sales team: You need to listen to your prospects carefully and truly understand their issues. If you know they have a problem your product can fix, try approaching them in a subtle way where you show them compassion. Once you get a reply, your work doesn’t end.

Create urgency.

You can probably guess that creating urgency is what makes your prospect believe he should take immediate action by replying to your message. However, if it did not work for the first time, you can create more urgency in your follow-up, but be subtle. 

Our pro tip: Don’t use sensational subject lines and promises you can’t keep only to lure them into replying.

Common mistakes to avoid

Andrea and Pavle are full of knowledge when it comes to the dos of sending follow-ups after no response, but after years of sales experience, they can also easily spot cold email mistakes. The list below shows what you shouldn’t do if you want a high reply rate with your follow-up email sequence. 👇

Following up too quickly.

One of the main rules of cold outreach is not to spam your prospects with messages! Be patient. Nobody likes an overly aggressive approach. The industry standard is to spread your follow-ups out by roughly 2 to 5 days. If you wait for more than that, it will probably reduce your chances of getting a reply. 

It’s a good idea to map out your follow-ups inside your Smart sequence in the correct order and wait for a reply. You can thank us later.

Sending too many or not enough follow-up emails.

What is the optimal number of follow-up emails you can send to a prospect before that final “breakup” email? We know for sure that sending just one email isn’t enough. So, we take into account that by sending each follow-up after no response, you increase your chances of a reply. That said, it’s safe to say somewhere around 3-6 follow-ups is enough. 

From our own experience, a prospect says “no” 4 times before saying “yes.” That’s why this range works perfectly and might get you that desired result.

Being too pushy or aggressive.

We’ve mentioned this before - people do not respond well to aggressive salesmen and aggressive job seekers. Being direct and pushy are not synonyms. It’s one thing to show prospects or employers your interest in them, but another to demand and be borderline rude about your approach. It’s all about setting a fine line between being subtle yet decisive and direct. You can sell without sounding too salesy.

Missing important information.

You’ve probably received an email that’s missing crucial information in the past. Heck, we all did at some point. Sometimes, the email is very catchy and inspires immediate action, but wait. Parts of it are missing. It could be a missing attachment, a link, or some other information. That means you’re creating an additional step for the prospect. They will have to ask you for that information, but as you know, most of them won’t. The lack of crucial or promised information can be very offputting to prospects, so make sure to double-check if all the info is in each follow-up.

Not proofreading.

This one is tied closely to the previous advice. We’ve noticed that mistakes are not tolerated by prospects, so make sure to go through your follow-up sequence and maybe get a second pair of eyes on it. Mistakes show sloppiness and a lack of interest in the prospect. Plus, they can also be perceived as spam.

Check for typos and grammar, and if all attachments and visuals are there, along with all the necessary information, then you can click send.

Writing too much text.

If the email body is too long, your prospect won’t read it. It’s that simple. Our sales team has tested longer and shorter versions of the same follow-up sequence and saw significant differences. Shorter emails have received a higher response rate.

Not having a clear call to action (or too many of them)

Our head of sales, Andrea, always reminds us that you have your prospects’ attention for a very short time. Make sure to have only one and a clear call to action. Otherwise, you’ll lose their attention quickly, and you won’t get the desired action from them.

Not offering an unsubscribe option.

Given the fact that you’re contacting these people without their consent, some of them might feel the urge to unsubscribe (hopefully not if you’ve done your prospecting right). Nonetheless, adding an unsubscribe option is good manners. Plus, you’re helping deliverability, reducing spam rates, and improving your reputation. You want active users/subscribers in your email lists, so adding an unsubscribe option is how you help yourself.

Sending emails to the wrong person.

This is a part where we talk a little bit about prospecting. Knowing your product/service is where you begin before you think about your audience. Thought about it? Good. Now it’s time for prospecting. However, if you have trouble with this step, here is a guide to the best LinkedIn prospecting strategies so you can get to the right person every time.

Skylead tip: If you’re sending emails manually, make sure to spell their name correctly.

Sending a follow-up email after no response samples & templates

We’ve come to the part of the article where our sales and marketing teams put their knowledge to the test. Get ready for follow-up email examples after no response (salespeople, recruiters, and job seekers, take notes!). Feel free to use them and test their efficiency yourself. 🤓

#1 Reminder email after no response (first follow-up)

Subject: Tap Tap: Is This Thing On? 🎤

Hey {{firstName}},

Sending a cheerful nudge your way! Seems like our chat about {{topic/Issue}} decided to take a little vacation. Ready to welcome it back whenever you are.

Eager for the sequel to our chat,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: One of the major rules of writing follow-ups is not to be afraid to have fun. Being humorous is something that most people respond to well. 

#2 Reminder email after no response (second follow-up)

Subject: RE: Mic Check for Round Two? 🎤

Hey {{firstName}},

It looks like we keep missing each other over and over again. I know things get busy, but I believe that a productive exchange is worth every second!

How’s {{date/Time}} for an encore of our previous productive chat?

Real-life example:

Why it works: In the second follow-up, you are showing your prospect that you are consistent. It’s short, and it shows your outreach efforts clearly.  

#3 Follow up sales email after no response

Subject: Green, Yellow, or Red for {{product/Service}}? 🚦

Hi {{firstName}},

Our chat from last week about {{product/Service}} seems to be idling at a traffic light. Which color are we on?

If you're stuck at yellow, need more green insights, or hitting red, I'm all ears.

To clear signals,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: Avoiding boring lines and overused sentences is crucial for any outreach email. Plus, this one shows you got inspired and took the time to write a creative follow-up with a witty comparison. 

#4 Follow-up email after no response (formal)

Subject: Revisiting Our Lost Thread

Hi {{firstName}},

The daily email cluster must have pushed our thread regarding {{topic/Issue}} down the inbox black hole. This note is a gentle nudge, hoping to push our conversation back to your attention.

Eagerly waiting for your reply.

Best,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: Although most business communication nowadays tries to steer clear from generic and cliched email communication, being formal has nothing to do with that. This follow-up email shows that you’re polite and well-mannered but also clear with your intentions.  

#5 How to bump an email politely

Subject: An Elevator Pitch: Bringing Our Chat Up Again

Hi {{firstName}},

In the vast sea of daily emails, I’m sending this note as a gentle elevator, hoping to lift our previous discussion on {{topic/Issue}} back in focus.

Looking forward to your insights!

Ready for your reply,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: Your email got lost in the daily bunch. How to get it back into the limelight? By sending a polite follow-up email and replying to your primary thread and stating your purpose once more. This one works because it’s a creative way of showing the recipient that you demand their attention.

#6 Follow-up email after no response from a client (sales)

Subject: Piecing Together Our {{product/Service}} Puzzle 🧩

Hi {{clientName}},

Seems our dialogue on {product/Service}} took a quiet turn. Are there missing pieces I can help with?

If adjustments or additional support is needed, I'm ready to jump in. Just give me a sign.

Awaiting your cue,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: Offering your help and support is sometimes just what a client needs to clear their confusion. This is not a potential client but a doubtful client. If the client is doubtful, you could lose the account, so make sure to follow up frequently and gently. 

#7 Follow-up email after sending resources (sales)

Subject: Resource Roundup: Hit or Miss? 📚

Hey {{firstName}},

Dived into the resources yet? Would love to know if anything clicked or raised an eyebrow about {{product/Service}}.

Got any questions or an 'aha' moment to share? I’m just a call away: {{yourPhoneNumber}}.

Warmly

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: Gentle reminders in email form are much needed in the cold outreach game. This template is not aggressive, has a friendly note, and just the right amount of pressure on your end.

#8 Follow-up email before free trial (sales)

Subject line: Dropping A Quick Present 🎁

Hey {{firstName}},

Just wanted to say thanks again for the call. As we talked about {{painPoint}} and explored your company's current strategies for dealing with it, my belief was reinforced that {{yourProduct}} can help with achieving {{metricValue}}.

That’s why I included a little gift for you: {{giftRegardingFreeTrial}}, so you can fully try our product out and experience {{MetricValue}} firsthand.

Let me know when you start the Free Trial so I can send it to you.

Cheers,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: This is a short, precise email that the prospect doesn’t waste time reading. With exact value and a gift to top it off, which everyone likes to get, you will be sure to get a high response rate.

#9 Follow-up email after demo (sales)

Subject: Post-Demo Checkup 🧐

{{Date}} was not just another crossed-out meeting. Let’s recap:

{{yourProduct}}: Not just a tool, but a {{benefit}}.

{{theirChallenge}}: On our radar now.

If you’re wondering what's next, have any doubts, or need more details, let’s discuss.

How about a second quick chat on {{date/Time}}?

To making ‘just another day’ count!

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: Checking in with your prospect after a demo is just as important as the demo itself. Demos can be confusing for some, and not everyone is prepared to process all the given information. This is your chance to remind them that you can clear any confusion they may have and ultimately lead them to the next step - conversion.

#10 Follow-up email after a missed call (sales)

Subject: Call Missed: Ready for Redial? 🤙

Hi {{firstName}},

Seems our phone lines played hide and seek earlier when I called about {{product/Service}}.

Let's hit redial and aim for a good connection. How does {{suggest a specific day/time}} work for a quick chat? Or simply shoot me a time that works for you.

Cheers,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: Missed calls and meetings happen all the time. This is where this template comes in handy. It’s short and direct but has that tiny bit of informality that you need to get another chance at an online encounter. Remember: sales follow-ups are important!

#11 Follow-up email that mentions the competition (sales)

Subject line: Wish to know the truth about {{competitorName}}? 🤫

“You can’t handle the truth!” said Jack Nicholson.

Just kidding, {{firstName}}.

Hope you are doing well. Just thought of knocking on your door and leaving a comparison page - {{yourProductName}} vs {{competitorProductName}} since I know you’ve been testing them as well.

Are you up for a quick chat to discuss the main differences and the benefits I sent previously?

Cheers,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: In case you already sent your prospect benefits and your prospect has been considering your competitor as well, this is the second follow-up email you send. Show them your benefits before they make a decision and run over to your competitors.

#12 Personalized follow-up email after no response (sales)

Subject line: Tailor-made strategy for {{company}}🧵

Hey {{firstName}},

{{painPoint}} must be tedious for you. Luckily, you are not alone in this. 

Since my last email, I have created a couple of strategies tailor-made for your company on how you can {{result}}. Want to hear them? 

If so, does {{date/Time}} work for you?

Real-life example:

Why it works: Adding personalization, such as name, image, or pain point, achieves the best results. However, if you have a low-buying-intent prospect who didn’t respond to your email, you need to go the extra mile. In other words, you need to create something applicable and tailor-made for their company to warm them up to your product.

#13 Follow-up email after sending a contract (sales)

Subject: Contract Follow-Up: Let’s Turn Pages Into Progress 📑

Hey {{firstName}},

The contract for {{product/Service}} is now on your desk. Peeked inside yet?

If any question marks or clarifications are needed, I’m just a call away. Contact me at {{yourPhoneNumber}}.

To turning pages,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: After writing thousands of emails, we can say that finding the right balance between formal and informal communication is the key to success. Being too stiff and talking in a manner that wouldn’t reflect a live conversation is outdated. When writing, think about what you would say if your prospect were sitting in front of you.

#14 Follow-up email after a couple of months (sales)

Subject line: Hello from the other side - With exciting news 🗣

Hi {{firstName}},

I haven’t called a thousand times, as Adele, but as promised, I am checking in after a while.

How have you been? How did {{reasonForReachingOutLater}} go?

I have super exciting news to share with you. We have just {{companyNews}}. I  thought you might like it as it can help you {{achieveResult}}. 

Let me know if you are available for a quick call to catch up on everything that has been going on. Here is my calendar link.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: In case you haven’t had communication with your prospect for a while, you can send this or a similar follow-up. For example, the lead might have told you to reach out in the future. When you asked when exactly, they didn’t respond. The good practice here is to reach out after a month and check-in. They might be more open to hear what you have to say and offer.

#15 Follow-up email after a LinkedIn connection request

Subject line: Bridging Barriers: From LinkedIn to Real Talk 🌉 

Hi {{firstName}},

It seems we missed each other on LinkedIn, so I’m reaching out via email. Your stance on {{topic/IndustryTrend}} is a real conversation starter, and it works!

I believe there’s a bridge to be built here and a productive conversation to be had. How about we put words into action? Is {{time/Date}} okay for you?

Looking forward,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: Use a follow-up email to reach out to a member of the LinkedIn community that you tried contacting by sending a connection request, but the prospect hasn’t accepted it yet. Having another conversation channel and putting an effort into starting a conversation there is what your prospect might perceive as determination. 

Remember: putting a smile on your prospect’s face is one last step before a reply happens.

#16 Follow-up email after sending a quote (sales)

Subject: Quote Mission: Countdown to Decision? 🚀

Hey {{firstName}},

Hope the quote for {{product/Service}} landed well. Any thoughts or roadblocks?

Let’s not leave things hanging. A quick call might clear it up: {{phoneNumber}}.

Waiting for your signal,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: The email is short, precise, and with a touch of spice. Just the way your prospects like them. Not being generic goes a long way in cold outreach + adding a phone call option for some busier prospects is also a plus!

#17 Follow-up “breakup” email (sales)

Subject line: Perhaps it is better this way… 💔

Hi {{firstName}},

I sense that now might not be the ideal time for {{yourProduct}} to address {{painPoint}} at your company. No worries at all – timing is everything.

If the future calls for a revisit, I'm here. Until then, I wish you and your team all the best.

Cheers, and until the next time.

{{firstName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: If you've sent a couple of emails already and none of them worked, this is your sign to stop reaching out. While sending a so-called breakup email, it is best to evoke an emotional reaction from the prospect, as demonstrated in the email below. The key is to stay genuine.

#18 Follow-up email after a free trial (sales)

Subject: Free Trial Verdict: Thrill or Kill? 🧟‍♀️

Hi {{firstName}},

Just checking in after our thrilling free trial of {{product/Service}}. I’m curious to hear your thoughts!

Were there highlights, or perhaps something you missed? I'm here to clear any fog or explore possibilities.

For a quick chat, just ping me at {{phoneNumber}}, or let me know a convenient time for you.

Eager to hear your take!

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: Comparing your demo pitch to the best-selling album of all time? We say yes! Everyone likes a well-crafter themed message in their inbox, and chances of a reply are significantly higher.

#19 Follow-up email after no response to a job application (job seeker)

Subject: Resume for {{jobTitle}}: In Your Hands

Hi {{hiringManagerName}},

Wanted to confirm my resume for the {{jobTitle}} position has reached you. Looking forward to exploring how my background can contribute to {{companyName}}.

Awaiting your guidance on the next steps.

Warm regards,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works:

This is a very common scenario: it's been a couple of days or weeks after you’ve applied for the listed job, and nothing happened. So what do you do? You send a polite reminder and ask the hiring manager to give you details about the hiring process. That way, you’ll know where your application stands.

#20 Follow-up email after sending resume (job seeker)

Subject: Resume Dispatch: {{jobTitle}} Role

Hi {{hiringManagerName}},

I want to ensure my application for the {{jobTitle}} has landed in your realm. Ready to discuss how my unique skill set could add value to {{companyName}}.

If a brief chat would help, I’m all ears. Here’s my direct line: {{yourPhoneNumber}}.

Warm regards,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: When a position is open, hiring managers usually get hundreds of resumes daily and from various channels. Therefore, it’s easy for some resumes to slip through the cracks and go unnoticed. Politely asking the hiring manager if he had a chance to take a look at your accomplishments should do the trick, and give them a slight nudge they might need to notice you.

#21 Follow-up email after an interview (job seeker)

Subject line: Post-Interview Reflections: {{jobTitle}}

Dear {{interviewerName}},

Thank you for the thought-provoking interview. Our conversation opened new horizons, bringing the role and {{companyName}}’s vision into sharper focus.

Looking forward to any updates or next steps.

Warmest regards,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: Employers want present and engaged employees. If you’re interested in a position at a certain company, don’t hesitate to follow up after an interview. Ask questions, clarify everything that wasn’t clear while the interview happened, and seek out the hiring manager's opinion on how it went. Most job applicants don’t take this extra step, so don’t make that mistake if you’re really aiming to get the job.

#22 Follow-up email after no response after interview (recruiter)

Subject line: Here's the complete offer

Hi {{firstName}}, 

Time really does fly by, doesn’t it? It’s already {{DayOfTheWeek}} 😄

Anyway, I just wanted to touch base with you and go over our offer once again.

As we discussed, your conditions will be:

- {{Condition1}}

- {{Condition2}}

- {{Condition3}}

In addition, here are the benefits mentioned during our meeting. As our {{position}} you will have:

- {{Benefit1}}

- {{Benefit2}}

- {{Benefit3}}

Let me know how this sounds to you.

Kind regards,

{{yourName}}

Why it works: We cannot talk about follow up email and not mention our recruiters. If you are an HR person and find yourself in a situation where your ideal candidate didn’t respond to you after the interview where you presented your offer, here is a template you can use to give them a nudge.

#23 Sample follow-up letter for job application status (job seeker)

Subject: {{jobTitle}} Application: Next Coordinates?

Dear {{hiringManagerName}},

I hope this message finds you well-rested and productive. In the quest for the {{jobTitle}} role, I'm writing to seek updates on our current position. Have we reached a new checkpoint, or are there further details I can provide?

Your status update is greatly appreciated.

With respect,

{{yourName}}

Real-life example:

Why it works: Knowing where you stand in the hiring process is crucial when applying for jobs. Plus, it shows your interest in the position and your determination to fill in the vacancy.

Frequently asked questions

What specific strategies can be employed to personalize follow-up emails for different industries or roles to increase engagement?

Personalizing follow-up emails can involve referencing specific interests, recent accomplishments, or industry news relevant to the recipient's field. Tailoring your message to their unique context fosters a more personal connection.

How does the timing of a follow-up email impact its effectiveness, and are there optimal times of day or week to send these emails for better results?

The effectiveness of a follow-up email can be significantly influenced by its timing. Sending emails during business hours, especially mid-week, may improve open rates. However, considering the recipient's time zone and work patterns is crucial for optimal timing.

Beyond the provided templates, what are some creative examples of follow-up emails that have successfully converted initial non-responses into positive outcomes?

Creative follow-up emails often incorporate humor, personalized GIFs & images, comments, or interesting questions that relate to the recipient's interests or industry. Such approaches can help break the ice and engage the recipient more effectively, turning a lack of response into a positive conversation starter.

How do you politely follow up on an email with no response?

Make sure to wait the standard 2-5 business days before reaching out again. Your tone should be professional yet direct. Finally, you should add more value and information. Underlining that your product or service fixes their issues creates the right amount of urgency, which in turn makes them hit reply.

How do you follow up professionally after no response?

If your first email went unnoticed, your follow-up should start off with restating your goal briefly. Avoid using cliché phrases and slang. Also, try changing your approach in each new email. Finally, send each follow-up in a new thread to avoid ending up in the wrong part of the inbox. 

What to say in a follow-up email when someone hasn’t responded?

Make sure to briefly remind them of your previous touchpoint and continue by adding additional value to your initial email. It also helps to create a sense of urgency by mentioning a challenge they might be facing daily and that your product or service can fix it for them.

How soon should you send a follow-up email after no response?

The standard waiting period for sending a first follow-up email after no response is 3-5 business days. Sending a premature follow-up can come off as spammy and overly aggressive, so make sure to wait a minimum of 3 days.

How do you follow up without being annoying?

To avoid being annoying and ending up in your prospects’ spam folder, make sure to wait the appropriate amount of time before sending another email. Also, make sure to keep each follow-up short and straightforward, with clear intentions and a strong CTA.

How long is it acceptable to wait to reply to an email?

If the email is urgent or deadline-driven, clearly state that in the subject line. The appropriate amount of time between your first email and a follow-up is 24 hours. Otherwise, give your prospect 3-5 days to respond. Also, if it requires an immediate response, consider using another communication channel.

Conclusion

We’ve come to the end of our follow-up learning journey. Our sales and marketing teams worked really hard to bring on the email campaign knowledge and experience we’ve gathered from years of constant testing and adapting, and hard work. After all, it’s how we’ve grown our user base from 2,500 to 10,000 users in nine months!

So, what have we learned about follow-up emails after no response so far?

1. The more follow-ups you send, the higher the reply rate, but know where to stop.
2. If you spend time crafting your email copy, the more likely you will boost open and response rates.
3. If you build your follow-up sequences, you’ll save time.
4. If you automate your outreach and create email follow-up sequences, you’ll keep better track of your prospects and the outreach phase.
5. The more value you add, the more likely you’ll get a higher response rate.

And the next step? Choose Skylead to help you automate lead generation and your email sequencesl. By tapping into the possibilities of automated outreach, you double your chances of getting desired outreach results. Besides, you can always return to this article and reread the rules of crafting the perfect follow-up email, or simply use our follow-up email templates if you need a head start.

So, how do you get to Skylead? Test out Skylead today and discover the beauty of an outreach that thinks and works for you! You’ll see how our all-in-one tool can simplify your outreach efforts and get you where you need to be in no time. Trust us. Once you try it, you won’t know how you lived and worked without it! 🤩

Is outreach part of your day-to-day tasks? Are you a part of sales, marketing, customer success, recruiting, or business development teams? Yes? Then, let us introduce you to outreach automation.

Using outreach automation might help streamline your workflow and get you to the desired results, fast. You can use outreach automation for:

• Lead generation
• Segmenting your audience
• Sending personalized messages and emails
• Automating follow-up sequences 
• Creating drip campaigns
• Using multiple communication channels
• Collecting data and tracking progress

Sounds like a game-changer, doesn’t it? Cutting hours on manual tasks and improving overall outreach efficiency is what we had in mind when creating Skylead - a LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software for agencies and alike who what to scale their business. In fact, we didn’t just create a tool and give it to our users - we are using it ourselves. To back this claim, we should tell you that we used our mighty tool to boost our user base from 2,500 to 10,000 in 9 months alone!

That being said, we created this article to help you understand the fundamentals of outreach automation. You will learn how to leverage outreach automation to your benefit, reach goals faster, and book 3x the meetings. Moreover, we’ll show you the use cases, the success stories of our users, and the benefits experienced. 

So, without further ado, let’s begin introducing you to your latest industry game changer - outreach automation. ⭐️

What is outreach automation?

Outreach automation uses software tools to streamline reaching out to potential leads, customers, or any target audience. You can automate parts of your outreach, such as sending personalized messages and follow-ups on multiple channels, analyzing your outreach results, and optimizing campaigns.

In business-to-business communication (B2B), it is common to come across automated outreach campaigns. Many companies rely on outreach automation due to the large number of cold messages and follow-ups required in outreach to streamline the process and carry out the demanding numbers, especially those working in sales and marketing. In fact, sales professionals claim that automation saves more than 2 hours on manual tasks per day.

We can’t talk about B2B outreach and not mention outbound email marketing and outbound sales. It is similar to cold calling, as you craft cold email campaigns to contact potential prospects and send unrequested cold emails. In fact, outbound marketing is an integral part of many industries, where large audiences are getting reached daily, thus creating the perfect setting for automation tools.

The same goes for business-to-consumer (B2C) oriented industries. No middle person is required, yet automation tools are necessary. Numbers show that companies that use automation software to craft elaborate targeted outreach campaigns get twice as many leads and 58% more conversions than those who send out email blasts.

Good news, marketing folks, too! Direct-to-consumer (D2C) is also favorable for automation. Almost all social media activity can be automated nowadays, saving up to 6 hours per day! Spending funds on marketing automation will provide a jump of 77% in conversions! Not bad, right?

What are the benefits of outreach automation?

If you’re still unconvinced to automate your outreach, we can tell you that both we and our users experienced these benefits firsthand. Here are some of the main benefits of automated outreach and incorporating an automation tool into your workflow:

• Time-saving (the right automation tool can help save up to 11+ hours per week on manual work - that’s 6 days a month! 😱)
• Ensures accuracy
• Increases effectiveness
• Scalable (automation tools can help scale your business - this especially applies to sales and marketing)
• Provides consistent engagement with prospects
• Allows for mass personalization (by using variables and other visual elements - images, GIFs, videos, etc.)
• Decreases the chances of errors (if done correctly, automation tools can help in avoiding human error)

Use cases for outreach automation

Thanks to outreach automation, we’ve seen many industries experience significant business development, sales, and marketing among the first. Customer support can also benefit from automating certain parts of their workflow, ensuring customer success. Recruiters can choose a niche, narrow their search, and get to the desired talent in no time.

Now that we know who, let’s look into the specifics and explore when and where we think it’s best to use automated outreach on a real-life example and through our tool - Skylead. 👇

Prospecting

Before you go into outreach, you need to find your audience first, and you can do that with prospecting. The good news is that prospecting tools can help with automation by:

1. Identifying potential leads by custom criteria
2. Sourcing and verifying prospect information
3. Organizing prospect data

You can do prospecting in multiple ways:

• Social media (e.g., prospecting on LinkedIn)
• Networking - virtually or in-person)
• Lead magnets - relevant content such as blogs, case studies, newsletters, etc. that resonate with your target audience (inbound marketing techniques)

Once you acquire quality leads via LinkedIn search filters or putting their names, emails, and LinkedIn URLs in a CSV file, you can then pull them into Skylead as a lead source, which could be one of the following types:

• LinkedIn search URL 
• Sales navigator search URL
• Recruiter search URL
• Imported list of leads from a CSV file
• People who’ve liked a post on LinkedIn
• Imported Sales navigator leads list
• Recruiter talent pool
• Recruiter pipeline

Pro tip: You can use our Email discovery and verification feature to find prospects’ emails and incorporate multiple channels into your outreach.

Lead generation & lead nurturing

After prospecting, we get to lead generation and lead nurturing. Once you acquire qualified prospects, you can start the warm-up and build your future relationships until conversion. Skylead can help with all those processes, even with lead management. This is how you do it with Skylead. 👇 

Linkedin outreach automation

As the biggest professional social media network, with over 950 million users worldwide, LinkedIn is a safe bet for outreach. But how to automate LinkedIn outreach, you may ask?

Some call them LinkedIn automation tools, and some call them LinkedIn bots, but the premise is the same: these tools can help speed up and streamline LinkedIn outreach.

Here are the actions and conditions you can combine and automate in Skylead, thanks to our Smart sequence builder.

Once you combine these actions and conditions, you get a Smart sequence - an algorithm with different outreach scenarios that Skylead will execute according to your leads' behavior. Here’s an image example:

And the best thing about our LinkedIn automation? Once you set it up properly, it does all the work for you! But that’s not everything…

Cold emailing

Hoping to secure new clients? Don’t have an existing relationship with them, or are they not responding to your LinkedIn outreach? Send a cold email or use an email template and start the conversation! Sending cold emails is an integral part of cold email outreach and email marketing. But where does automation fit into all of this? Well, everywhere. Use these tools to:

• Find prospects’ email addresses
• Send cold messages and drip campaigns
• A/B test your email copy for better open and response rates
• Monitor your performance with real-time data and detailed analytics

This is where Skylead comes in. Use unlimited email automation and combine it with LinkedIn automation to create multichannel Smart sequences. Here’s an example of such a sequence, which can be used for outreach, lead nurturing, content and event promotion, etc:

Follow-up

Salespeople are well aware that follow-ups are an absolute necessity when it comes to outreach and closing deals. What if we told you that 70% of salespeople stop after the first sales email? Our experiences show that the first follow-up increases response rates by 43%, and the last follow-up, the so-called breakup email, receives a staggering 53% response rate!

As you can tell, devising an outreach strategy that involves follow-up emails after no response to the first outreach attempt and adding a sales engagement platform to the mix increases your chances of efficiency and success. Use Skylead to automate follow-up sequences and take over once they respond!

Customer retention

If you’re in marketing, and your goal is to keep your customers hooked to your product and nurture relationships easily, this is where marketing automation comes in. For successful customer retention, use Skylead to automate sending emails and LinkedIn messages with special discounts, gifts, promotions, and useful resources.

Event marketing

Have an event you want to promote? Is it a webinar or any kind of happening? Event marketing simply calls for automation. You can use Skylead to create a webinar promo campaign and send invitations automatically, reaching out to your guest list in just a couple of clicks.

When not to use outreach automation

There are only some rare cases where outreach automation isn’t going to work. It is a bad idea to overuse the tool and reach out to more people than is allowed. LinkedIn imposes certain limitations that block excessive use and could potentially lead to your account ending up in LinkedIn jail. The email account’s health could also be damaged, so be careful.

The second case where automation loses its function is the opposite case when you need to send just a couple of messages or don’t use much outreach as a part of your work. Automation isn't efficient enough if you’re planning just one touchpoint with your prospects, so it’s better to do all this manually.

Note: You need an average of 5 touchpoints with a prospect to get a response. We generally don’t advise aiming for just one touchpoint, as that outreach strategy isn’t effective.

Different types of outreach automation tools

LinkedIn automation tools 

We’ve mentioned LinkedIn outreach automation, and LinkedIn outreach tools are here to help create outreach campaigns that reach out to a larger number of people in less time. These tools can streamline any LinkedIn action you'd have to do manually to reach out to prospects.

Here are some examples of LinkedIn automation tools:

1. Skylead - As we’ve shown you earlier, Skylead is a LinkedIn automation and cold email software. Our cloud-based tool is here to simplify outreach and let users (individuals or companies) streamline their outreach process. 

Our LinkedIn automation solution helps you automate LinkedIn actions. Plus, by using Image & GIF personalization, you can personalize all messages in a follow-up sequence, not just the first. 

Finally, our first-to-market Smart sequences help combine LinkedIn with unlimited email automation and let you use multichannel outreach in its full glory. This way, you can reach your prospects one way or the other.

2. LinkedHelper 2 - Here’s another example. A desktop automation tool that focuses on lead generation and LinkedIn automation. LinkedHelper also has an internal customer relationship management (CRM), so there’s no need to integrate with any other tool. However, if you’re looking for email automation along with LinkedIn, you would need to use another tool and pay extra for this solution.

3. MeetAlfred - This cloud-based tool’s main focus is social selling on LinkedIn. It has a native CRM, so there’s no need for another tool integration. Besides LinkedIn, it supports email automation as well. However, you cannot create multichannel outreach in one sequence, as it does not support Smart sequences.

Email outreach tools

Email outreach is one of the oldest types of outreach out there. Whether inbound or outbound, we’ve come to an era that allows us to focus less on manual tasks and more on building solid relationships with prospects. Email outreach tools are here to:

1. Automate email outreach campaigns
2. Send personalized emails
3. Track all relevant email metrics (open rates, response rates, click-through rates, etc.)
4. Manage follow-up email sequences

Here are some examples of email automation tools:

1. Outreach.io - This is a sales execution platform that covers the entire sales process. It integrates with Hubspot, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and Gmail. This integration allows sending personalized emails, automating different tasks, and tracking overall engagement.
2. Mailchimp - This email automation platform offers audience segmentation, generative AI content features, and thorough analytics. While it could be what you’re looking for, Mailchimp does not provide other outreach channels, potentially slowing down your outreach.
3. Salesloft - Salesloft is a revenue workflow platform with an email automation feature, an internal CRM, and sales pipeline software.

Note: While all these tools have unique features that add up to the email automation solution, they do not offer other outreach channels. You can use Skylead for email and LinkedIn outreach, doubling the chances of a response. Multichannel outreach in one tool? Well…

CRM integration tools 

These tools are designed to add more value to your existing automation tool. Your outreach automation tools integrated with your CRM system are powerful workflow enhancements used to keep track of all your leads and interactions in one place.

Here are some examples of CRM integration tools:

1. Hubspot - Hubspot helps you seamlessly connect your data, teams, and prospects in one place. It’s a sublime CRM platform created to scale with your business.
2. Salesforce - This cloud-based CRM makes it easy for companies to find, nurture, and analyze prospects. Salesforce keeps all of your data in one place, no matter the source.
3. Zapier - Zapier is a powerful tool made to help end users integrate web applications they use. It’s a time-saving tool that cuts hours of manual work and automates workflows.

Note: Skylead integrates with most 3rd party tools. If you need to integrate your CRM with Skylead, you can do so easily by creating webhooks or using API.

Personalization tools

Tools that add a special visual touch to your outreach messages help you personalize your outreach at scale. Your messages will be more engaging and relevant to prospects, prompting them to hit reply faster.

Here are some examples of personalization tools:

1. Personyze - This tool offers a personalized experience with your prospects at any touchpoint. You can send personalized, targeted emails and get a higher response rate.
2. Nifty Images - This tool allows for sending customizable images, charts, and other visuals. They also support ESP merge tags, along with 100+ templates.  
3. Hyperise - Hyperise is a tool that supports image personalization. The main feature, called the dynamic Image editor, allows for 16 personalization points.

Note: You might think how amazing these tools are, but you know what? If you’re already using an automation tool and don’t want to pay extra for another, you can use Skylead. We have a native Image & GIF personalization feature, so there’s no need to add it externally.
Note: Before creating this feature, we tested adding images &GIFs to LinkedIn and email outreach messages, and we’ve managed to increase the response rate to 63%.

Best practices for outreach automation

Segment your audience

Before you begin your outreach endeavors, be sure to dedicate time to audience segmentation. By segmenting your audience, you amp up the efficiency and effectiveness of outreach in general. In fact, this step can affect your outreach efforts later on.

Segmentation begins once you define your ideal customer profile (ICP) and buyer personas. By segmenting your audience well, you can easily personalize the pain points of each segment. Remember: the better the segment and targeting, the better the outreach results.

Personalize your messages

Skylead spent months testing and adapting text & image personalization in cold outreach. Our conclusion might not come as such a shock, but people will respond more to personalized content. In fact, our response rates jumped to 63% in total after numerous test campaigns. You can use this information to further personalize your approach. 

Here are some elements you can add:

• Images
• Dynamic text
• GIFs
• Videos
• Variables (with Skylead, you can use variables for First name, Last Name, Current Company, Years in current company, occupation, etc. You can even set up your own custom variables and use them with each new message you craft in a campaign.

Note: Our sales team tested our personalized outreach sequences, and the results show that the response rate increased from the industry standard of 8.5% to a staggering 35%.

Finally, these are the benefits we underline when it comes to personalization:

1. Targeted communication - If you know your niche, you can personalize and tailor your messages to a specific group. Your content should be more engaging and relevant to the target audience.
2. Increased engagement - It’s a chain reaction. If you segment well, your personalization is on point. Therefore, your response rates are up.
3. Improved analytics - Personalization makes tracking results more accurate. You can easily spot which step isn’t working and continue optimizing as you go.
4. Brand loyalty - Once your audience gets a sense of your brand and that they can trust you, brand loyalty begins. We can conclude that proper personalization leads to brand loyalty and trust. 

Use a variety of channels

Ever heard of multichannel outreach? Using more than one channel is crucial in outreach since it gives you another opportunity for a touchpoint with prospects. In fact, if you’re reaching out with email and the prospect isn’t responding, you can use LinkedIn as another communication tool and vice versa. This is why Skylead combines both LinkedIn and email automation, thus maximizing the chances of a response.

Track your results

Looking at data is always a big part of a successful outreach strategy. By tracking your results constantly and testing each outreach attempt, you will get to higher outreach numbers faster. Skylead offers an A/B testing feature, allowing you to test different types of approaches with prospects. This way, you’ll figure out quickly which part of outreach to keep and what needs to be optimized. 

Use safe tools

If we know that LinkedIn doesn’t support the use of automation tools, we have to be sure we are using the safest option out there. We can find multiple types of tools which ultimately determine their safety:

1. Chrome extensions (you have to install them + these tools insert a code into LinkedIn, which makes them detectable)
2. Desktop apps (doesn’t work when your PC is off)
3. Cloud-based tools (they have a dedicated IP address + cloud storage, + the software runs even when your PC is off)

Firstly, many tools are browser-based, yet they are not the safest option because LinkedIn can detect their activity. This could possibly send you to LinkedIn jail - getting your LinkedIn account restricted or permanently banned if LinkedIn’s algorithms spot suspicious behavior. Secondly, desktop apps are inefficient and have the same safety issues as browser-based tools. 

Finally, you should opt for a cloud-based solution like Skylead, which is undetectable thanks to the dedicated IP address and the human-like behavior algorithm. Cloud-based tools also allow you to connect multiple accounts and have an integrated inbox with all messages from all communication channels in one convenient place.

Common mistakes to avoid in outreach automation

Sending too many messages

Following up is one thing, but spamming prospects with messages without giving them the proper amount of time to respond is another. That’s one of the biggest mistakes of outreach. Sending regular updates is fine, but make sure not to overwhelm them. Otherwise, you might end up on the spam list.

The adequate wait period in between messages should be anywhere from 2-5 business days before you contact your prospects again. If we know that LinkedIn limits our activity on the platform, as they allow you to send only 100-120 messages per week, it’s better to send them to different people rather than just one.

Not following up

Our Head of Sales, Andrea, says that it usually takes her 4-5 touchpoints before she gets a response from a lead. Therefore, persistence is key. Although sending a follow-up email after no response can be challenging, if all the previous steps were done correctly, there’s no reason for your prospect not to hit reply. 

Each follow-up keeps prospects engaged and with your product/service on their mind. If you space follow-ups correctly, with a 2-5 day gap between them, each follow-up should bring more value and a higher reply rate. In fact, our testing suggests that the last follow-up - breakup email received a 53% response rate.

Using spammy tactics

When reaching out, you should avoid using anything that might be perceived as spam to avoid getting your account restricted and email flagged. That includes:

• Using all-caps subject lines
• Excessive use of exclamation points
• Overuse of emojis
• Irrelevant links
• Typos in subject lines and email body

Using too many tools 

We’ve already tapped into this a bit before, but some tools offer only a partial solution for your outreach demands. Avoid using tools that need a large number of add-ons. Instead, opt for all-in-one solutions like Skylead that cover the majority of your outreach needs for the price of one.

Case studies

Theory is one thing, but what about real-life examples? We are not one of those big promises types of people, so below are two case studies that show just how efficient automation tools can be. But not just any automation tool. Skylead. Our users are our best advocates. See for yourself 👇

Case study 1: How 10x Millennial went from booking 20 to 80 calls per week using outreach automation

Company type: Marketing and lead generation agency

Use case: Sales, marketing

Our first success story is 10x Millenial, which used Skylead to automate certain parts of its business. By using Skylead, Michael Gonzalez, the founder of the company, was able to offer lead gen services to companies and clients through automated email outreach. LinkedIn was an added bonus that the company hadn’t used for outreach before.

They got to book around 80 calls per week and roughly 320 calls per month! The biggest deal they closed using our tool for their client was worth $40K.

Favorites: Smart sequences, Smart inbox, and Support team.

Case study 2: How NewPoort generated 45% of its business using automation

Company type: Lead generation agency

Use case: Sales and recruiting lead generation

The second success story we’re reviewing is from Toine Boelens, the founder of NewPoort. His business model relies on helping recruitment agencies and other companies create and manage LinkedIn outreach campaigns. LinkedIn automation is what helped him generate new clients for his clients, and with it, he usually gets 5 to 10 qualified responses per day and takes it from there. 

He underlines that arranging 100 meetings for his clients in 4 months is his biggest success story since incorporating Skylead into his business model. In the beginning, our tool helped Toine generate 40-50% of his business.

Favorites: Suggested sequence templates, Smart inbox, Smart sequences, sending InMails in LinkedIn outreach.

Frequently asked questions

How do different industries adapt outreach automation tools to fit their unique business models and customer interaction strategies?

Different industries tailor outreach automation tools by identifying customer interaction patterns unique to their sector, integrating these tools with industry-specific CRM systems, and customizing communication templates to align with the professional tone and language preferred by their target audience.

What specific metrics or KPIs should businesses focus on to accurately measure the success of their outreach automation efforts?

Businesses should focus on metrics such as response rates, conversion rates from lead to customer, engagement levels (like open and click-through rates), and ROI from automated outreach campaigns to measure the effectiveness of their outreach automation efforts accurately.

How does the implementation of outreach automation impact the roles and responsibilities of sales and marketing teams within a company?

Implementing outreach automation can streamline the workload of sales, recruiter and marketing teams, allowing them to focus on strategy and personalized engagement with high-priority leads. It often leads to a redefinition of roles towards more analytical and strategic tasks rather than manual outreach processes.

How do you automate emails for outreach?

Outreach emails can be automated with the use of automation tools. These tools can automate cold emails, entire follow-up message sequences, and drip campaigns. Some can even find and verify emails of prospects without the need for email lists.

Why do companies use outreach?

Outreach is used to promote products and services to individuals or other businesses, increase brand awareness, and build customer loyalty with the goal of selling those products/services. By using outreach, you can attract new customers and clients faster and build brand authority. 

What is outreach sales automation?

Sales automation tools are designed to save time on manual tasks like sales outreach, email campaigns, and data collection by automating parts or the entire process. These tools enhance the sales cycle by streamlining repetitive tasks, thus giving sales reps more time to focus on building and nurturing lead relationships.

Ready to automate your outreach?

Incorporating automation resources into your outreach is the key to streamlining workflows, and boosting in-house productivity, not to mention overall results.

To jog your memory, with automation tools, we can:

1. Save time on manual tasks
2. Use additional outreach channels
3. Automate parts of the sales pipeline (prospecting, lead generation, and lead nurturing)
4. Focus more on building solid relationships with leads
5. Easily monitor and optimize campaigns by using detailed analytics

And what should you keep in mind when looking for this wonderful tool? Here’s a rundown:

• It should be cloud-based (for your account health and safety)
• Possible multichannel outreach (for better outreach results)
• An all-in-one solution (without the need for add-ons and extra costs)

So, where do you begin? With Skylead, of course! 🤩

Here’s a demo video to give you an idea of what our tool looks like, and if you’re sure about automating your outreach right, then do not hesitate to test Skylead today and enjoy the beauty of an outreach that thinks and works for you!

In B2B sales, prospects rarely say ‘’I’m ready to buy’’ outright. They do, however, leave digital breadcrumbs, drop verbal hints, or show signs in their behavior that tell you exactly where they are in their decision-making process. These are called buying signals. Now, knowing they exist and what they are is one thing. But recognizing them, not to mention acting upon them? That’s a whole different story.

Having been in the B2B space for years, we have analyzed thousands of buying signals. Some were loud and clear - a demo request or a pricing inquiry. Others were more subtle, like a prospect revisiting your LinkedIn profile or forwarding your email to a colleague.

What we’ve learned is this: recognizing buying signals in real-time is a skill. Acting on them the right way is a strategy.

Now, it’s time you picked up on both the skill and the strategy. Thus, we’ll be walking you through the different types of B2B buying signals, both obvious and those not-so-much, and show you how to interpret them the right way. You'll also learn how to respond to them appropriately and how to make them work not just for new leads, but for nurturing existing customers too.

What are buying signals and why do they matter?

A buying signal is any action, behavior, or cue that suggests a prospect is considering a purchase. While there are different ways to categorize these signals (by type, channel, or funnel stage), they’re most commonly grouped by strength: strong, medium, or weak. This is usually based on 2 things: how directly the action indicates intent (e.g., booking a demo vs. liking a social post), and how close the buyer is to making a decision.

Now, why bother studying them? Because 77% of B2B buyers do their own research before talking to a sales rep. Which means that, by the time they get in touch, around 70% of the buying process has already unfolded. That said, if you’re waiting for them to raise their hand, you're already behind.

Buying signals help you act before that. They let you spot intent early, prioritize high-interest accounts, and personalize your approach to meet prospects exactly where they are in their decision-making process.

That said, buying signals aren’t just for new leads. They also show up in your existing customer base, for example, when someone starts exploring an upgrade, revisits your pricing page, or goes quiet after initial engagement. In all cases, knowing what to look for - and what to do when you see it - is what sets great reps apart.

Types of B2B buying signals

Not all buying signals are created equal. But all of them serve the same purpose: to show you where a buyer stands and what they might do next.

We’ve already mentioned that they can vary in strength. But another useful way to categorize them is based on how and where they show up during the buyer’s journey.

Broadly speaking, there are 4 core types of these buying signals:

1. Verbal buying signals

If you couldn’t guess by their name, these happen during live or chat conversations, such as in meetings, calls, or via email. You’ll hear them when a prospect asks things like:

• How long does implementation take?
• Do you offer integrations with the XYZ tool?
• What happens if we outgrow this plan?

What makes these so powerful is how explicit they are. A prospect who’s asking detailed questions is already thinking beyond discovery. Rather, they’re evaluating how your product fits into their world.

2. Nonverbal buying signals

These are trickier to catch but just as telling - especially on video calls or in-person meetings. They include body language cues, such as nodding, leaning in, taking notes, spending extra time reviewing your screen during a demo, etc.

While subtle, these behaviors often indicate interest, curiosity, or agreement. That said, a silent or still prospect isn’t necessarily disengaged. But it does take an observant seller to read between the lines.

3. Digital buying signals

You can find these by analyzing your website traffic, email engagement, content interaction, and other online behaviors that indicate growing interest.

Examples include:

• Repeated visits to your pricing or demo page
• Watching a full product video
• Clicking your CTA in a cold outreach email
• Visiting your LinkedIn profile multiple times

The upside here is scalability. Digital signals can be tracked and scored, giving your sales team constant insights on which leads are heating up and which ones need nurturing. Even better, they can help you actively move prospects down the funnel. For example, if someone keeps visiting your pricing page, your marketing team could place a banner prompting them to book a call, thereby sending warmer leads straight into your sales pipeline.

4. Firmographic, demographic, and opportunity data

These don’t come from the buyers themselves, but rather from the context around them. For example:

• A new VP of Sales joins your target account
• The company raises a Series B round
• Their team starts hiring aggressively
• Their current provider just got acquired

While these don’t scream buyer intent, they mean internal changes are on the horizon, and with them, a renewed interest in solving problems. That’s your cue to step in early, while competitors are still blind to the changes.

18 Buying signals to watch for [+ examples, strength indicators & what to do]

Now that we’ve covered the types of buying signals, let’s talk specifics. 

Below are 18 real-world examples of signals your prospects might show. We have also included examples of what they might say or how they might act, along with how strong each of the signals tends to be. As a bonus, you’ll also find tips and tricks we found extremely useful for pushing your prospects further down the sales funnel.

In terms of signals, we’ll rank them as:

• Strong: Clear indicators of purchase intent. Typically happens late in the funnel.
• Medium: Suggest the buyer is actively evaluating, but might need more nurturing.
• Weak: Indicate early interest or surface-level engagement; not enough to act on just yet, but worth monitoring.

📝 Note: A single signal rarely tells the whole story. Look for clusters of behavior. One visit to your blog? Weak. One visit, plus a case study download, plus a LinkedIn view? Now we’re talking!

Are objections buying signals?

Yes, sometimes objections are buying signals, rather than signs of rejection. In many cases, when a prospect objects, it means they’re seriously considering your solution - enough to start poking holes in it. That’s a good thing.

Just think about it. Someone who says ‘’I’m not sure this will integrate with our CRM’’ isn’t telling you no. They’re already imagining how your product would fit into their workflow. The same goes for concerns about pricing or timing. If they weren’t interested, they wouldn’t bother raising questions at all.

So don’t treat every objection as a roadblock, as some are actually proof that you’re doing something right. The point is to know when to clarify, when to reassure, and when to dig deeper, which is exactly what effective objection handling is all about.

How to identify and interpret buying signals

Spotting buying signals is part instinct, part process. Yes, some reps are naturally good at reading between the lines. But there are also practical ways to get better at it.

1. Listen actively and observe carefully

A lot of intent hides in plain sight - in how a prospect phrases something, where they pause, what they emphasize. You’ll notice it if you’re actually listening, not just waiting for your turn to speak.

The same goes for nonverbal cues on calls, video, or in person. While you can’t listen to them, you can pay attention to your prospects’ behavior. It will often tell you even more than words.

2. Use lead tracking/analytics tools

When it comes to digital signals, you won't catch them unless you're tracking what matters. Think: email open and click rates, LinkedIn profile visits, return sessions on your pricing page, content downloads, etc. Tools like Mixpanel, Leadfeeder, or Clearbit can show you who's engaging, how often, and in what way.

3. Ask open-ended questions to clarify intent

When something feels like a signal, don’t assume it is. Rather, ask.

Say a prospect brings up integrations. You could follow up with:

• Are you currently comparing tools?
• What would the ideal setup look like for your team?

Make sure your questions are open-ended instead of them being simple yes/no prompts. That way, you can test for real intent without sounding pushy, and give your prospect room to open up, which helps you qualify faster and adjust your sales process accordingly.

4. Look for patterns and validate with feedback

One action might be a fluke. Meanwhile, a cluster of actions? It’s a pattern. If a lead revisits your demo page, downloads a case study, and opens 3 emails in 2 days, there’s probably something going on. Combine behavior data with direct feedback from your calls or emails to confirm the signal before you act, though.

5. Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator Buyer Intent feature

If there were ever a cheat sheet to identify buying signals, it would have to be Sales Navigator’s Buyer Intent feature, currently available to Sales Navigator Advanced and Advanced Plus users.

This feature helps you identify not only which accounts are showing interest, but also exactly who at those accounts is engaging, and how. Not to mention, the feature is fully native, meaning you don’t need a separate intent platform or even a CRM sync to use it.

That said, here’s what it tracks and what you can see:

Now, where is the Buyer Intent feature hiding?

Well, you can access it via:

• The Account Hub dashboard (for saved accounts showing new activity)
• Lead and Account Pages (to see specific people/accounts and their actions)
• Homepage Highlights & Sales Navigator Alerts
• LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters, specifically the Buyer Intent filter and Product Category Intent (for filtering people who are interested in your category, not just your company)

All of this gives your team the context to act fast, prioritize the right people, and reach out when intent is at its peak.

Buying signal or false positive? How to tell the difference

How to respond to buying signals

Spotting a buying signal is only half the job. What you do next? That’s where the deal is won or lost.

Here’s how to respond the right way:

1. Identify the signal quickly

The window of opportunity doesn’t stay open for long. The sooner you notice and interpret the signal, the higher the chance you'll meet them while they are in decision mode. Wait too long, and that intent can fade or shift to a competitor.

2. Personalize your response based on the signal

Not every signal warrants the same playbook. A pricing inquiry? Speak about ROI. A case study download? Reference similar customers. If they watched your product video, ask what stood out.

In other words, adjust your response and sales tactics to reflect what they just did or said. That way, your message feels like a continuation of the conversation.

3. Address concerns and offer help

If the signal is mixed, like a pricing objection or hesitation about fit, that’s not a red flag; it’s a conversation starter, so don’t dodge it. Instead, acknowledge the concern and provide help. You could pull in a case study, loop in a colleague, or simply ask them if they want you to walk through how other customers have handled the same issue.

4. Create a slight urgency

No one likes being rushed - but no one wants to miss out either (hence the FOMO). That’s where subtle urgency comes in. You can mention onboarding timelines, expiring offers (only if real), or limited capacity, but keep the tone helpful, not hungry. Urgency works best when it sounds like guidance rather than desperation.

5. Guide the prospect toward the next step or close

Every signal should move the deal forward. Your job? Make that next step clear and easy. That might mean scheduling another call, sending a proposal, getting feedback from other stakeholders, or confirming implementation timelines. Whatever it is, don’t assume they’ll take the leap alone - lead them there.

Taking advantage of buying signals

Spotting a buying signal is all fun and games. But you still need to act on it. The good news is you can do that through Skylead- your ultimate LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software.

Skylead is best known for Smart sequences, a.k.a. smart outreach sequences that combine if/else conditions with outreach actions. Smart sequences help you react based on your lead’s behavior, helping you reach them through the fastest possible route.

Now, what’s good about these sequences is that they let you structure your sales outreach in a way that:

• Recognizes buying signals
• Responds to them 

Here’s what that might look like in practice:

Scenario 1: Prospect opens your email

Say you want to address a buying signal where your prospect opens your email but doesn’t reply.

Start by adding an Email step to your sequence. Then, right after it, insert the “If email opened” condition.

Now, say the lead opened your email but didn’t respond. Then, you can add a new path with a follow-up email after no response - one that’s more direct or designed to re-engage interest.

Scenario 2: Prospect clicks your meeting link

Now imagine your first email includes a link to book a call. After that step, you add the “If email link clicked” condition.

If they click but don’t respond, just plug in another Email step to the “yes” path. In this message, you can offer alternative time slots or ask if they need more info before booking, making it easier for them to take the next step.

Not sure which message will work best? Run an A/B test with up to 5 versions to see what resonates. 

Want to make it personal? Add variables (or define your own custom variables) to your message to make it feel custom-made. 

And if you really want to stand out, use Skylead’s native Image & GIF personalization feature. You can add names, pictures, logos, or custom text to your visuals and see your reply rates jump by up to 76%.

Even better, there’s no cap on how far you can scale this. In fact, you can:

• Connect unlimited mailboxes to send tens of thousands of emails per month, all at no extra cost.
• Warm up infinite mailboxes so your emails land in the primary inbox, not spam.

And if you don’t have your leads’ emails yet? No problem. Just add a “Find & Verify Email” step to your Smart sequence. Skylead will discover and double-verify each email before sending anything, so your outreach keeps flowing without interruptions.

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Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between a sales trigger and a buying signal?

A sales trigger is an external event that creates an opportunity to sell, like a company raising funding, hiring new leadership, or launching a new product. It’s a sign that something’s changing inside the business. A buying signal, on the other hand, is a specific action or cue from the buyer that indicates interest or intent, like watching your product video, asking about onboarding, or replying to a cold email.

Can you automate buying signal detection?

Yes. Most sales and marketing platforms now offer behavioral tracking that can detect buying signals in real time. These tools often integrate with CRMs for sales and sales outreach tools, thereby helping you act on signals as well.

Are buying signals useful for cold outreach?

Absolutely. While buying signals are often associated with warm leads, they’re just as powerful in cold outreach. That’s because, even in cold outreach campaigns, prospects show intent by opening emails, clicking links, replying with questions, etc.

These micro-signals help you:

• Prioritize the right leads
• Adjust your messaging
• Know when it’s time to follow up or try multichannel outreach

What if I misread a buying signal?

It happens. Not every action means a prospect is ready to engage. But if you misread a signal, the point is to remain helpful and keep it low-pressure. You can send a follow-up that adds value or asks a clarifying question, as it won’t hurt the relationship. In fact, it might even uncover the real intent you didn’t see at first.

Deals go to those who notice the buying signals

Prospects rarely come out and say, “I’m ready to buy.” But their actions? They give you all the clues.

Spotting those buying signals and reacting fast is what makes the difference - and Skylead helps you do both!

Try it free for 7 days and start turning silent signals into booked calls, more replies, and 3x more deals.

The rules of selling have changed. 

A formal product presentation days where Sales Representatives would meet face to face with their potential customers are far behind us. 

Nowadays, around two-thirds of the B2B buyers make their decision via online content.

And as you're not the only one with an online presence, you need to find a way to stand out in the era of information overflow. 

Nowadays, LinkedIn is the platform that provides salespeople with valuable tools for prospecting on LinkedIn, and researching ideal customers. It allows them to get in touch with their perfect leads and send product or service offers directly to their Inbox. 

However, just like salespeople put in less time to reach their potential customers, it takes only a few seconds for customers to decide if they have any further interest in what you are presenting. 

The age of the customer 

The ability to quickly access information about any product or service changed how business is being done. 

Furthermore, customers openly talking about their experience with your company and sharing it for everyone to see has had a considerable impact when opting for a product or service. 

Customers are tired of random products and services being pushed into their faces.

They want to hear from salespeople who know how to adapt the qualities and properties of what they have to offer to their customers’ needs and expectations. 

They want you to know what they lack better than they do. 

The salesy lingo doesn’t work anymore. Moreover, it is highly unwelcome. 

So, for all of you who use this platform for LinkedIn Lead Generation and sales activities, here are 5 tips on how to sell without sounding too salesy. 

A pitch should never be your first conversation

When you are connecting with someone on LinkedIn, it is highly frowned upon to start a conversation with a pitch. 

Moreover, when approaching a potential lead, the Invite to Connect is what, in real life, is the first impression. You only get a couple of seconds to catch your prospect’s attention or be dismissed for any reason. 

That’s why the best way to approach a potential customer is to make a reference to something that you have in common.

It could be a shared interest, you might be members of the same LinkedIn group, work in a similar or adjacent industry, or have attended a specific LinkedIn event, etc. 

This type of well-thought-out approach brings high acceptance and response rates. 

Here’s an idea for your Invite to Connect. 

[template]

Hello {{firstName}}, 

I see that you attended the “5 Marketing Strategies for a Post-Covid World” event.

As someone with {{totalYearsInCareer}} experience in the industry, I would love to hear your thoughts on a multi-channel approach to engagement.

After you’ve been accepted, you can proceed following the same “hook”.

[template]

Multi-channel outreach implies so many online and offline channels of communication!

When speaking of LinkedIn, Skylead is a LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software that combines messages, InMails, and Emails with LinkedIn features such as View, Follow, Invite to Connect, etc., to create the highest number of touchpoints with your perfect leads.

It is a very effective way to do multichannel outreach, and with the right targeting, you will be able to generate and get through to leads who are most likely interested in whatever you have to offer.

I would love to tell you more about it. Would you like to join our group Demo Call? By clicking on the link, you will see several dates and times available.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Best, 

Joshua

Avoid hyperbolic words & phrases

Avoid hyperbolic words such as “cheap”, “one-in-a-lifetime opportunity”, “incredible”, “amazing”, “promotion”, etc. 

Clients take these statements with skepticism. 

Instead, show them that you’ve done your research and that you are messaging just because you genuinely believe that what you have to offer will significantly improve the quality of their business. 

Be precise about where exactly you’ve seen room for improvement and how you can help.

Use words that imply the same.

There is no better selling proposal than the one that is supported with well-researched facts. 

[template]

Hello {{firstName}},

I have been following the work of {{currentCompany}} for quite some time now. 

Due to your vast experience in the role of {{occupation}} at {{currentCompany}}, I am sure you know the struggle with the timely and accurate flow of critical information during international transport.

I am here to offer a solution. 

“OnTheWay” is an application developed in collaboration with over 100 customs worldwide. It provides the most precise, reliable, and real-time information on any type of international shipment. You will be able to give even your biggest customers the exact day and time of their long-awaited purchase. 

I would love to schedule a call and further discuss the benefits it could bring to your company. 

Best regards,

Evan 

Turn your sales into a conversation, not a rehearsed monologue 

A genuine back-and-forth conversation will work more to your advantage than just blurting out a rehearsed monologue. 

By asking thoughtful and well-aimed questions, not only will you keep your leads interested, but you will also gain a more thorough understanding of exactly what they need. 

This will allow you to position your product or service better in comparison to your competitors that “haven’t done their homework”. 

Of course, all of this is on the condition that you have previously targeted your audience well enough to know that most likely there is room for your product or service to help. 

Start with something like this.

[template]

Hello {{firstName}},

I can see that you’ve been working in the Manufacturing Industry for quite some time now. 

As someone who has been holding the position of {{occupation}}, what is your experience regarding the problem of forecasting demand for products? 

Thank you so much for sharing! 

Best, 

Robert 

Once your lead answers back, you can go ahead and investigate further on what they need. 

[template]

Thank you {{firstName}} for sharing your insight! 

I hear you. 

Forecasting demand for products is for sure one of the main challenges of any Manufacturing business. 

If you fail the customer demand, your sale will significantly drop. On the other hand, the cost of producing too many items that don’t sell weighs hard on your budget. 

Do you mind sharing how you have been handling it so far? 

And then, once you’ve come to the root of the problem, try selling your service by showing them how it can apply directly to their particular situation. 

[template]

That is quite an interesting way of dealing with it. 

What if I told you there was a management system that helps manufacturers analyze consumer behavior, which products they are interested in, when they usually make purchases, how many products they buy at certain times, etc?

Would you be interested in hearing more about it? 

If the answer is yes, go ahead and explain why doing business with your company will save them time and money. 

Make it all about them 

At the end of the day, customers don’t care about the product or service itself. They care about what it can do for them. 

And with that being said, it means that they don’t even care about how that product or service worked for YOU. People want to know how it can change THEIR lives and the way THEY have been doing business. 

So, when you are reaching out to your potential customers, never start with “Here is how {{product}} helped ME”. 

[template]

Hello {{firstName}},

Thank you for taking your time to hear me out! 

I am reaching out because I would like to show you how our software could save up to 6 hours a day to your Sales Team while producing 10 times more leads. 

- Email Discovery & Verification works perfectly for your cold emailing campaigns. You will be able to discover verified business emails of your LinkedIn leads and expand your prospects list.

- Real-time insights offer detailed analytics so that you can evaluate which campaigns produce the best results. 

- Smart Sequences combine LinkedIn with Email Outreach. Would you consider adding LinkedIn outreach to your sales and marketing efforts? 

Let’s hop on a Demo Call and discuss how your company can further benefit from it! 

Best regards, 

Mary J. Luis 

It’s OK not to sell 

Last but not least, you don’t need to sell at all costs! 

Learn how to take no for an answer while still ending on a high note. 

Being pushy will not turn a no into a yes. It could just refrain people from ever doing business with you in the future. 

You would be surprised how often a genuine interest in customers and in selling them what they really need might result in them coming back or recommending your services to someone else. Even if they have never worked with you before. 

Know when to stop, but also how to leave the ending open to a potential collaboration in the future. 

[template]

Hello {{firstName}},

It was nice talking to you. 

Thank you once again for taking the time to hear about my services. 

I appreciate your feedback. 

Should you have any questions in the future or simply want to exchange experiences regarding Event Planning, feel free to reach out!

Have a great day and good luck with all your future projects!

Best, 

Michelle 

Summary

Nowadays customers have access to enough information to make a purchase without ever talking to you. 

However, it is usually a personal touch that gives them that extra push. 

They want to feel heard and taken care of, and not like they're just some random target of the act of selling.

That’s why you need to narrow down your audience as much as possible, research their needs and room for improvements, and then get through to them with a well-defined offer. 

And for more effective outreach, use Skylead. Not only does it help you automate LinkedIn and email outreach, but it also adds in the account-based prospecting, lead enrichment, and AI SDR functionality into the mix to create one of the most complete sales engagement platforms out there.

Try it free for 7-days and let Skylead think for you!

With quotas looming over their heads and little time to meet them, many SDRs succumb to the spray-and-pray cold outreach tactics. In other words, reaching out to as many people as possible using the same message. The thing is, generic messages don’t work. They haven’t for a long time, and prospects can recognize them from a mile away. So, what’s the better approach? Personalized outreach. It’s the present and the future. And if you’re not in on the game, your results are likely to suffer.

That’s because sales are all about providing a solution to someone’s specific problem and actually solving it. This is especially true if we’re talking about B2B sales.

We’ve built Skylead on the premise of helping individuals personalize their outreach. Thus, in this article, we’re drawing from our own experience to show you how to do it yourself effectively using dynamic placeholders (variables) and images and GIFs.

We’ll also provide message templates that you can immediately use in LinkedIn automation tools and cold email software to scale your personalized outreach efforts, all while saving +11 hours a week.

Let’s go!

What is personalized outreach?

Personalized outreach is a tactic used to connect with prospects that implies understanding who they are and using those insights to create messaging that feels personal and relevant. When done right, it grabs attention, builds trust, and shows you’re genuinely invested in solving their problems. Its focus is on quality, making it ideal for businesses that value meaningful, long-term relationships.

Why personalization matters in outreach?

Did you know that using personalization in B2B sales outreach can lead to a 1.4 times higher revenue growth? Not to mention, personalized emails have 29% higher open rates and can boost conversion by 600%.

There are a lot more statistics that go in favor of personalized outreach. But speaking about tangible benefits, we’d like to specifically highlight that it led our team to:

• Stronger connections. When prospects see you made an effort to get to know them, they'll be more likely to engage with you and form a bond.
• Improved response rates. Your outreach immediately becomes more relevant after referencing a specific pain point of your prospects’ recent achievements.. As a result, they become more inclined to reply.
• Better brand perception. Messages that resonate leave a lasting impression and position your brand as thoughtful. This gives you a competitive edge.
• Saving time in the long run. While personalized outreach might seem like more effort upfront, it saves time overall. Fewer ignored messages mean fewer follow-ups and better conversations lead to quicker results.
• Increased conversions and ROI. Prospects are far more likely to book a meeting, attend a demo, or subscribe to your product/service if they see you understand their pain points. This directly translates into higher ROI.

So, given the benefits, it’s clear that using personalization in cold outreach just makes sense.

The foundations of personalized outreach

But the thing is, you can’t just personalize away without any prep; you need a solid foundation.

That said, before you resort to this tactic, it’s important you commit to:

1. Knowing your audience

The first step in any personalized outreach strategy is to know who you’re targeting. In other words, defining your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and Buyer Persona(s).

Your ICP represents the type of company or individual most likely to benefit from your product or service. 

Meanwhile, a Buyer Persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer within that same company based on real data and educated guesses about their goals, challenges, and behavior.

Having one without the other won’t cut it. You need both to make sure you’re focusing your efforts on the right people. This way, you won’t waste time reaching out to prospects who aren’t a good fit for your business.

2. Researching prospects

Once you’ve identified your audience, it’s time for prospecting. You can choose your leads from whichever platform is your target platform, or find their email addresses. However, keep in mind you should research each prospect individually to uncover details that can make your messaging stand out. 

This may include:

• Recent achievements or company milestones.
• Common pain points in their industry.
• Insights from their LinkedIn profile or company website.

The more specific you can get, the more relevant and impactful your outreach will be. To save time, feel free to use Chat GPT for sales-related prospect research.

3. Settings objectives

What are you trying to achieve with your outreach? 

Are you looking to:

• Book more meetings?
• Increase brand awareness?
• Close more deals?

Whatever it is, it’s important to make it clear from the start. That’s because, after setting objectives, you’ll have specific outcomes to drive your outreach towards. Moreover, you’ll have an easier time tracking results and making improvements to your targeted outreach strategy.

How to write personalized outreach messages or emails for your prospects [+ templates]

As we mentioned before, personalization is a big deal in cold outreach. It provides your prospect with a sense of caring and shows them that you really wish to remove their pain points. 

But how do you actually structure your LinkedIn messages and emails to show you’ve done your homework?

Generally speaking, there are 3 main parts of any message you want to include:

• Hook
• Body
• Call to Action (CTA)

While writing the hook for cold outreach, you must introduce yourself and clearly explain why you’re reaching out. But don’t stop there—include a specific detail about the prospect that prompted you to send the email/message.

Your hook should be designed to spark interest and provoke a response. For example, you might aim to connect your company with the prospect’s personal or professional needs. To do this effectively, tie your reason for reaching out to your company’s value proposition and explain how it addresses their challenges or goals.

Meanwhile, the body of your message should explain what your company offers in terms of value and features. Just keep in mind that this section is often skimmed over. Prospects typically focus on who you are and what you want before jumping to the closing. Only if those parts resonate will they circle back to read the body. Length-wise, it should not be longer than your hook.

The Call to Action (CTA) is a clear and direct one-liner that prompts the prospect to take action, like booking a call or signing up for an event. That said, it’s important to keep it short and actionable.

Of course, your message length may vary depending on the channel of communication and character limit. Nevertheless, these are the main guidelines you should follow.

How to use message variables in personalized outreach

If you are using sales outreach tools, you’ve probably come across variables that help you create personalized outreach messages for your prospects. 

But if not, dynamic placeholders, a.k.a. variables, are customizable fields that get populated with prospects’ details while the rest of your message remains the same.

Now, let’s say you are using Skylead, our LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software for LinkedIn lead generation and to personalize your cold outreach.

Skylead lets you create outreach campaigns based on:

• LinkedIn and Sales Navigator search results
• LinkedIn posts
• Sales Navigator Lead lists
• Sales Navigator Account search result
• Your custom CSV file with the prospects’ information

In the case of the first 4, Skylead picks up the information from your prospects’ profiles automatically, which it uses to populate the variables. However, if you’re using a CSV file as a campaign source, you need to include their LinkedIn URLs or input the information manually for it to be able to do so.

That said, the basic variables you get to use with our tool are the following:

• First name
• Last name
• Current company
• Years in current company
• Total career positions count
• Total years in career
• College name
• Occupation

Now, apart from these standard variables, you can import your custom variables, as well. Custom variables are the placeholders that you can create, state their purpose yourself, and import to Skylead.

They can be:

• Demographics - Variables such as age, gender, location.
• Firmographics - Company name, size, performance, executive titles.
• Psychographics - Classification by prospects’ opinions, pain points, attitude, interests.

Custom variables can be used only if your campaign source is a CSV file. That said, here’s a quick guide on how to create a Skylead-friendly CSV file with custom variables. 

Custom variable examples for your message

The main part of the personalized outreach process and the entire sales process, for that matter, is finding as detailed information as possible on the prospect and putting it in the hook part of your message to catch their attention. 

That’s why we are going to concentrate primarily on the variables for the intro of your message.

#1 Personalized outreach hook: Prospects’ original content

When you first meet the person, do you instinctively like them more if they are interested in your thoughts, opinions, and what you created? Most of us will not admit it, but the answer to this question is a big YES.

That is why the first type of placeholder you need to consider is the content they created by themselves, and you can find it on their LinkedIn page or company website.

It usually includes the following:

• Webinars hosted
• Articles written
• Posts published

Your goal here is to reference something specific they’ve created in the introduction, then position your message as adding value to their existing work.

Example email using prospects’ original content as variables:

Hey {{firstName}},

The reason I’m reaching out is that I’ve read your recent article {{ArticleName}} where you emphasized {{TheirPoint}}.

One sentence that really resonated with me was {{TheirSentenceWithPainPoint}}. 

What if I told you that {{PainPoint}} is easily overcome by {{ProvideLightValue}}.

So I was wondering, have you ever come across {{YourCompanyProduct}}?

Real life example:

#2 Personalized outreach hook: Content that prospects engaged with

This type of content implies any post, article, or video they liked or shared on LinkedIn but didn’t create themselves. Alternatively, you can use a webinar or LinkedIn events that they attended.

Although not as strong as the previous hook, using content they engaged with still shows your genuine interest and will provide you with an opportunity to relate it to your company.

Example LinkedIn message with content that the prospect engaged with:

Hey {{firstName}},

I’ve noticed that you attended {{WebinarOrEventName}}.

What did you think about {{PainPoint}}?

I was wondering, how does {{currentCompany}} deal with such an issue?

Real-life example:

#3 Personalized outreach hook: Using prospects’ self-attributed traits

Prospects' self-attributed traits are sentences you’ll find on their social media, and they usually show what they are talking about themselves. 

For example, prospects view LinkedIn as a place where they can talk about their accomplishments, things they are skilled at, and what they like to do in the business world. 

That said, you can easily find this information under their:

• LinkedIn headline
• LinkedIn summary
• Work experience

Here, they will communicate to the world what is important to them, therefore, you can hook what your product/service does to this information. 

Example email using self-attributed traits:

Hi {{firstName}}, 

I noticed and really liked your profile line about the {{HeadlineWithPainPoint}}. 

What I really liked was the sentence {{SentenceFromHeadline}}. 

What if you could make sure that as {{Occupation/Team}} you can easily overcome {{PainPoint}} ?

Let me know if we could catch up over a quick call.

Best,

Real-life example:

#4 Personalized outreach hook: Prospects’ background information

If you cannot find any information we mentioned in previous hook examples, you need to dig a little bit deeper, as a private investigator would. Find schools they attended, hobbies, and personal interests. Again, the rule is that you have to link it back to your company.

Example email using prospects’ background information:

Hi {{firstName}}, 

I noticed you enjoy occasional {{Hobby}}. You know what they say: {{QuoteAboutHobby}}. 

Hiking is pretty much like {{Department}}. What if I told you that {{Department}} process can be {{AtributesFromQuote}}? 

That said, have you ever come across {{YourCompanyProduct}}?

Real-life example:

#5 Personalized outreach hook: Company information

The reason why the previous 4 hooks are so strong lies in the fact that they all include psychographic details. 

Psychographic traits are something that someone believes in, has an attitude toward, or something that hits them more to the core. That said, the above hooks trigger the largest response rate as they are closer to the heart.

Now, the following personalization variables are classified as firmographics.

For instance, Wikipedia states that:

‘’Firmographics (also known as firm demographics) are sets of characteristics to segment prospect organizations. What demographics are to people, firmographics are to organizations.’’

That said, it’s not surprising that firmographic details to use as variables would include:

• Merger and acquisition information, 
• Company growth information,
• Website language, 
• Job openings,
• etc.

These variables are the least effective on the list. Nonetheless, if you say only one thing about your prospect’s company specifically, they will feel more special as they know you are talking ONLY to them. 

When using this kind of information, be as detailed as you can but briefer in character length than you would in other cases.

Example email using company information:

Hi {{firstName}}, 

I noticed your company grew {{CompanyStatistics}} in the last year. Congrats!

I understand that as {{occupation}} you must have even more tasks when it comes to {{PainPointProcess}}.

What if I told you that your life as {{occupation}} can be easier so your {{CompanyStatisticsBoosted}}? 

I was wondering, have you ever heard of {{YourCompanyProduct}}?

Real-life example:

#6 Personalized outreach hook: Personalized introduction

If you find previous variables a little more in-depth than you are willing to go, you can help yourself with the previously mentioned concept ideas, but use one variable only. 

To put it simply, you can use a personalized intro that changes depending on the prospect, while the rest of your email or LinkedIn message stays the same for everyone.

Example email using personalized intro:

Hey {{firstName}},

{{PersonalizedIntro}}

That said, I was curious if you are using a solution for your cold outreach?

I would love to show you a solution that can combine Email and LinkedIn with a hyper-personalized approach that will help you book 30+ additional meetings per month and keep your pipeline full.

Real-life example:

Bonus: Short variables

Need additional placeholder ideas that you can use for personalized outreach? Take a look at the following examples:

• {{TeamMemberName}}- Using the lead’s colleague’s name will create a sense of familiarity.
• {{SalesPitchAccordingToTheIndustry}}- You can create a short pitch block in your message according to the prospects’ industry, with the main pain points and values demonstrated. 
• {{BirthdayDate}} - If listed on their LinkedIn profile, you can extract this information and prepare a special pre-birthday gift as a Pain Point relief for their business needs.

How to use images and GIFs in personalized outreach

Variables can help you personalize the content of your messages at scale.

But if you truly want to up your personalized outreach game, your best bet is to use them in combination with custom-made images and GIFs.

Not many people realize the power of personalized visuals. But trust us, if you include them in your outreach, you’ll get response rates of up to 76%, as we have!

The good news is that Skylead comes with a native image and GIF hyper-personalization feature that lets you do just that!

It’s built right into the platform, too, meaning that all you have to do to create a custom image or a GIF is click the ‘’Image’’ icon under the message body field.

Then, all you have to do is choose the visual you wish to edit…

…and enrich it with any of the following:

• Your image
• Your lead’s image
• Custom logo
• Your lead’s company logo
• Text with variables

Once happy with the design, click ‘’Save image’’, and the final product will be inserted into your message.

Best practices for using personalization in outreach

Personalized outreach can make all the difference in standing out, but only if you do it the right way. 

To help you get the most out of your efforts, here are some best practices that we personally tried and tested.

1. Focus on value, not just details

While it’s tempting to show off how much you know about your prospect, personalization doesn’t imply only adding their name or referencing their social media activity. Rather, it implies solving their problems.

If unsure, ask yourself this while writing your message copy:

• How does this message provide value?
• What’s in it for the prospect?

For example, instead of saying,

 “I noticed your company is hiring a lot,’’

You could say, 

“I noticed your company is growing rapidly—congrats! Scaling a team is challenging, and we’d love to help simplify that process with {{YourProduct}}.”

2. Be relevant and contextual

Personalization without context can feel forced. Thus, it’s important you make sure your outreach aligns with the prospect’s current situation.

Say a company recently announced a product launch. In that case, your message could reference how your solution complements their new offerings or helps them achieve their next goals. This shows your outreach has a purpose.

3. Go multichannel

Don’t limit yourself to one channel only! Rather, opt for the multichannel outreach route by combining LinkedIn outreach with email outreach to maximize touchpoints with leads.

You could go about it manually, but why waste time when, with Skylead, you can do it all on autopilot?

As we mentioned, Skylead is a LinkedIn automation and cold email software that you can use to automate LinkedIn messages, LinkedIn inMails, and send tens of thousands of emails a month at no extra cost…while keeping them all personalized!

How is this possible? Well, it’s thanks to our Smart sequences. Namely, Smart sequences are algorithms that you can use to combine LinkedIn and email actions with if/else conditions to form coherent outreach flows that react to your prospects’ behavior.

4. Optimize timing and follow-up frequency

Timing is everything in outreach, personalized outreach included. Thus, pay attention to when your prospects are most likely to respond and schedule your messages accordingly.

Also, don’t be afraid to send a follow-up email after no response. In fact, many prospects reply only after a 2nd or 3rd touchpoint. Just make sure your follow-ups provide additional value rather than simply repeating your initial message.

5. Test and iterate

Every audience is different, so what works for one might not work for another. That’s why A/B testing is your best friend here. 

If you’re using Skylead, know that you can A/B test up to 5 different versions of your:

• LinkedIn connection request messages
• Email subject lines
• LinkedIn inMail subject lines
• Email body messages
• inMail body messages
• LinkedIn messages

After the results are in, you can check them on our Reports page in Step view. Then, you can use the data to refine your strategy and double down on what gets the best results.

Frequently asked questions

How do you approach personalized outreach to potential leads?

Start by identifying your ICP and Buyer Persona and researching each prospect to understand their goals and challenges. Use this information to craft tailored messages with a strong hook, value-driven body, and actionable CTA. Also, remember that personalization should focus on solving their specific pain points effectively.

How to scale outreach personalization?

You can use automation tools like Skylead to automate personalization with variables that populate prospect-specific details. However, we recommend you combine automation with genuine research to maintain authenticity while scaling outreach efforts.

How can you balance personalization and scalability?

Balancing both requires automation tools for efficiency and strategic personalization for impact. Use dynamic variables and templates to make messages feel unique. Meanwhile, focus on meaningful details, like pain points or goals, instead of overloading messages with superficial personalization that doesn’t add value.

What is the best tool for automating personalized outreach?

The best tool is the one that fits your needs and budget. However, if you’re looking to personalize LinkedIn messages, InMails, and emails using variables and even add personalized images and GIFs, Skylead is a good choice.

Take your outreach personalization to the next level!

Personalized outreach is no longer optional. Moreover, when done right, it boosts conversions, strengthens relationships, enhances retention, and positively impacts your sales KPIs.

But do you want to know the real secret behind personalized outreach? Treat your prospects as more than just that. Take the time to understand their pain points, goals, and challenges. After all, they’re humans first, and nothing resonates more than authentic, well-researched outreach that shows you genuinely care.

So, commit to doing the research, creating a strategy, and writing messages that truly add value.

And if ready to scale your hyper-personalized cold outreach efforts, check out Skylead. 

Start your 7-day free trial today, and see how meaningful connections lead to measurable results!

Disclaimer: Skylead is not affiliated, endorsed by, or connected with LinkedIn in any way.

Spread the word about your product or service to as many people as you can, and you’ll surely get someone to buy it. That may be true, but think about how much time and resources you’d spend in the process. Precision matters in outreach as much as it does in everything else in business and life. And that’s what targeted outreach is all about.

Targeted outreach helps you connect with people and businesses that need your product or service only—the same ones that can increase your return on investment (ROI) and conversion rates.

The question is, how do you make it work for you?

That said, in this blog, we’ll be covering:

• What targeted outreach is,
• Who and how can benefit from it,
• How to plan and execute a targeted outreach campaign,
• Actionable strategies and best practices for targeted outreach,
• Common challenges you may encounter.

As a bonus, you'll get message templates to immediately transform your outreach strategy from a shot in the dark to a laser-focused one.

Off we go!

What is targeted outreach?

Targeted outreach is a type of outreach that focuses on engaging specific, predefined groups or individuals. It implies delivering tailored messages, resources, or services that align closely with the needs, interests, and behaviors of these targeted audiences. 

While traditional outreach employs a broad, one-size-fits-all strategy, targeted outreach is more nuanced. Namely, it uses detailed data and insights to not only identify the target audience but also understand them. In contrast to traditional outreach, which relies on mass communication channels and broad demographic information, targeted outreach is all about relevancy and personalization.

Benefits of targeted outreach

Blasting your message to everyone and anyone might get you a few bites. However, targeting your outreach is a much smarter, more efficient way to connect with leads. It's a tactic sales professionals, marketing specialists, and B2B founders, in particular, stand to gain a lot from.

But the question is, what?

Firstly, one of the primary benefits of targeted outreach is superior LinkedIn lead generation and that on other platforms. 

When you are precise about who you’re targeting and why, the results are higher-quality leads. Moreover, when you aren’t wasting your time chasing irrelevant prospects, you can afford to spend more time nurturing those more likely to convert.

Then, there’s better brand awareness and recognition. 

When messages are tailored to resonate with specific audiences, they are more likely to be noticed and remembered. This relevance makes the outreach more effective and also helps in building a stronger connection with prospects. Over time, this leads to increased brand loyalty but also a more substantial presence in the market.

However, increased conversion rates and a higher return on investment (ROI) are perhaps the most compelling benefits of targeted outreach. 

Targeted campaigns are more likely to generate returns, as the goal of this strategy is to minimize wasting efforts on uninterested parties. This fact alone is precisely whytargeted outreach strategies are some of the mostcost-effective sales and marketing strategies.

How to plan your targeted outreach campaign

Looking to jump on the targeted outreach wagon?

Congrats! That said, let’s see how you can prepare and launch one such campaign.

Targeted outreach preparation

1. Define your target audience

The first and arguably most important step in planning your targeted outreach campaign is defining your target audience. After all, without knowing who you're talking to, your message is likely to miss the mark. 

So, how do you pinpoint your ideal audience?

Start by identifying your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). 

Your ICP represents the type of company or individual who would most benefit from your product or service.

To define it, consider factors like:

• Industry
• Company size
• Location
• Challenges they face

For example, if you're offering a software solution for project management, your ICP might be mid-sized tech companies in urban areas that struggle with team collaboration.

Once you've nailed down your ICP, it's time to refine it further by creating detailed Buyer Personas.

A Buyer Persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer in your ideal company. You define it based on market research and real data about your existing customers. 

This should include:

• Demographic details—age, gender, education
• Professional information—job title, responsibilities, goals
• Behavioral insights—pain points, decision-making process, preferred communication channels

Combine your ICP with detailed Buyer Personas, and you’ll have a crystal-clear picture of who you should target. Doing so will allow you to tailor your outreach messages accordingly, making them more relevant and compelling to those who receive them.

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2. Conduct online research

Now that you know who you should be targeting, it's time to find leads and understand their pain points. 

This is where online research comes in handy, with LinkedIn being one of the most valuable tools available.

For most of your research, you’ll rely on LinkedIn search filters to identify key prospects and gather insights. 

However, if you are subscribed to Sales Navigator, you might be better off using it for this part of the process.

Why? Because Sales Navigator filters include a total of 34 Lead filters, 16 Account filters, and a Keyword filter.

Arvind Rongala, CEO of Edstellar—a one-stop instructor-led corporate training and coaching solution—explained that Sales Navigator played a big role in the company’s targeted outreach. It helped them define their target audience, which would later result in a 30% increase in lead generation, a 25% rise in sales, and a significant improvement in customer retention.

He mentioned that:

‘’Tools like Google Analytics and LinkedIn Sales Navigator provided valuable insights into the demographics, interests, and behavior of our potential clients.’’

Now, as for researching leads, what you want to do first is use the search bar and filters to look up companies that fit your ICP. Once you have a list of potential companies, explore their LinkedIn pages to gather information about them, check their recent updates, and learn about their company culture.

Then, look for decision-makers within these companies. 

Pay attention to their:

• Job titles
• Responsibilities
• Career history
• Posts they published

These can help you understand their roles within the company, but also how your product/service can solve their problems.

Another good place to find and research leads is LinkedIn’s collaborative articles. Think of these as "knowledge topics" filled with real answers submitted by the LinkedIn community. 

Check if any of your potential leads have contributed to them. If they have, fish for information regarding:

• The topics they are discussing,
• Pain points and interests they have potentially mentioned.

Once done with LinkedIn prospecting, compile the info you gathered into one centralized document. 

And if you’ve found your leads through filtered searches, hold onto the URLs. You might need them later.

But more on that in a bit. 😉

Targeted outreach execution

1. Develop your message

Planning your targeted outreach efforts is only part of the process, and it’s the execution that matters.

But before you begin reaching out to your target audience, you need to craft messages that your prospects will find intriguing.

As you do, think about what you want to achieve with them.

Are you looking to book more meetings, invite people to join your community, or simply make an introduction? 

Either way, your goal should be clear from the get-go. This way, you won’t lose focus, and your messaging will remain direct and to the point.

Don’t be afraid to leverage what you learned during research! Instead, use the information about your prospects’ pain points, interests, and company challenges to craft messages that speak directly to them. Generic messages are easy to ignore. However, a tailored message shows that you've done your homework and makes you stand out in their inboxes.

As for the message itself, start it with a strong, engaging opening. This could be a relevant observation, a question, or a compliment. For instance, if you noticed a company update or a recent achievement on their LinkedIn page, feel free to mention it. 

It’s important not to beat around the bush, though.

In fact, aim to deliver your message in a few short paragraphs at most, as busy professionals appreciate brevity. 

Also, make sure to avoid jargon and keep your language clear and straightforward.

Here’s an example of a LinkedIn message that follows through on these practices:

‘’Hi Alex,

I noticed on your LinkedIn that you recently attended the Sales Leadership Forum. I came across a report that explores strategies discussed there, particularly around improving forecast accuracy and reducing sales cycle times.

Would you like me to send it to you? I’d love to hear your thoughts !''

2. Choose the right channels

So, you have your message. Now what?

It’s time to decide on the channel to use for targeted outreach.

Email remains one of the most effective ones, with, according to HubSpot, the email open rate ranging from 25% to 41%. As for the average response rate, some sources indicate it's as low as 1%, whereas others report it to be up to 8%.

Apart from email, most professionals who use LinkedIn for B2B marketing or sales use it to reach out to their leads directly. Besides, the average response rate for LinkedIn messages is much higher. For example, we at Skylead had an average response rate of around 39%.

Beyond email and LinkedIn, social media platforms like Facebook and X can also be effective, depending on your audience.

Even the old-fashioned cold-calling might work on some prospects, although success rates can widely range between industries.

However, that begs the question: What channel should you opt for?

We say multiple ones!

A multichannel approach allows you to reach prospects through various touchpoints and, thus, increases your chances of engagement. 

This way, you have the highest chance of getting through, even if the prospect is more active on one channel over another.

But more on that in the next section.

3. Create a multichannel targeted outreach campaign

The multichannel route is the best one to take for your targeted outreach. That much we’ve established.

But why engage your prospects through several channels manually when you can do it all on autopilot?

Enter email and LinkedIn automation.

LinkedIn automation implies the use of LinkedIn automation tools to automate repetitive tasks on this platform. These typically include sending connection requests, messages, LinkedIn inMails, profile visits and follows all on autopilot.

But since the premise of multichannel outreach is to use, well, multiple channels, using a LinkedIn automation tool isn’t enough.

You need LinkedIn automation AND cold email software - and our very own Skylead is just what the doctor ordered! 

And you know what's great about our tool? You don’t necessarily need to find your leads’ emails yourself. Skylead can discover and double verify emails for you at no additional cost and without breaking your targeted outreach flow or without leads being part of your network.

It also lets you connect an unlimited number of email accounts at no extra cost. In turn, it helps you scale your email outreach by allowing you to send tens of thousands of emails a month.

What's more, you can use it to warm up infinite emails, hyper-personalize your messages with custom images & GIFs, and even find prospects and enrich their data.

Now, let’s walk you through the process of creating a targeted outreach campaign involving LinkedIn and email in Skylead.

Firstly, go to your Campaigns page and click ‘’Create’’.

Next, choose your campaign type, name it, and insert the URL you saved while prospecting. Skylead will use it to extract leads.

You can use:

• LinkedIn search, post, and event URL
• Sales Navigator search and lead list URL
• Recruiter search, Talent Pool, and Pipeline URL

You can also import your leads' information into the software directly. In that case, upload a CSV file with precise leads’ information. The tool even allows you to pull in leads from a Lead list you saved. Though this option is relevant only if you previously took the account-based prospecting route, which we explained in detail here.

Finally, choose the connection degree based on whether you want to target your 1st, 2nd, or 3rd-degree connections, and hit ‘’Next.’’

Your next step is defining campaign settings.

Feel free to check out our blog about launching a 1st outreach campaign to learn more about available settings. You can also play around with them on the spot.

Finally, when you're happy with the setup, you can move on to create a sequence.

How to make a targeted outreach sequence

Skylead was the first tool on the market to introduce smart outreach sequences, or as we call them, Smart sequences.

Smart sequences combine if/else conditions with LinkedIn and email actions to create coherent outreach flows. These unfold according to your leads’ behavior and, thus, help you maximize touchpoints with them.

For instance, you can start with a LinkedIn connection message and move on to email if the prospect isn’t responsive. Nonetheless, if neither proves fruitful, you can always go back to LinkedIn and try your luck with an InMail.

To create one, simply drag and drop the elements, a.k.a. actions and conditions, into the open space and connect them in a coherent outreach flow.

This is what one Smart sequence can look like.

You can also personalize messages by inserting pre-set variables (merge fields) or create your own. What's more, you can perform A/B testing of up to 5 different message variants.

Additionally, you can insert an image or GIF into your message and personalize it to each recipient for added flair.

Once you’re happy with the sequence and your messaging, you can save the sequence as a template. Then, hit the ‘’Launch’’ button and watch your targeted outreach efforts come to fruition!

Actionable strategies and best practices for targeted outreach

Want to maximize the effectiveness of your targeted outreach? 

If so, use the following strategies and best practices to connect with your leads on a deeper level and give your conversion rates a boost!

1. Personalize, personalize, personalize

As we’ve already established, personalization is the backbone of targeted outreach. 

When you take the time to customize your messages, recipients feel more valued and understood. This can significantly boost response rates.

Start by using their name in your communication and referencing specific details you previously learned.

Here’s an example of a personalized outreach message:

‘’Hi Sarah,

Seeing as your focus is on customer engagement at Innovate Marketing, I thought you might appreciate this guide on enhancing customer retention. It dives into actionable tactics for maintaining long-term relationships with customers, which could offer some fresh perspectives for your team.

Feel free to check it out here—I’d love to hear your thoughts!’’

You might be thinking: all of this takes a lot of time and effort.

Why, yes. But it doesn’t have to. At least, not with Skylead.

Our tool can help you save up to 11 hours a week on time-consuming targeted outreach tasks such as this one.

Instead of tweaking information message by message, why not rely on Skylead to fill in variables according to each lead?

Variables are placeholders used to increase the level of personalization in cold outreach messages. Skylead lets you use pre-set ones that automatically get filled in based on information available on your leads’ LinkedIn profiles, including:

• First name
• Last name
• Current company
• Years in current company
• Total career positions count
• Total years in career
• College name
• Occupation

However, you also have the option to create custom variables using any information you want to catch your leads’ attention even further.

But if you really want to stand out in their inboxes, we’ve got another surprise in store: our native Image & GIF personalization feature.

To use it, upload any image or GIF you want to our image editor. 

Then, enrich it with your or your lead’s:

• Profile image
• Company logo

…and add any text of your choice, complete with variables.

Finally, insert the unique visual into your message, kick off your campaign, and watch your response rate increase to 63% & more!

Don’t trust this is possible?

Just look at the impressive results we had with this image!

2. Provide a strong value proposition

Your targeted outreach messages need to convey the value you bring to the table. That said, it’s not enough for your prospects to understand what you’re offering. They need to understand why it matters to them specifically.

A strong value proposition addresses their pain points and demonstrates how your solution can solve them.

Now, say you were selling project management software. Don’t bore your prospects to death by talking about the features on and on! Instead, position your tool as one that increases efficiency, saves time, and reduces operational costs.

Here’s an example message to paint a better picture:

"Hi Lisa,

I know how challenging it can be to keep multiple projects on track, especially with the fast-paced environment at AdVantage Pro. That’s where TaskFlow can make a difference. Our software centralizes tasks and automates routine processes so you can focus on what really matters.

With TaskFlow, you’re looking at saving around 10 hours a week and cutting operational costs by up to 20%—giving you more time to drive the strategic growth you’re aiming for."

If you can, also incorporate testimonials or case studies in your pitch to back up your claims and build credibility in your prospects’ eyes.

So, ensure your value proposition is front and center in your messages, and you’ll capture attention immediately.

3. Nurture relationships beyond initial contact

Targeted outreach is not a one-and-done process. The connections you establish need to be nurtured for the cold prospects to remain warm leads. 

So, after your initial contact, send follow-ups to keep the dialogue alive.

Remember to check in regularly and keep providing value long-term. 

You can do so by, for example, sharing a useful ebook, inviting them to a webinar, or giving them early access to new features. This shows you’re always working to support their business, making them more likely to turn to you when they need your services.

Take a look at this example:

"Hi Alex,

I wanted to follow up and share something I think you’ll find valuable. Next week, we’re hosting a webinar on advanced project management strategies specifically designed for teams like yours at Bright Ideas Co.

It’s a great opportunity to dive deeper into techniques that can help streamline your processes and drive better results. I’d love for you to join us—let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll send over the details.’’

Challenges of targeted outreach and how to solve them

While targeted outreach can bring excellent results, chances are not everything will go according to the plan. That's why you must prepare for challenges and learn how to overcome them once they come.

Rejections

You'll encounter 3 types of leads during targeted outreach:

• Unresponsive leads
• Those who react positively to what you are offering them
• Those who react negatively or throw objections your way

Objections are a natural part of the process, but receiving them doesn't automatically mean a lead has gone to waste. 

Sales representatives, for example, encounter them on a daily basis. However, top sales reps are top for a reason because, as our CEO, Relja, puts it:

‘’They see each objection as a different opportunity.‘’

So, instead of dreading the objections, learn how to handle them gracefully to turn them into precisely that!

Objection handling involves active listening to understand where the lead is coming from without interrupting or becoming defensive. 

It also implies acknowledging their concerns to defuse tensions and allow for a constructive conversation.

When faced with a specific objection, you also want to address it with relevant information that highlights the benefits of your product or service. Use data, case studies, or testimonials to back up your claims. 

Also, if the objection concerns pricing, emphasize the long-term value and ROI your product/service offers. On the other hand, if it concerns features, explain how your solution better meets their needs than competitors. 

Furthermore, keep in mind that sometimes an objection might signal that the lead needs something slightly different. So, be flexible and offer alternatives or adjustments that might better suit them.

If they remain hesitant, don't push too hard. Instead, suggest a future check-in and express your willingness to help whenever they are ready.

Poor time management

Targeted outreach is more complex than traditional outreach. As such, it takes more time. Therefore, it's not surprising that some people who use it struggle with poor time management.

Inefficient time use can lead to missed opportunities and subpar results. 

Nonetheless, you can get ahead of it if you prioritize tasks based on their impact on your outreach success. Focus on high-value activities such as identifying high-potential leads, personalizing messages, and analyzing campaign performance. 

Not making data-driven decisions

Speaking of analyzing campaign performance, did you know that many people tend to overlook it? 

When you don’t keep up with campaign results, you miss out on making data-driven decisions that can improve its performance.

Fortunately, Skylead streamlines campaign tracking thanks to a dedicated Reports page. 

Here, you can analyze your campaigns for any given time period in 3 different view modes:

1. Graph - To observe oscillations and spot trends easily;
2. Table - To keep track of metrics and review daily changes;
3. Step-by-step - To identify the most promising sequences and review the results of your A/B tests.

Now, say your campaign involved multiple channels. Think how much time you'd be losing switching between them manually, only to keep the conversations going.

Luckily, Skylead also comes with a Smart inbox that holds all your email and LinkedIn correspondence in one place. And since it does, it makes it possible to streamline your workflow without missing important interactions. What's more, you can even label chats for added organization and improved ROI and conversion tracking.

Targeted outreach message templates for sales & marketing

1. Targeted outreach message templates for sales

#1 Connection request

Results we got:

• Acceptance rate: 34%
• Response rate: 17%

Hi {{FirstName}}, 

I noticed your work in {{Industry}} and thought we could connect. 

I'm researching how companies like {{LeadsCompanyName}} can achieve {{UniqueValueProposition}}. 

Let's connect on this!

Example:

Hi Emily,

I noticed your work in the tech industry and thought we could connect.

I'm researching how companies like InnovateX can achieve scalable growth through data-driven marketing strategies.

Let's connect on this!

#2 Email

Response rate: 13%

Subject: {{YourProduct}} - Outperforming top {{IndustryRole}}...

Hi {{firstName}},

Can your current {{Solution}} {{UniqueValueProposition}}?

Clients like {{ClientExample}} are {{SpecificResultsAchieved}} with less than {{TimeSpent}} of work every {{TimePeriod}}.

Would love to share some examples if you're open to it.

Best regards, 

{Signature}

Example:

Subject: Skylead - Outperforming top sales rep...

Hi Alex,

Can your current platform fully automate your process of LinkedIn outreach + find valid business + send emails + image personalization at scale (see screenshot example)?

Clients like TechMasters are reaching over 3,000 unique prospects across LinkedIn + email with less than 3 hours of work every single month.

Would love to share some examples if you're open to it.

Best regards, 

Sarah Mitchell

2. Targeted outreach connection message and email when referencing someone’s post

#1 Connection request

Results we got:

• Acceptance rate: 76%
• Response rate: 35%

Hi {{FirstName}},

I saw your post about {{PainPoint}} and how it’s impacting your team at {{LeadsCompanyName}}. 

I’ve been working on a solution that addresses this challenge by {{UniqueValueProposition}}.

Let’s connect and explore this!

Example:

Hi Jessica,

I saw your post about the difficulties with customer segmentation and how it’s impacting your team at TechWave Solutions.

I’ve been working on a solution that addresses this challenge by using AI-driven analytics to create more precise segments.

Let’s connect and explore this!

#2 Email

Response rate: 3%

Subject: Give your {{Field/Activity/Sector}}a boost with {{Product/ServiceName}}!

Hi {{FirstName}},

I recently saw your post about {{PainPoint}} and was impressed by your insights at {{LeadsCompanyName}}.

Given your focus on {{SpecificArea}}, I thought you might be interested in a new approach that has helped companies like {{ClientName}} achieve {{SpecificBenefit}}.

Our product/service, {{Product/ServiceName}}, is designed to {{BriefDescriptionOfBenefits}}, and I believe it could directly address {{PainPoint}}.

I'd love to schedule a brief call to show you how {{Product/ServiceName}} can help {{LeadsCompanyName}} achieve greater results.

Would you be available for a chat next week?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

{{Signature}}

Example:

Subject: Give your marketing a boost with EngagePro!

Hi Sarah,

I recently saw your post about the challenges of increasing customer retention and was impressed by your insights at BrightIdeas Co.

Given your focus on customer engagement, I thought you might be interested in a new approach that has helped companies like InnovateX achieve a 30% boost in retention rates.

Our product, EngagePro, is designed to deliver personalized content at scale, driving deeper connections with your audience, and I believe it could help solve the challenges of increasing customer retention you’re facing.

I'd love to schedule a brief call to show you how EngagePro can help BrightIdeas Co. achieve greater results.

Would you be available for a chat next week?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Lisa Reynolds

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

1. What specific data sources or tools can be used to identify the target audience?

Leverage platforms like LinkedIn and Sales Navigator, pull data from gated content submissions or your CRM to identify and pinpoint your target audience. The former have filters that allow for precise targeting, whereas the latter offers insights into information like audience demographics, behavior, and preferences.

2. How do you measure the success of a targeted outreach campaign?

To measure the success of your campaigns, you can track metrics like acceptance rates, open rates, response rates, conversion rates, lifetime value, and return on investment (ROI).

3. How do you balance personalization with scalability in targeted outreach campaigns?

To balance personalization with scalability, use automation tools that incorporate variables such as names, job titles, and company details into your messages. Also, opt for tools with dynamic images and GIF personalization that tailor visuals to each recipient. This enhances personalization, making outreach more engaging without increasing manual effort.

Making targeted outreach work for you

Targeted outreach can be a game changer for your business. After all, by focusing your efforts on the right audience, you maximize your chances of success while conserving valuable resources.

Armed with the actionable strategies and templates we provided, you’re now ready for the next phase: implementation!

So, outreach away with all facts in check and watch as your conversion rates soar, your brand recognition grows, and your ROI hits new heights.

But not before you’ve signed up for your 7-day free trial with Skylead—because impactful outreach starts with the right tool!

Disclaimer: Skylead is not affiliated, endorsed by, or connected with LinkedIn in any way.

If you've ever wondered if there is a way to speed up lead-generation activities and overcome the time-consuming, repetitive nature of the manual marketing and sales process, we have a proposition. Why not automate lead generation?

Yes, that's right. Automation has been around for a while, especially for lead generation and management. And no wonder it's so effective since this way, you can find the most qualified leads and scale up your business. But, more importantly, you can generate your leads daily. 

Having automated our own lead generation process, we’ve witnessed its power firsthand. And now, it’s time you did the same. 

Not sure how to do so? Fear not! We’ll guide you on how to automate every sales and marketing lead generation task by showing you how we did it—step by step!

You’ll also learn the difference between automating inbound and outbound lead generation and get a rundown of the best tools to help you do it.  

What is automated lead generation?

Automated lead generation is a process of using technology to perform time-consuming sales and marketing lead generation tasks on your behalf. To do this, you have different kinds of automation tools at your disposal. For example, you can use software to automate sending emails or LinkedIn connection requests.

Automated lead generation offers benefits such as:

• Reducing human error and thus improving your workflow;
• Saving time by performing manual tasks and decreasing workload;
• Providing insights into the performance of lead generation activities so you can optimize the process and improve it;
• Consistency in the workflow so you can generate leads daily;
• Leaving room to focus on building relationships and lead nurturing.

That said, there are plenty of automation tools on the market to choose from. 

However, let’s first distinguish the types of automated sales and marketing lead generation activities to discover which tool you should use accordingly. 

Types of lead generation automation

There are 2 types of automated lead generation, but they work best when used in synergy.

1. Inbound lead generation automation

Inbound lead generation is a marketing strategy for attracting leads to your company. For example, a marketing team can create content that is valuable to the best leads for your business. The purpose of the content is to compel a lead to take specific actions first that will eventually lead to sales.

Since today’s leads often prefer to research independently, inbound lead gen aims to assist rather than sell. It guides potential leads to valuable resources, just like this blog, ebooks, and guides, allowing them to explore your brand and offerings at their own pace.

That said, the purpose of inbound lead generation automation is to streamline the said process using automation tools.

For example, you can use the following types of tools to automate your inbound tasks: 

• Chatbot - to provide answers to questions and nurture leads;
• Pop-ups & forms - to offer personalized content, lead magnets, or surveys on the website.

2. Outbound lead generation automation

Outbound lead generation is about finding and reaching out to your ideal leads directly. Rather than waiting for leads to find your website and reach out, like in inbound lead gen, you are the one who makes the first move. 

That said, to automate your outbound lead generation tasks, you can use the following types of tools:

• Email marketing and outreach tools - for outbound marketing and sales to automate sending emails, newsletters, or themed email sequences;
• Prospecting tools - for marketing and sales to find outbound leads and contact information;
• Social media automation tools - for sales to automate outreach on social media;
• Advertising tools - for marketers to automate buying digital advertising space.

B2B lead generation automation vs B2C lead generation automation

Business-to-Business (B2B) lead generation automation is a process of using software to generate potential leads who work in a company to offer them your services.

On the other hand, Business-to-Consumer (B2C) lead generation automation uses software to streamline and generate leads who are individual customers. 

Even though they have different potential customers, both B2B and B2C companies use the same lead generation automation for a similar purpose. 

With that in mind, here is how different companies use automation tools for their purpose.

How to automate lead generation

It’s not enough to know the difference between inbound and outbound lead generation automation. You need to know HOW to execute the process successfully.

To help you do just that, we’ve prepared a step-by-step lead generation automation guide. It’s informed by experiences and tactics that proved effective to us and is designed to get you immediate results.

How to automate outbound lead generation

1. Define your ICP and buyer persona

Your outbound lead generation needs a good basis to get quality leads that convert. That’s why sales teams start their lead generation process by creating their Ideal Customer Profile and Buyer Persona, as we have. This way, you can generate the best leads and guide them through the sales funnel. Not to mention, these documents can help with lead scoring.

What worked best for us when it comes to the creation of both of these documents was to analyze current customer data and gather users who:

• Have the shortest buying cycle;
• Have a high retention rate; 
• Would advocate for our product.

2. Find contact data

Once you establish your ICP and Buyer Persona, it’s time for prospecting.  

Almost all sales teams use LinkedIn prospecting to find the best leads for their sales funnel. Moreover, there are a lot of proven LinkedIn lead generation strategies out there to find quality leads. You can also find leads using different databases like Zoominfo or Crunchbase.

However, when it comes to gathering the leads’ contact information, we’ve learned it’s best to automate the process using: 

• LinkedIn Premium or Sales Navigator to get publicly available info and profile URLs;
• Tools to identify your website visitors, such as Lead Forensics;
• Scraping tools for Facebook group members;

This way, you can build your lead lists, send them to your CRM, and prepare for email or LinkedIn outreach. 

3. Craft a compelling message

Whatever channel you use to reach out on, consider your messaging carefully. Cold outreach is hard when you know nothing about the person. That said, it’s important to include research into the lead generation process and figure out what your leads are all about.

In other words, comb through their company page, LinkedIn profile, and find the About section, posts they published, or what they shared. This way, you can personalize your communication and appear genuine when explaining how you can solve their problems.

For successful messaging, we found mentioning your unique selling point tailored to your leads’ exact pain point, particularly useful.  That said, if you need help crafting such a message, you can always use ChatGPT for sales messages.

4. Send cold emails

It’s easy to let the cold email mistakes slither into your outreach. However, you reduce the chances of some of these mistakes by using automated lead generation tools to send cold emails. 

Just keep in mind that 70% of salespeople stop at one cold email. Meanwhile, incorporating follow-up messages into your sequence increases your chances of hearing back by 25%. That’s why we make sure to send follow up emails as well, as you should.

5. Automate LinkedIn lead generation

LinkedIn and email outreach have been part of the sales funnels for years. And with hundreds of leads we reach every week via LinkedIn, it’s time-consuming and nearly impossible to get the desired results. Unless you use different automated lead generation tools, that is.

That’s why various LinkedIn automation tools are there to help you streamline different outreach actions on LinkedIn. For example, our very own Skylead can automate sending connection requests, messages, free and paid inMails, and even emails. In addition, you can combine these actions and create scenarios based on your leads’ behavior. But we’ll talk more about that later on.

5. Gather lead information

Once you start conversing with your leads, you need to keep track of them. 

This is where CRM, like HubSpot or Pipedrive, comes into play. To clarify, Customer Relationship Management is a software that helps you automate gathering all the information about your sales leads in one place, such as:

• Notes about the sales leads,
• Lead scoring,
• Information about the company,
• Deal value,
• Position in the sales funnel,
• The next task to perform,
• Conversation link, and so on.

This way, you can check where your leads are in the funnel and what level of nurturing they need.

7. Nurture leads

Speaking of nurturing leads, you can do so by integrating your CRM with your outreach tool and exchanging the information between the two. Then, you can label leads or send them to outreach campaigns. 

We commonly use Skylead for our customer-nurturing program. Why? Because you can use it to send automated outreach campaigns for: 

• Churn customers, if you have any special upgrade or to offer a discount;
• Current customers, to send them personalized content, upsell, or offer help as their dedicated account manager.

Moreover, our Smart Inbox also helps with nurturing by consolidating all conversations across email and LinkedIn in one place. You can use it to respond to leads directly and label them to monitor conversions and ROI.

How to automate inbound lead generation

1. Set up your lead generation website

The first step towards automated lead generation is creating a website to connect all your lead generation automation tools. We can write an entire blog on creating a website, but we’ll mention 3 most important things.

Firstly, good practice here is to create a website that will provide the best user experience with UX/UI design that converts. 

Secondly, your content marketing team must prepare visuals and copy for the website. The copy needs to provide information about your product or service. However, it should be presented in a way that describes how it solves the problem and removes pain points your high-quality leads have. 

Lastly, it would be best to create an SEO plan to rank your website better.

2. Create a lead magnet

The next step is for your content marketing team to create a lead magnet. 

A lead magnet could be a guide, eBook, or mini-course that you publish on your website, available for leads to download in exchange for their contact information, like their name and email.

This lead generation strategy helps you gather emails, allowing you to send newsletters to leads or pass the contacts to your sales team to reach out to them. Just remember, though—you shouldn’t ask for an email unless you’re offering something genuinely valuable.

Once your lead magnet is ready, you can automate the process by connecting your forms to a CRM like HubSpot or Monday. This way, new leads are automatically added to your pipeline. And if your CRM is integrated with sales engagement tools, you can even send leads straight into campaigns.

Lastly, to promote your lead magnet, you can publish ads to generate a large pool of leads. Alternatively, use pop-ups to promote the content throughout the website depending on users’ behavior.

3. Set up your landing page

To attract high-quality leads, whether organically or through ads, you’ll need a landing page that offers a seamless user experience. In other words, it must contain concise information tailored to your high-quality leads. 

A good approach is to have dedicated feature pages that highlight the main features and explain the problems they solve.

Say you’re offering a project management tool. In that case, one feature page could focus on “Efficient task management.” This page could detail how your tool enables teams to assign tasks, track progress, and meet deadlines. Include a step-by-step walkthrough of the feature, screenshots of the interface, and testimonials from teams that have successfully used it to build credibility.

Moreover, your landing page should have a converting design and messaging that motivates visitors to take action. Make sure it’s properly optimized for SEO to increase visibility as well.

Finally, don’t forget a clear call to action and a contact form or lead magnet to capture those valuable leads.

4. Capture leads with a chatbot

Another way to generate leads via your website is to use a chatbot. It allows you to turn your website visitors into leads and qualify them for future sales or marketing activities. 

You can set up a chatbot to offer lead magnets or some free service depending on users’ website behavior. Or, if a person wants to contact your customer support, develop a list of questions a chatbot will pose before connecting. This is a perfect automation system for lead scoring, qualifying, and integrating with lead distribution to route prospects to the right sales teams.

Many chatbots can also automatically gather information like email addresses, company size, and other relevant details. Once collected, you can set it up to create a new deal in your CRM and seamlessly add those leads to your outreach campaign, just like with lead magnets.

5. Get traffic to your page

Once you’ve set everything up, the next step is getting leads to visit your website. 

There are 2 main ways to bring in traffic:

• Paid - you can launch paid campaigns via Google Ads, Bing Ads, or social media such as Facebook or LinkedIn. You can either target new leads or retarget your previous visitors.
• Organic - Create blogs or videos that follow SEO standards so they can rank better organically and get you as many visitors as possible.

6. Nurture the leads automatically

When you start getting leads to your website, you need to nurture them to some sort of conversion. Therefore, look no further than using pop-up forms or chatbot conversations personalized to their web behavior.  

You can personalize messages and offer relevant content based on things like:

• The pages they are visiting, 
• If they are returning customers, or 
• Their exit intent.

7. Use marketing automation for lead generation

Once you gather your leads’ emails, it’s time to use marketing automation to reach out to them. You can create email campaigns to offer personalized content on a mass scale according to your leads’ behavior. 

For example, you can send certain messages depending on whether they opened an email. In other words, you can create outreach sequences with different scenarios to offer tailored content that will lead to conversion.

The good practice here is to start with valuable educational content. Then, offer a solution to the particular problem, and then present your product or service. But by all means, never start the first message with a pitch!

Best tools to automate lead generation

You know how to automate your lead generation, and now’s the time for action.

But to actually do it, you need the right tool for the job.

Lucky for you, we’ve tested several lead generation software on the market. Based on our findings, we’ll name a few of the best and their average ratings, as per Capterra, G2, and Software Advice.

Nonetheless, you are free to research other tools and check review websites should you feel the need to do so.

1. Skylead

Yup. As we previously mentioned, that's us. 🙂 

Skylead is an all-in-one LinkedIn automation tool and cold email software that streamlines the most time-consuming sales outreach tasks. 

These tasks include sending:

• LinkedIn connection requests 
• Messages,
• InMails,
• And emails all on autopilot

…to all the leads you imported into Skylead via LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, Recruiter, or CSV file.

But LinkedIn and email outreach aside, you can also use Skylead to:

• Find your ideal companies and the right contacts inside them
• Get AI-enriched company and prospect data and generate personalized icebreakers
• Warm up an infinite number of emails,
• Find and verify email addresses of your leads,
• Improve response rate, courtesy of the image and GIF personalization feature.

Moreover, you can sync Skylead to your favorite CRM in 3 clicks. Or connect it to any other tool in your stack using webhooks or API to push data in or out.

Now, let’s take a closer look at groundbreaking Skylead features.

Features

Account-based prospecting

The most effective way to find your ideal leads is to start by identifying your ideal companies. That is exactly what Skylead helps you do with account-based prospecting.

With it, you can:

• Create account lists directly in Skylead
• Discover contacts by company and reach out to them

In other words, after you add your target companies, Skylead can help you find and match relevant contacts within those companies, keeping your pipeline closely aligned with your ICP. This allows you to focus on the companies most likely to convert, become valuable partners, and bring higher lifetime value.

AI data enrichment

In addition to account-based prospecting, we have introduced a powerful AI data enrichment add-on.

You can use it to:

• Enrich contact and company data
• Prompt AI to find specific information or generate personalized icebreakers for each contact
• Use all collected insights directly in your outreach sequences as variables

It works similarly to Clay in terms of what it can uncover, but it is built into your outreach workflow, helping you reduce tool switching and avoid repeated data imports. And did we mention it's up to 95% more cost-effective compared to similar tools on the market?

LinkedIn & email automation

Skylead seamlessly combines LinkedIn and unlimited email automation, allowing you to reach your leads through the channel that suits them best.

This wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for our Smart sequences. 

Skylead was the 1st tool on the market to introduce this feature, which has changed how everyone performs sales.

But what are Smart sequences? 

Simply put, they are coherent outreach flows you create using different LinkedIn and email actions and if/else conditions. These if/else conditions allow Smart sequences to operate in real-time, adjusting as they go according to your leads' behavior to find the fastest path to them.

That said, here is an example of one Smart sequence.

What’s really great is that the number of outreach scenarios you can create with Smart sequences is truly limitless.

You can play around with different actions and conditions as you see fit. Or you can use our pre-tested Smart sequences inside our tool, which have been proven to work. The choice is yours.

Email discovery & verification

Setting up a Smart sequence with email steps is easy when you have your leads' addresses. But what if you don’t? 

You rely on our email discovery and verification!

With this feature, you can find and double-verify your leads’ business emails to:

• Reduce bounce rates
• Protect your domain reputation

This functionality is built into the platform, meaning we don’t rely on third-party services to perform it. Thus, you can add an email discovery and verification step into your Smart sequence to find and verify emails without breaking the outreach flow.

Moreover, Skylead offers unlimited email discovery and verification credits at no extra cost. This allows you to expand your outreach without worrying about added expenses.

Infinite email warm-up

Speaking of features that come at no additional cost, Skylead has partnered with Mailivery, one of the best email warm-up tools, to bring you another one: Infinite email warm-up. 

Mailivery lets you warm up an unlimited number of email accounts to make sure your emails always reach your leads.

That said, here’s what Skylead users can take advantage of thanks to our partnership with Mailivery:

• Easy setup in just a few minutes - Mailivery’s setup is native, fast, and compatible with all email providers, including custom SMTP. You only need to switch warm-up on in Email settings, and it will run in the background.
• Safer sending volume ramp-up - Mailivery gradually increases email volume at the right pace, helping accounts warm up naturally without looking suspicious.
• Built-in domain health checks - SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and blacklist status are monitored to help ensure safer warm-up and stronger deliverability.
• Daily sending volume control - You can track deliverability for each account and set the maximum number of emails it can send per day.
• Warm-up status tracking for every account - Each connected email account will show warm-up status, so you know when accounts are ready for outreach.

As you can, with this powerful tool and Skylead, your outreach remains secure, effective, and truly limitless.  

Native image & GIF personalization

If you want your messages to stand out and be memorable, visuals are a powerful tool.

Luckily, our native image & GIF personalization makes it easy to create eye-catching visuals that are bound to get noticed.

You can use our built-in editor to customize images and GIFs with your and your prospect’s name, picture, company logo, or any other detail that speaks directly to them. However, you don’t have to customize one by one.

This hyper-personalized approach not only looks good; it actually gets results! In fact, our users have seen response rates soar by as much as 76% simply by adding personalized images and GIFs to their outreach. 

So, if you want to make a lasting impression and boost engagement, this feature is your go-to.

Skylead use cases

Skylead users include:

• Sales professionals
• Marketing experts
• Agencies
• Recruiters

Now, let’s see how these teams are using Skylead:

Pricing

Skylead has an all-in-one pricing plan of $100 per seat/month.

Average rating: ⭐ 4,8 / 5

2. OptinMonster

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This is another tool you can use to automate lead generation. Marketing teams typically use it for e-commerce lead capture. However, B2B marketers frequently use it for their lead-generation efforts as well. 

OptinMonster is a software that offers automated lead generation forms presented as pop-ups, slide-in windows, and gamified spin-to-win wheels. Moreover, you can place these pop-ups or forms on any landing page. 

That said, these automated forms help you gather contact information to: 

• Build an email list for your email campaigns, 
• Display personalized content, 
• Nurture your visitors through their customer journey.

Features

OptinMonster’s main advantage is that it turns your website visitors into paying customers, webinar attendees, or newsletter subscribers. 

That said, many B2B marketing teams use these forms to increase their conversion rate, thanks to:

• Page-level targeting - You can display pop-ups, forms, and notifications based on the user’s interaction with different landing pages.
• Exit-intent technology - OptinMonster monitors visitors’ movements and detects when they plan to exit the page without leaving their contact information or making a purchase. This feature can boost conversion rates and, as part of your content strategy, increase newsletter subscribers and webinar sign-ups for future campaigns.
• Lightbox pop-up - This type of pop-up appears based on triggers, prompting visitors to make a choice with minimal distractions as the background content fades. Thus, it keeps their attention focused on the decision.
• On-site retargeting - You can show returning visitors something new every time they return to your website. Simply create pop-ups to show new promotions or offers based on their previous interactions on your website. 
• List segmentation - Reduce website abandonment and churn by personalizing content for leads on your email list and website. What’s more, you can integrate OptinMonster with any CRM app, such as HubSpot or email automation software, to further adjust your messaging. 

💡 Pro tip: Create a synergy between your marketing and sales teams. Once you generate leads through OptinMonster, you can push them automatically to your Skylead sales or marketing campaign through API.

Pricing

OptinMonster has 4 pricing plans:

In addition, they offer around 40% off per month if you opt-in for an annual subscription.

Average rating: ⭐ 4,3 / 5 

3. Moosend.com

In general, Moosend is an email automation tool that helps you create and send personalized newsletters to your leads. It’s most suitable for small businesses specializing in e-commerce. However, this automation tool can be used for B2B email campaigns as well.

Features

One of the best things about Moosend is that you can create newsletters or pop-up banners with a simple drag-and-drop. 

In addition, they leverage AI to analyze the data from your website, such as your subscriber behavior. This way, you can send more personalized messages or email notifications and maximize customer experience and retention.

That said, similar to Skylead, you can use this marketing automation tool to create a sequence with if/else conditions, such as “if the purchase was made” and so on. This way, you can check for your subscribers’ actions and send suitable follow-up messages.  

Moosend offers a vast library of templates for creating newsletters or landing pages for email marketing campaigns. Whichever you choose, you’d be glad to hear that every template comes with device optimization functionalities. 

Next, you can group leads from your email list and send separate messages. You can divide the leads based on keywords, if they clicked on the link in the previous email, etc. 

Like OptinMonster, Moosend can help you gather new leads and increase your lead generation efforts. In other words, it offers customizable forms like pop-ups to promote your lead magnets, like webinars, and create email lists. 

Lastly, you can integrate Moosend with your CRM, such as HubSpot, or other apps to streamline your related tasks.

Pricing

Moosend has 3 pricing systems:

• Pro - This plan is suitable for small businesses because it goes from as low as $9 per month for up to 500 subscribers. On the other hand, this plan goes as high as $5840 a month for up to 1M subscribers. 
• Moosend+ - Contains everything in Pro, plus add-ons of your choice. However, you need to reach out to Moosend directly to get a custom quote for this one.
• Enterprise - This plan is for agencies. Pricing is also custom-made, so contact their team for details.

Average rating: ⭐ 4,6 / 5

4. Mailchimp

Another email automation software on our list is Mailchimp. 

This marketing automation tool started as software that helps marketers create newsletters in the e-commerce environment. However, it has developed into a more well-rounded automated lead generation tool. 

Features

Email marketing

Firstly, Mailchimp offers an email automation tool for sending newsletters or other messaging material to your subscribers. You can create your own message design or use the template. 

Regarding targeting, you can segment your leads based on their behavior, such as: 

• Campaign activity, 
• Location, 
• If the last email opened, 
• App activity, etc.

Lead generation

Mailchimp offers a couple of features that are perfect for B2B lead generation. 

Firstly, they have their own website builder to create beautifully designed landing pages for your new leads. In addition, you can make it from scratch or from the numerous templates they offer.

Secondly, they offer sign-up and pop-up forms for your website to generate potential customers. Moreover, you can also integrate their free appointment scheduling tool so potential leads can book calls with your sales team. 

Lastly, Mailchimp offers a campaign manager that combines social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads, into one dashboard. This way, you can target potential leads with interests similar to those of your current contacts. You can also retarget visitors as they browse the web or social media. 

Automated customer journeys

Last but not least, Mailchimp has a function to enhance user experience with Customer Journey Builder. In other words, you can automate activities, such as emails and follow-ups, according to your leads’ behavior and nurture them to conversion. 

Moreover, you can integrate Mailchimp with any app, including your CRM of choice or LinkedIn outreach solution for omnichannel presence.

Pricing

Mailchimp offers 4 plans with the following highlighted features:

• A free plan is for up to 1K emails sent. It includes forms, landing pages, and pre-built email templates.
• The Essentials plan starts at $13 a month. This plan includes up to 5K emails sent, 3 audiences, and simple automated customer journeys.
• The Standard plan starts at $20 a month. It includes up to 6K emails sent, 5 audiences, enhanced customer journeys, newsletter templates, a predictive analytics tool, and a campaign manager.
• The Premium plan costs $350 per month. It includes everything from other plans plus 150K emails sent, as well as advanced segmentation and targeting.

Average rating: ⭐ 4,4 / 5 

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5. Tidio

As mentioned before, one of the best ways to capture leads is via live chat or chatbot. And Tidio is one of many on the market. 

This tool can automatically collect and qualify leads based on their website behavior. For example, let’s say a visitor lands on your pricing page. A chatbot can then ask if they are interested in a custom quote, and if they are, invite them to leave their contact information. 

Moreover, you can set Tidio to answer FAQs, offer news, or upsell your users. This way, you’re leaving time for your support team to focus on burning problems while improving your customer experience. 

Pricing

Tidio offers a couple of plans:

Average rating: ⭐ 4,7 / 5

Automated lead generation examples

So, you know how to automate your lead generation and the tools to use when doing so.

Now, let’s walk you through real-life examples of automated inbound and outbound lead generation. And what better way to do so than to use our very own?

a. Outbound lead generation automation example

In October 2023, we launched Skylead 3.0 on Product Hunt and received an incredible 2nd place.

But that wouldn't have been possible if we didn't automate our outbound lead generation.

Namely, what we did several months before the launch was find leads using Product Hunt LinkedIn groups.

Why these groups, though? Because they’re filled with individuals already interested in Product Hunt. And since the purpose was to generate leads who’d vote for us once we launched, these individuals were highly valuable.

The first step was to identify such groups. Then, we took advantage of LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters, specifically the ''Group'' filter, to isolate their members so we could add them to our campaigns. 

The next step was to create a targeted outreach campaign using Skylead.

To do so, we copied the search URL from Sales Navigator. 

Then, we visited a Campaigns page in Skylead and clicked the ‘’Create’’ button.

We gave the campaign a name, selected the Sales Navigator search result as the campaign type, and pasted the URL. We also decided to go with 2nd and 3rd-degree connections and clicked Next.

Moving on, we defined email, LinkedIn, and global settings and proceeded to create a Smart sequence.

Here's an example of a Smart sequence one of us created for this purpose.

Moreover, since Skylead supports A/B testing of up to 5 different subject lines and messages, we decided to add a few variants to see what drives the best results.

To maximize the number of leads we got to and get more votes, each member of our team kicked off their own campaign. But first, we turned off the option to include leads from other team campaigns to avoid contacting the same individuals.

b. Inbound lead generation automation example

To naturally attract leads, we decided to create a lead magnet that our audience would find genuinely useful. That’s how our sales eBook came to life—built on the same principles and strategies we used to scale Skylead.

The eBook was a collaboration between our marketing and sales teams. Alongside creating the content, we also designed a brand-new landing page with a form to collect lead information. Once someone filled out the form, they were instantly redirected to a page where they could download the eBook for free.

However, the eBook didn’t benefit only those who downloaded it. Thanks to the lead generation form, we were able to capture the email addresses of inbound leads that we later used in outreach.

We compiled them all into a CSV file and used it to create a CSV-based campaign in Skylead. As a result, we managed to convert a high percentage of warm leads into paying customers.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Can you automate lead generation?

Yes, you can automate lead generation using a variety of tools designed to perform repetitive tasks like prospecting and outreach. By setting up automated workflows, you can streamline these processes and generate leads consistently, thus saving time and boosting efficiency.

What is the fastest way to generate leads?

The fastest way to generate leads often involves combining inbound and outbound automation. Using targeted ads and automated outreach emails to quickly identify, engage, and convert leads with minimal manual effort.

What are the ethical considerations when automating lead generation on LinkedIn?

When automating lead generation on LinkedIn, it's vital to maintain transparency and respect user privacy. Avoid spamming and ensure all automated interactions provide value to potential leads. Ethical automation respects LinkedIn's terms of service, focusing on building genuine connections rather than exploiting the platform.

How can businesses ensure the quality of leads when using automation tools?

To ensure the quality of leads when using automation tools, you should define clear target parameters and continuously refine your ideal customer profile. Utilizing advanced filtering options and personalized outreach messages can significantly increase the relevance and quality of automated lead generation efforts.

Can automation tools integrate with other CRM platforms, and how does this affect lead management?

Many automation tools like Skylead are designed to integrate seamlessly with CRM platforms, enhancing lead management processes. This integration allows for the automatic update of lead information and activities, providing a unified view of the sales funnel and enabling more efficient tracking, nurturing, and conversion of leads.

Automate lead generation to skyrocket your leads

80% of marketing automation users experience an increase in the number of leads, and even 77% an increase in conversion. That is no small number to ignore. 

That said, we hope this article helped you understand how you can automate your lead generation activities.

However, before you do, create a good-quality basis for the automation, starting from your website, content strategy, and LinkedIn profile. Only then will you be able to pave the way for successful lead generation automation. 

Once you go automation, you will also start looking at your other tasks and ask yourself:

‘’Can I automate that?’’

So, don’t wait a second longer! Sign up for Skylead’s 7-day free trial and automate your lead generation away!

Disclaimer: Skylead is not affiliated, endorsed by, or connected with LinkedIn in any way.

For those who have just started researching LinkedIn automation tools, SaaS startup Expandi appeared on the market in 2019. They initially created software that focused solely on LinkedIn automation. 

After years of development, many small business sales teams and recruiters started using it for email outreach and  LinkedIn lead generation. 

However, since the market has changed and other tools have progressed, one question posed itself. Is Expandi the best email and LinkedIn outreach tool? Or is there a better alternative on the market?

Let’s check that together. We will go over what Expandi offers, its disadvantages, the comparison with other solutions, and the pricing itself.