The best outbound sales strategies (plus KPIs to track performance)

Outbound sales isn't going anywhere. Despite predictions over the past decade that inbound marketing and growth hacking would make it obsolete, outbound remains a core growth engine for modern sales teams. In fact, our latest Prospecting 2025 Report found that 80% of high-performing teams still rely on outbound as a key part of their revenue strategy. And nearly half (43%) are using a hybrid model that blends inbound and outbound efforts within the same function—proof that outbound is evolving, not disappearing.

But buyers are harder to reach. Sales cycles now involve multiple stakeholders and stretch 1-2 quarters. Generic outreach gets ignored. To break through, you need a data-driven approach that combines the right targeting, tools, and tactics. In this article, we'll cover five proven strategies, real-world examples, and the KPIs you need to track performance.

What is outbound sales?

Outbound sales is the process where sales professionals actively initiate and drive customer engagement. Unlike inbound sales, where prospects come to you, outbound sales require sellers to actively seek potential buyers and reach out via cold calling, email, or social selling.

Inbound vs outbound sales

Outbound sales refers to a selling dynamic where the seller actively initiates the sales conversation. In contrast, inbound sales describes a model where potential buyers whose interests are piqued by the information they acquire from websites, news, or ads initiate contact with a sales professional. 

Inbound sales uses methods that have been made possible by advances in digital technology: search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, publication of white papers and industry reports, online ads, influence marketing, blog posts, and social media activity.

While both inbound and outbound sales reps need to be empathetic and serve as problem solvers when engaging potential clients, the idea that modern sellers should serve more like trusted advisors started and became more pervasive in inbound sales.

Finally, potential buyers in inbound sales are described as warm, while prospects in outbound sales are described as cold. The descriptions cover the degree of apparent interest demonstrated by the potential buyer.

4 types of outbound sales reps

All outbound sales reps are involved in building relationships with cold prospects. However, depending on the company, the market, or the structure of the sales organization, outbound sales reps may be classified into different categories.

Both B2C and B2B sales may employ outbound sellers. The difference primarily lies in the target customer: outbound B2C sellers engage individual end consumers while their B2B counterparts engage corporate buyers, each having multiple decision makers.

Depending on the stage in the sales process, outbound sellers may also develop specialized skills and roles:

1. Sales development reps

Sales development reps (SDRs) are the most common practitioners in the field. Owning the outbound prospecting process, SDRs routinely cold-call and send cold emails to potential buyers. They help screen and nurture potential buyers to create a short list of sales-qualified leads/contacts for the closers (Account Executives).

2. Business development reps

Business development reps (BDRs) often have identical functions with SDRs (they are synonymous in many cases). But in some companies, they perform a distinct function: serving as the link between marketing and sales by helping develop business with potential clients and referring sales-qualified leads to closers in the team.

3. Lead development reps

Lead development reps (LDRs) or market development reps (MDRs) are sales reps who fully support inbound operations by initiating contact with prospects who have been cultivated through lead generation, or essentially raise their hand to be contacted. 

These potential buyers have already visited the company website, downloaded a report, or signed up for an event. These actions demonstrate interest, but not all active users end up as inbound leads. By focusing on these warm prospects, LDRs/MDRs fill the gap.

4. Account executives

Account executives (AEs) support both outbound and inbound sales operations. These senior sales professionals make presentations, conduct demos, send proposals, handle objections, and ultimately close deals.

AEs typically take over after SDRs qualify leads, managing complex deals with multiple stakeholders through the entire sales cycle.

6 outbound sales strategies for scalable growth

The foundation of successful outbound sales is a data-driven strategy that helps your team identify the right prospects, engage them effectively, and close deals faster.

1. Let AI agents automate account research

Sales reps spend hours researching accounts before every call (time that could be spent actually selling). Outreach's Research Agent automates this by pulling insights from web searches, email communications, and past interactions, saving 15-20 minutes per account.

Instead of manually Googling prospects, checking LinkedIn, and digging through CRM notes, reps get a synthesized brief with recent company news, key stakeholders, past engagement history, and relevant talking points. This means more time for outreach and better-informed conversations that demonstrate you've done your homework.

Track time saved per rep, number of accounts researched daily, and meeting conversion rates for researched vs. non-researched prospects.

2. Use conversation intelligence to scale winning behaviors

Your top performers close deals for a reason, but most teams can't pinpoint exactly what they're doing differently. Outreach's conversation intelligence analyzes call recordings and meeting transcripts to identify the specific tactics, objection-handling strategies, and messaging patterns that set high performers apart.

You can surface which talk tracks work, how top reps handle pricing objections, what questions they ask in discovery, and which stakeholders they engage. Then build coaching playlists organized by skill so every rep can learn from real examples instead of generic advice.

Track win rate by rep before and after coaching, time to quota attainment for new hires, and adoption rate of winning talk tracks across the team.

3. Leverage social selling to warm up cold prospects

Cold outreach gets ignored, but prospects who've seen you share valuable content respond differently. Social selling (particularly on LinkedIn) lets you build familiarity before you ever send that first email or make that first call.

Start by identifying your target accounts and following key decision-makers on LinkedIn. Share insights about industry trends, comment thoughtfully on their posts, and publish content that addresses common challenges your prospects face. When you reach out three weeks later, you're no longer a stranger interrupting their day.

The goal isn't to pitch on social media. It's to establish credibility so when your cold email lands, they recognize your name and are more likely to engage. Track connection acceptance rate, engagement on your posts from target accounts, and reply rate comparison between prospects you've engaged with socially vs. cold contacts.

4. Master systematic referral generation

Referrals convert 71% better than cold outreach and close 69% faster, yet most teams don't systematically ask for them. The key is making referral requests part of your regular process rather than hoping they happen organically.

Define when to ask (30 days into a new contract or one week after invoice payment often yields better results than immediately post-sale), who to ask (satisfied customers in your ICP), and how to make it easy. Be specific instead of vague. "Do you know anyone at [target company] in a similar role who might benefit from this?" performs better than "Do you know anyone who might be interested?"

Start by asking for one referral per day as part of your morning routine. That's 260 requests per year that compound quickly. Track referral request volume per rep, referral-to-meeting conversion rate, and win rate for referred vs. cold prospects.

5. Run rapid A/B tests on sequences

Top-performing outbound teams treat their sequences like products (constantly testing and iterating). Small improvements to subject lines, opening hooks, CTAs, and send times compound into significant pipeline gains.

Test 2-3 variants of one element at a time (subject line, first sentence, CTA) across 200-300 touches per variant for 2-4 weeks. Focus testing on high-leverage elements where changes have the biggest impact: subject lines affect open rates, value propositions affect reply rates, and CTAs affect meeting bookings.

Once you identify winners, deploy them across all sequences and move on to testing the next element. Track lift in open, click, reply, and meeting rates from tests, time to implement winning variants, and overall pipeline contribution from optimized sequences.

6. Run team-selling plays

Enterprise deals involve multiple stakeholders across different departments, and single-threaded selling leaves revenue on the table. Team selling maps your internal experts (AEs, SEs, executives, RevOps) to the customer's buying committee so the right seller engages the right buyer at the right time.

Build plays for different scenarios: executive alignment calls when C-suite approval stalls, technical validation sessions when engineering raises concerns, or ROI workshops when finance needs justification. Define who owns each relationship, when to bring in specialists, and how to coordinate handoffs without creating confusion.

When operationalized in a deal management platform like Outreach, teams can visualize every contact, assign owners for each relationship, and prevent key stakeholders from slipping through the cracks. 

Real-life outbound sales strategy examples and success

Rootly

Rootly is an incident management platform that automates administrative tasks to help companies resolve incidents faster. Founded in 2020 and based in San Francisco, Rootly integrates with tools like Slack, Zoom, Asana, PagerDuty, and Jira to manage incidents directly from these platforms.

Strategy implemented: Rootly implemented Outreach to streamline and optimize their sales sequences. They audited the sequences their team had been using to cut underperforming content and double down on what works. They also found opportunities to automate several manual processes, allowing their sales team to focus on higher-value tasks.

Outcome: Rootly experienced significant improvements in their outreach efforts, leading to a higher volume of prospect engagements and scheduled meetings.

Metrics:

• 41% increase in prospects contacted
• 69% increase in meetings scheduled
• 130% increase in emails delivered
• 640% increase in LinkedIn prospects contacted

These improvements in their outreach strategy not only boosted sales efficiency but also overall customer engagement and satisfaction.

Snowflake

Snowflake, a leader in data cloud services, enables organizations to mobilize their data, providing solutions for data integration, management, and analytics across various industries.

Strategy implemented: Snowflake partnered with Outreach to streamline their account-based selling approach, using Outreach’s platform to automate sales processes, synchronize cross-functional collaboration between marketing and sales leaders, and optimize data-driven engagement strategies.

Outcome: The collaboration led to more efficient prospecting, higher reply rates, and improved sales execution, making it easier for sales reps to achieve their goals.

Metrics:

• 15% increase in sales reps meeting their quarterly quotas
• 20% average prospect reply rate

These improvements streamlined Snowflake's sales process, boosting rep productivity and quota attainment.

Tool comparison: picking the right one to accelerate growth

Choosing the right tools for outbound prospecting is crucial to accelerating growth and improving your sales pipeline. The ideal tools should help your team engage strategically, automate repetitive tasks, and boost overall efficiency. Here are some key features to look for:

• Strengthen pipeline coverage: Look for sales tools that give you a clear view of all potential opportunities. This helps your team prioritize their efforts on high-value targets, making their work more effective and focused.
• Automate low-value tasks: Sales engagement software that can handle repetitive tasks like data entry and follow-up reminders is a game-changer. Automation frees up your team to concentrate on more important activities, reducing manual effort and minimizing errors.
• Engage customers with timely and relevant messages: Successful outbound prospecting and account management rely on sending the right message at the right time. Features that allow you to automate and personalize communication ensure that your prospects receive timely, relevant messages, increasing the chances of conversion.
• Effective pre-qualification and best practices: Choose solutions that help you qualify contacts effectively and implement best practices in your outbound prospecting process. This establishes a strong foundation for nurturing leads and moving them through the sales funnel.

By focusing on these key functionalities, you can pick the tools that best align with your outbound prospecting goals, accelerate growth and improve your team’s performance.

4 key performance indicators (KPIs) for outbound sales

There are many performance indicators that track business outcomes. However, not every indicator that works for one sales organization will work the same way for another. The trick is to identify the specific performance indicators that will generate the best value for your particular business and sales operation when tracked and optimized.

However, four of the most common indicators that you should always track include:

1. Sales cycle time

Sales cycle times show how fast it takes a lead (on average) to complete the buyer journey and make a purchase decision. The average sales cycle for your target audience likely depends on your business or industry. So, you should identify a benchmark that makes sense for your business to judge your sales cycle.

2. Cost per opportunity

Cost per opportunity is the calculated cost of generating a single lead. If close rate is high and cost per opportunity is low, then you know your sellers are reaching the right target audience. So, to optimize this metric, focusing on high-value leads may deliver better ROI.

3. Click-through rates

Click-through rates measure the fitness or efficiency of your call-to-action messaging. A low click-through rate negates all your efforts at reaching out to potential customers. Improve performance by tweaking the approach, timing, or other aspects of your messaging.

4. Calls to close ratio

Calls to close ratio is a metric that shows how many leads you need to contact, on average, for one call that results in a conversion or closed deal. It’s a simple metric that can quickly help you evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of your outbound sales techniques.

Outbound sales challenges (and how to overcome them)

Outbound sales teams face these challenges that can derail even the best strategies:

Prospects ignore cold outreach: People naturally dislike unsolicited calls, emails, and direct messages. They resent interruptions, especially when they're being pitched something they don't need. The solution: do diligent prospect research before reaching out. Use Outreach's Research Agent to pull insights from corporate websites, news, social media, and past interactions. When your outreach references a recent funding round or addresses a specific challenge the company faces, you're no longer just another cold caller.

Reps waste time on manual tasks: Sales reps spend most of their week on research, data entry, and administrative work instead of actually selling. Automate low-value activities. Technology that automatically captures emails and calls, syncs CRM data, and generates account briefs lets reps focus on conversations that move deals forward instead of updating spreadsheets.

It's hard to identify what's working: Without clear performance data, teams can't tell which tactics drive results and which waste budget. Implement systematic testing and tracking. Use conversation intelligence to analyze what top performers do differently, A/B test sequence elements to find what resonates, and track KPIs like reply rates and meeting conversion to make data-driven improvements rather than guessing.

Make outbound sales work for your team

A good outbound strategy depends on the right Ideal Customer Profile, solid sales prospecting, and effective performance measurement. But the most important asset is adaptability. Markets shift, buyer behavior evolves, and what worked last quarter might not work today. 

The ability to test, measure, and improve your sequences and tools separates scalable outbound operations from stagnant ones.

Outreach helps you balance high-volume prospecting with personalized engagement. From automated account research to conversation intelligence and A/B testing, Outreach streamlines your workflows so your pipeline stays efficient and effective.