That old idea that you need 12, 20 or even 30 touchpoints to get a reply doesn’t hold up anymore. If it takes that many attempts, it probably means the message wasn’t relevant to begin with.

Outbound today is not about volume. It’s about timing, tone, and showing up in a way that makes sense for the person on the other side.

You need to reach people where they actually are, speak in a way that feels natural, and offer something that’s worth their attention.

Once we’ve done the work upfront and we’re confident in the list, this is how we approach outreach.

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Start with tone

Before writing anything, we take time to understand how our clients actually communicate. That means reviewing sales calls, Slack threads, LinkedIn messages, emails, even call scripts. Whatever helps us understand how they sound in real conversations.

We’re not just using their name and job title. We’re trying to write in a way that feels like them.

We’ll use AI to help us with structure and voice matching, but it’s not doing the writing. Most people can tell when something’s been written by AI, and the more teams lean on it, the more everything starts to sound the same.

We try to go the other direction. Use AI where it helps, but always come back to sounding like a real person.

There’s this idea that you should throw in a few grammar mistakes to make messages feel more human. That can work in small doses, but we think it’s better to just write how people actually write. Especially when you’re going after a specific audience.

For example, when we’re targeting developers or engineers, we keep things super direct. These are busy people who don’t want fluff. So we’ll keep messages short, casual, and text-like. We’ll go lowercase. We won’t try to sound clever or overly formal. We want the message to feel like something that came from a peer, not a playbook.

And before anything goes live, we make sure the client reviews it. If it doesn’t sound like them, we adjust. But once it’s locked, that tone carries through everything else.

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Be thoughtful about channel

We don’t follow a set order of LinkedIn, then email, then cold call. We start by asking where the prospect is actually spending time.

If they’re active on LinkedIn, that’s usually our first step. We’ll visit their profile, send a connection request, then follow up with a few messages. We use HeyReach to manage it, but the copy is written intentionally. No inMail blasts or wide-net outreach. Just small, focused messages meant to get a conversation going.

If they don’t respond, we’ll move to email. Not with the same message, but with a different approach. We might shift the tone, tighten the ask, or bring in a new angle. We use Instantly to manage delivery, but we write every email like it’s going to be read on a phone.

Cold calling is an option, but not a standard step. If someone looks like a strong fit and there’s some signal that they’ve shown interest, we’ll call. But only when it makes sense. Cold calling can be especially effective in some industries where prospects are in fact picking up their phone, vs some industries where digital tools are king.

And yes, mail still works. Physical mail. A handwritten note, a book, a small piece of swag. It can be scalable, and for the right accounts, it’s an easy way to stand out and a strong way to communicate intent. Sometimes it’s the literal version of meeting your prospects where they are.

Channel strategy is just about being smart. We don’t force messages into places they don’t belong. We start where the person is, then build from there.

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Leave room for people and for creativity

We build our systems to support humans, not replace them.

Sometimes a founder wants to send a quick voice note. Sometimes an AE wants to jump in with a personal follow-up. That’s the kind of involvement we make space for. The structure is there to support the process, but the people running it still drive the connection.

And we also leave room to be creative.

Just because a campaign launches one way doesn’t mean it can’t change. For high-fit leads, we’ll switch things up if we see something relevant. That might mean referencing a recent post or changing the message based on new info. The best outreach stays flexible.

The key is not to over-automate. You can move quickly without turning everything into a template. The best results usually come from leaning into the stuff that doesn’t scale.

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Keep it clean and learn from the signals

All replies flow into a shared Slack channel so the team has full visibility. We label responses as positive, neutral, or not interested, and sync that info into a CRM, Google Sheet, or wherever the client tracks their funnel.

We use tools like Zapier and N8N to keep it organized without adding busywork. No manual tagging. No guesswork.

The goal is not just to track reply rates. We want to know which messages are driving actual interest and what channels are pulling the best leads into conversations. It helps us tighten the campaign and get sharper every time.

Oh yeah, we celebrate wins as a team too. Not every day is a 100% response rate, so on the days it is, own it.

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Final thought

We’re not trying to out-message people with AI. People want to talk with people. 

We’re trying to connect with the right person in the right place, with something that sounds like it came from a human.

That’s how you start conversations that go somewhere and create a repeatable, effective outreach.

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