Key Takeaways
- Multi-channel beats single-channel: campaigns that coordinate email, phone, and at least one other channel drive roughly 287% higher purchase rates than single-channel outreach, so treating email and cold calling as separate silos is literally costing you pipeline. Landbase summarizing Omnisend
- Build a structured cadence that intentionally pairs email and cold calls instead of random touches, think 12-15 touches over 2-3 weeks with deliberate call-plus-email 'double taps' on key days rather than one-off blasts.
- Average cold call success rates hover around 2-3% in 2025, but top-performing B2B teams hit 10%+ meeting rates when they combine high-quality data, personalization, and multi-channel cadences. Cognism
- Most B2B buyers will not respond on the first try: it takes around 8 touches on average to book an initial meeting and 80% of deals require 5-12 follow-ups, so your email-plus-phone strategy must be built for persistence, not one-and-done outreach. RAIN Group via Sellerate Growleads
- Use email to warm the prospect and create relevance, then use the phone to convert interest into real conversations, for example, call within 24-48 hours of an open or click and reference the specific email they engaged with.
- Stop guessing and start measuring: track separate and combined metrics (opens, replies, dials, connects, meetings per contact, and meetings per account) so you can actually see the lift from combining email and cold calls and optimize your cadence over time.
- If you don't have the time or infrastructure to orchestrate this yourself, partner with an outbound specialist like SalesHive that already runs multi-channel SDR programs (AI-personalized email plus cold calling) and has booked 117,000+ meetings for 1,500+ B2B clients.
Stop Choosing Between Email and Cold Calling
If your team is still debating whether email or cold calling is “better,” you’re optimizing the wrong variable. In modern B2B outbound, the winners don’t run email or phone as separate motions—they orchestrate them as one coordinated outreach campaign that builds recognition, earns attention, and creates real conversations.
Cold calling on its own is a grind: Cognism pegs the 2025 average conversation-to-meeting success rate at about 2.3%, which means most calling teams will lose on volume alone unless targeting and messaging are tight. Email by itself isn’t a silver bullet either; even strong programs often see reply rates in the low single digits, especially when the message lacks relevance or follow-up discipline.
What consistently works is treating email as the primer and the phone as the converter, inside a single sales cadence that your SDRs can run reliably. At SalesHive, we build these unified motions every day across cold email and b2b cold calling services, because a connected system is easier to coach, easier to measure, and far more likely to produce pipeline than two disconnected channel “programs.”
Why Multi-Channel Outreach Wins (and the Data Is Loud)
Multi-channel beats single-channel because buyers don’t behave in a single channel. Some prospects will only respond asynchronously (email), some prefer a quick live conversation (phone), and many need repeated exposure before they trust your name enough to reply or pick up.
The performance gap isn’t subtle: multi-channel campaigns using three or more channels can drive roughly 287% higher purchase rates than single-channel outreach, based on Omnisend data summarized by Landbase. When you run email and calls as separate silos, you’re effectively leaving that compounding effect on the table.
Beyond that headline number, broader syntheses suggest multi-channel prospecting can lift results anywhere from 30% up to 287%, depending on execution and audience. The practical takeaway for any sales development agency or outbound sales agency is straightforward: recognition goes up, relevance improves (because touches reference each other), and coverage expands across how different people prefer to communicate.
Design a Unified Cadence That’s Built for Persistence
Most teams underestimate how many attempts it takes to earn a first meeting. RAIN Group research shows it takes around 8 touches on average to book an initial B2B meeting, and follow-up benchmarks commonly show that about 80% of outcomes happen between touches 5–12. If your sequences stop after three or four touches, you’re not being “respectful”—you’re being invisible.
A simple, effective starting point for cold outbound into net-new accounts is 12–15 total touches over 2–3 weeks, with deliberate call-plus-email “double taps” on key days. This is where a strong sdr agency mindset matters: the goal isn’t random activity; it’s a repeatable playbook that pairs the right message with the right channel at the right moment.
Use benchmarks to set expectations, then improve from there with better targeting, list building services, and messaging. The table below gives a practical baseline for what many teams see and what to optimize when email and calling are run together.
| Channel | Common benchmark | How to use it inside a combined cadence |
|---|---|---|
| Cold calling | 2.3% avg conversation-to-meeting success rate (2025) | Call after “warming” touches and prioritize high-fit accounts and recent engagement to beat baseline. |
| Sales email opens | 21.3% avg open rate across B2B; cold often 15–18% | Write for relevance and clarity so opens translate into better calls, not just vanity metrics. |
| Cold email replies | 3–4.1% average reply rate; top programs can exceed 20% | Keep early emails short and “call-ready” so replies and non-replies both feed a smart dial queue. |
Operationalize the “Double Tap” and Engagement-First Calling
If you want email and cold callers to amplify each other, you need an explicit sequence—not improvisation. A practical pattern is to start with a Day-1 call attempt, then send an email immediately afterward that matches the call’s theme; this creates instant recognition and gives you a legitimate reason to reference the outreach on the next call.
Next, build your daily workflow around intent signals rather than dialing a static list. Each morning, pull prospects who opened or clicked in the last 24–48 hours and move them to the top of the call block; reps should have the email open before dialing so they can reference the subject line or asset naturally. This simple habit is one of the fastest ways cold calling services become “warm calling” without waiting for inbound.
Keep the first two or three emails short—roughly 75–125 words—and focused on one problem, one proof point, and one CTA that points to a quick conversation. This makes the phone follow-up feel coherent instead of random, and it reduces the most common failure mode we see in sales outsourcing: a call script that doesn’t match what the prospect has already seen in their inbox.
Email earns attention; calls earn commitment; the cadence is what turns both into pipeline.
Give Each Channel a Job: Email Warms, Calls Convert
Email’s job is context and curiosity at scale. With an average B2B open rate of 21.3%, you’re not trying to “close” in an inbox—you’re trying to create recognition, deliver one relevant insight, and make your name familiar enough that a call feels expected rather than intrusive.
The phone’s job is discovery and commitment. Even with low baseline success rates, cold calls still create meetings when executed well, and compiled prospecting research indicates 78% of business leaders have scheduled a meeting or attended an event because of a cold call. That’s why a combined cadence matters: email increases the chance you get a real conversation, and a real conversation increases the chance you get a next step.
Coach SDRs on openers that connect the dots without sounding scripted, such as referencing the exact email theme: “I sent a quick note yesterday about reducing no-show rates for your AE team—did you happen to see it?” This approach works especially well for a cold calling agency or cold email agency because it keeps messaging consistent while letting each channel do what it’s best at.
Common Mistakes That Kill Combined Outreach (and How to Fix Them)
The biggest mistake is running email and phone as separate programs with separate tools, separate copy themes, and no shared ownership. That creates duplicate touches, inconsistent positioning, and confusion about what actually produced the meeting; the fix is one unified cadence with shared ICP definitions, shared messaging pillars, and a single reporting view by sequence and account.
The second mistake is quitting too early. When it takes around 8 touches to land a meeting on average, and most outcomes happen between touches 5–12, “no response” after two attempts is normal—not a no. Standardize your cadence length, train reps to expect silence early, and keep touches value-driven so persistence feels professional rather than pushy.
The third mistake is generic messaging paired with weak data. Dialing unqualified or outdated lists is how teams end up stuck at sub-2–3% performance and a wall of voicemails; invest in list hygiene, enrichment, and segmentation so your cold calling team is speaking to the right persona at the right accounts. Whether you’re building in-house or working with b2b sales outsourcing partners, clean targeting is the foundation that makes every other improvement matter.
Measure What Matters: Sequence-Level Outcomes, Not Vanity Metrics
If your team celebrates opens and dials but can’t tie activity to meetings and pipeline, you’re flying blind. We recommend a shared KPI framework across email and calls: meetings booked per 100 contacts sequenced, meetings per account, connect-to-meeting rate, and opportunities created by sequence—then work backward to identify which touches create momentum.
Instrument your reporting so every touch is tied to a sequence and to the account/contact in your CRM or sales engagement platform. Review performance monthly at the sequence-step level (where drop-offs happen) and at the account level (where multi-threading and persistence pay off), then prune steps that don’t contribute and double down on the ones that do.
Use AI and automation to increase relevance, not volume. The best systems help with research, personalization, routing “hot” accounts to call blocks after email engagement, and keeping data clean—so humans spend their time on conversations. This is where the right sdr agencies and sales development agency partners stand out: the process is engineered to improve outcomes, not just to generate more activity.
How to Scale This Motion (In-House or With Sales Outsourcing)
To roll this out quickly, start with one ICP and one unified playbook your whole team can follow. Build a 12–15 touch cadence, define what each touch must accomplish, and standardize how calls reference emails and how emails recap call attempts; consistency is what makes coaching and optimization possible.
If you don’t have the time, leadership bandwidth, or infrastructure to orchestrate multi-channel outreach, sales outsourcing can be the fastest path to predictable output. The right outsourced sales team brings trained SDRs, proven cadences, list building services, and a measurement framework so you’re not reinventing the basics; that’s why many teams evaluate a b2b sales agency or cold calling companies when they need pipeline without building a full internal engine.
The future of outbound is increasingly omnichannel and signal-driven, but the fundamentals won’t change: relevance, timing, persistence, and clean execution. Whether you run outreach internally or partner with an outbound sales agency, the best next step is the same—merge email and b2b cold calling into one cadence, track outcomes by sequence, and iterate relentlessly until your combined system reliably books meetings.
Sources
- Landbase (Omnisend multi-channel statistics)
- Cognism (Cold calling success rates for 2025)
- ZipDo (Cold calling statistics)
- SuperAGI (Omnichannel cadence analysis)
- Sellerate (RAIN Group cadence/touch benchmarks)
- Datanyze (Sales sequence benchmarks)
- Growleads (Cadence timing, follow-up benchmarks)
- Thunderbit (Sales follow-up statistics)
- Optifai (B2B sales email open rate benchmark)
- Salesso (Cold email statistics)
- SalesHive (Cold calling strategies and benchmarks)
📊 Key Statistics
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Running email and cold calling as completely separate programs
When SDRs blast emails from one tool and dial from another with no shared plan, you get duplicate touches, inconsistent messaging, and no clear view of what actually created the meeting.
Instead: Design one unified sales cadence that explicitly sequences emails and calls together, with shared ICPs, shared copy themes, and one owner responsible for optimizing the whole motion.
Quitting after one or two touches
Most buyers are busy, not uninterested; data shows 80% of sales require at least five follow-ups and around eight touches to land a first meeting, so stopping early just hands deals to competitors who keep going.
Instead: Standardize cadences with 8-15 total touches over 2-3 weeks and coach reps that 'no response' after two touches is normal, not a definitive no.
Using the same generic message on every channel
Copy-pasting your email pitch into a call script makes you sound robotic and irrelevant, which tanks connect-to-meeting rates and trains prospects to ignore your domain and your caller ID.
Instead: Give each channel a clear job: email for concise insights and social proof, calls for discovery and commitment. Tailor the language and CTA to the strength of each medium while keeping the core value prop consistent.
Dialing cold lists without email warming or intent signals
Cold calling into unqualified, out-of-date lists is why most teams see sub-2% success rates and a wall of voicemails; you burn SDR time and brand credibility for minimal pipeline.
Instead: Invest in list building and enrichment, then warm those contacts with at least one or two personalized emails before calling-prioritizing opens, clicks, and high-fit accounts for live conversations.
Measuring channel vanity metrics instead of revenue outcomes
An email program bragging about 40% opens and a calling team bragging about 80 dials a day doesn't matter if meetings and qualified pipeline aren't moving.
Instead: Set shared KPIs like meetings booked per 100 contacts, opportunities per account, and pipeline created by sequence, then work backward to optimize email and call steps that clearly contribute to those numbers.
Action Items
Map one unified email + cold calling cadence for your primary ICP
Start with a simple 12-15 touch sequence over 3 weeks that spells out exactly which days you send emails, which days you call, and how messages reference each other. Share it across SDRs so everyone runs the same playbook instead of improvising.
Prioritize call blocks around recent email engagement
Every morning, pull a list of prospects who opened or clicked in the last 24-48 hours and put them at the top of your dialing queue. Have reps open the email before calling so they can reference the subject or asset by name.
Tighten up email copy and make it call-ready
Rewrite your first two or three sequence emails to be 75-125 words, focused on one problem, one proof point, and one clear CTA-ideally for a quick call. This makes it easy for reps to transition from 'you might have seen my note about X' into a natural phone conversation.
Coach SDRs on specific call openers tied to emails
Run short role-plays where reps practice openers like, 'I sent you a quick note yesterday about reducing no-show rates for your AE team-did you happen to see it?' This anchors the call in something real and cuts down on awkward, fully cold intros.
Instrument your reporting by sequence and account
In your CRM or sales engagement platform, make sure every touch is tied to a sequence and to the account/contact. Review sequence-level meetings and pipeline monthly so you can prune bad steps, double down on good ones, and A/B test small improvements.
Layer in AI-assisted personalization instead of more volume
Rather than sending 2x more generic emails, use tools (or partners like SalesHive's eMod) that research prospects and inject relevant details into your templates. Then use those personalized hooks as the bridge into your call conversations.
Partner with SalesHive
SalesHive’s SDR programs are built around the very best practices in this guide. Campaigns pair US‑based and Philippines‑based SDRs with an AI‑powered platform that runs coordinated phone and email sequences, often delivering 250-500 targeted touches per day per program. Their eMod personalization engine researches each prospect and rewrites your email templates with relevant context, which has been shown to generate roughly 3x higher response rates than generic cold email. Those warm signals then feed into trained cold callers who know how to reference emails, leverage list insights, and book qualified meetings-not just log activity.
On top of that, SalesHive’s list‑building service aggregates data from sources like ZoomInfo, Apollo, and proprietary databases, then cleans and verifies it so your reps aren’t wasting dials on dead numbers or bouncing emails. There are no annual contracts and onboarding is risk‑free, so you can validate that a unified email‑plus‑calling motion is working before you scale. If you want a plug‑and‑play way to bring this guide to life, SalesHive is a proven shortcut.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Why should I combine email and cold calling instead of just doubling down on the channel that's working best?
Because the data is clear: multi-channel campaigns consistently outperform single-channel ones, with some studies showing 287% higher purchase rates when three or more channels are used together. Email alone will always miss prospects who prefer to talk, and calls alone will miss people who never pick up unknown numbers. By coordinating both, you get more touchpoints, more recognition, and more chances to catch a buyer in their preferred mode of communication.
How many touches should my email + cold call cadence include?
For cold outbound into net-new accounts, a good starting point is 12-15 touches over 2-3 weeks. RAIN Group and others have found it takes around 8 touches just to secure an initial meeting, and 80% of deals require 5-12 follow-ups. That usually translates into 5-7 emails and 4-6 calls, plus perhaps one or two social touches. The key is front-loading activity in the first 10 business days and tapering off if there's no engagement.
Should I email first or call first in my outreach campaigns?
Both approaches can work, but in noisy B2B environments it's often more effective to pair them: either a call followed immediately by an email (the Day-1 'double tap' backed by Salesloft's data) or a short, highly relevant email that you reference on a call within 24-48 hours. What matters more than strict order is that the touches are clearly connected in the prospect's mind and that you call while the email is still fresh.
How do I avoid annoying prospects with too many multi-channel touches?
Relevance and pacing matter more than raw volume. Space touches 2-3 days apart, keep emails short and value-driven, and vary your angles instead of repeating the same pitch. Always honor opt-outs and clear 'not a fit' signals quickly. A 15-touch cadence that adds insight at each step and stops when you're told 'no' feels respectful; a 6-touch cadence that's repetitive and self-centered feels like spam.
What metrics should I track to see if my combined email and calling strategy is working?
At a minimum, track: email open and reply rates by sequence step; dials, connects, and meetings per 100 dials; meetings and opportunities per 100 contacts sequenced; and pipeline or revenue per sequence. Look not just at individual steps, but at the full journey from first touch to meeting. If meetings per account and pipeline created per 1,000 touches are trending up after you add calls to email (or vice versa), you're on the right track.
How does AI fit into multi-channel outreach without making it feel robotic?
Use AI to do the grunt work-researching accounts, drafting personalized email variants, scoring engagement, and suggesting who to call next-while humans still own actual conversations. Tools like SalesHive's eMod, for example, rewrite templates with prospect-specific details while preserving your voice, then SDRs use that context to run better calls. The goal is fewer, smarter touches, not more spam at higher speed.
When does it make sense to outsource email and cold calling instead of building an internal SDR team?
If you don't have the time, leadership bandwidth, or tech stack to design cadences, build lists, hire/train SDRs, and manage daily optimization, outsourcing is usually faster and cheaper. Agencies like SalesHive bring trained US- and Philippines-based SDRs, an AI-enabled platform, list building, and proven cadences to the table. That lets your AEs focus on closing while specialists handle the heavy outbound lift.
