What is a Sales Cadence?
A Cadence is a contact rhythm designed with the frequency, sequence, and channel combination for reaching potential customers. The goal is to achieve repeated exposure through various channels—email, phone, LinkedIn messages, InMail, social comments, text, and DMs—arranged on a schedule while minimizing fatigue.
Definition of Cadence
A Cadence is a contact rhythm designed with the frequency, sequence, and channel combination for reaching potential customers. The goal is to achieve repeated exposure through various channels—email, phone, LinkedIn messages, InMail, social comments, text, and DMs—arranged on a schedule while minimizing fatigue.
Channel Mix and Sequence
Start by lightly mixing cold email and social touches to build brand awareness, then attempt real-time conversations through phone or InMail. For high-engagement accounts, add offline invitations or direct messages, and for low-engagement mass campaigns, run email-centric operations while inserting phone/social at specific steps to diversify responses.
Scheduling and Touch Count Design
Generally 6-9 touches over 2-3 weeks, but adjust based on industry and persona. The first 3 touches at short intervals (2-3 days), then extending to 4-6 days to manage fatigue. Setting a clear purpose for each step (awareness, problem definition, demo invitation, decision maker connection) prevents message overlap.
Customization and Segment Variations
Cadences should differ by ICP, industry, role, and account size. For example, increase phone/social weight for enterprise accounts, and use short email sequences for SMBs to drive fast decisions. Flexibly adjusting channels and intervals based on previous responses (opens, clicks, soft bounces) reduces spam risk and improves efficiency.
Tools and Automation
Using sales engagement tools to automate step-by-step templates, reminders, and scheduling reduces gaps and increases consistency. However, manually adjust the first line and CTA to maintain personalization levels. Technical settings like sending domain warmup, time zone consideration, and business day calendar configuration should also be managed.
Performance and Fatigue Management
Measure per-step open rate, reply rate, call pickup rate, and meeting conversion rate, and find points where spam complaints or unsubscribe rates rise to make corrections. Don't contact unresponsive accounts indefinitely—after an appropriate number of touches, move to dormant status or reclassify to a different segment. Periodically refactoring message tone, length, and channel sequence based on feedback maintains long-term performance.
Apply "Cadence" to your global sales strategy
Rinda AI leverages concepts like Cadence to automatically discover and reach out to the right global buyers for your business.