How to build a multi-channel cold outreach strategy that actually works

Main takeaways

• Don't rely on one channel alone. Some prospects never pick up the phone. Some never open emails. A multi-channel approach makes sure you actually reach them.
• Start with the phone. It gives you faster feedback than any other channel and helps you validate your targeting before scaling to email and LinkedIn.
• The goal isn't to do more. It's to do each channel well. A sloppy three-channel sequence won't outperform one channel done right.

You sent 200 cold emails last week.

Open rate? Decent. Reply rate? Close to zero.

So you doubled down. More emails. Better subject lines. A/B tests on every variable.

Still nothing.

Here's what most salespeople get wrong: they treat cold outreach like a single-channel game. They pick email because it scales. Or they pick the phone because it feels more personal. But they rarely combine both.

The result? They miss the prospects who would've responded on the other channel.

Pauline Perez, a cold calling trainer with 12 years of experience has a different take on the topic: the best outreach strategies use multiple channels together. Not because more is better, but because different people respond to different things.

This guide breaks down how to build a multi-channel cold outreach strategy, with practical advice you can apply this week.

Why you shouldn't limit yourself to cold email

Cold email is popular for a reason. It scales well, costs little, and doesn't require you to talk to anyone.

But it has a fundamental problem: people ignore it.

Pauline sees this pattern constantly. Salespeople lean on automation and wait for results to come in. As she puts it:

“The average salesman has never been trained on the phone. So when he had tools that allowed him to do automated prospecting, he thought it was great, I automate something, x messages go out, and I don’t have to do anything and I wait.”

That passive approach is tempting. It's also why inboxes are overflowing and reply rates keep dropping.

Cold email alone leaves gaps in your pipeline

Some prospects will never reply to an email. Not because your copy is bad. Because email just isn't how they communicate.

Pauline explains the math simply:

“Some will never pick up the phone. Some will never respond to a LinkedIn message and some will never respond by email.”

If you're only using one channel, you're structurally missing a portion of your target market. Not because of bad targeting. Because of bad distribution.

The phone gives you something email can't: instant feedback

The biggest advantage of the phone over email isn't conversion rate. It's speed of learning.

When you call, you know within seconds if your targeting is right, if your hook resonates, and if there's a real need. Email gives you that feedback in days, if at all.

Pauline is direct about this:

“Cold calling is the most effective way for me to contact a prospect because the moment the person picks up, it’s yes or it’s no, but in any case, I don’t wait for an email response indefinitely.”

That speed matters when you're building a new outreach campaign. Calling first helps you validate your Ideal Customer Profile before you invest time writing email sequences.

The more digital the world gets, the more the phone stands out

This is counterintuitive, but Pauline has seen it play out over 12 years.

As inboxes get noisier and LinkedIn gets spammier, a well-placed phone call becomes more distinctive. Not less.

“The more we digitize, the more these people need human contact. And the phone, if it’s done well (…) it’s really very impactful.”

The key phrase there is “done well.” A bad cold call is worse than no call at all. But a good one creates a connection that no email template can match.

Which multi-channel strategies work?

So you're convinced: one channel isn't enough. The next question is practical. How do you actually combine them?

Start with the phone, then layer in email and LinkedIn

Pauline's preferred order is clear. Start calling first.

“Me, I like to start with the phone. Because that’s what’s going to bring results the quickest and that’s what’s also going to let us know if we have the right target.”

Here's why this order makes sense for small sales teams:

• Calling first validates your targeting. If nobody picks up, or everyone says “that’s not my department,” you'll know within a day that something is off. With email, you might wait two weeks before drawing the same conclusion.
• It gives you material for your emails. After 20 calls, you'll know exactly which pain points resonate. That knowledge makes your email copy significantly better.
• It shows confidence. Prospects who see a missed call, then get a LinkedIn request, then receive a relevant email, perceive you as serious.

The LinkedIn-first approach works too, once you're confident in your target

Once you've validated your targeting and messaging through calls, you can flip the sequence.

Pauline does this with established clients:

“When you’re sure of yourself, that it works, starting with LinkedIn and email won’t hurt to gain time.”

She describes a concrete workflow: send a LinkedIn invite, follow up with two LinkedIn messages and three emails. If there's still no response, pick up the phone.

This approach works best when your ICP is well-defined and your Sales Book is already battle-tested. It lets you reach more people without sacrificing quality.

There's no single “right” sequence

If you're looking for a universal playbook, you won't find one.

Pauline is clear about it:

“There’s no good or bad way, let’s say. There’s no good or bad sense, you see, you have to do it.”

What matters is that you adapt the sequence to your context. A few factors to consider:

• Your target's habits. Are they active on LinkedIn? Do they pick up their phone? Some industries barely use email for external communication. You need to go where your prospects actually are.
• Your team's strengths. If your reps are strong on the phone, lean into it. If they write well, lead with email. Play to what already works while building skills in the weaker channels.
• The buying stage. A first touch might work better on LinkedIn (low commitment). A follow-up after no response might work better on the phone (harder to ignore).

The real skill is doing each channel well, not doing all of them at once

This is where most teams go wrong. They hear “multi-channel” and immediately try to run sequences across phone, email, LinkedIn, and SMS simultaneously. Before they've mastered any of them.

Pauline's philosophy is simple:

“I think today the subject isn’t whether we favor one over the other. It’s to do everything correctly. Do well.”

Start with two channels. Get good at them. Then add a third.

For most small sales teams, that means phone + email first. LinkedIn comes next once the first two are generating consistent results.

Don't forget callbacks: the forgotten channel

One of Pauline's most practical tactics isn't about adding a new channel. It's about using the phone channel more strategically.

She regularly calls back prospects who said “no” months earlier:

“What we do now is for our clients we’ve been working with for a while, we always do callbacks of people who weren’t interested the year before.”

The results speak for themselves:

“In November, I called all the CFOs who had told us no and we generated three meetings.”

People's situations change. Budgets open up. Competitors disappoint. A “no” today isn't necessarily a “no” forever. Build those callbacks into your multi-channel sequence as a recurring step, not an afterthought.

What about voicemails and SMS?

Two channels that often come up in multi-channel discussions are voicemails and SMS. Pauline has a strong opinion on both:

• On voicemails: She never leaves them. Her reasoning is practical. If you leave a voicemail saying who you are and why you're calling, the prospect may block your number. Then you can never call them again. “If you leave a voicemail (…) what I do is I block the number after. So in fact afterwards, I could never call the person back.” The exception: when someone has already booked a meeting and isn't picking up. That's a follow-up, not a cold outreach.
• On SMS: Pauline doesn't use SMS for B2B prospecting. It's too personal a channel for a first touch with someone who doesn't know you.

Your tools need to talk to each other

Running a multi-channel strategy without integrated tools is a recipe for chaos. Pauline has seen it firsthand.

She describes a client who used a transcription tool but manually copied summaries into his CRM. The result?

“Not even three times out of five, it’s not put.”

The data was lost more often than it was saved.

Her rule is straightforward:

“The goal today is that everything you do, you do it only once.”

If your phone system doesn't sync with your CRM, you'll spend your evenings on data entry instead of preparing tomorrow's calls.

That means your phone tool, your CRM, and your email platform need to be connected. Natively, not through copy-paste.