Every outreach term, explained.

B2B prospecting is the work of identifying and reaching out to potential business customers to create sales opportunities. It combines building a targeted list of the right accounts and people, then contacting them through outreach.

A Business Development Representative (BDR) is a salesperson focused on generating new pipeline, often through outbound prospecting. The BDR and SDR titles overlap heavily; some teams use BDR for outbound and SDR for inbound, but usage varies.

A cold email is an unsolicited email sent to a prospect you have no prior relationship with, aiming to start a conversation. Effective cold emails are short, specific to the recipient, and lead with one clear reason to reply.

Cold outreach is contacting prospects who have no existing relationship with you, through channels like email, LinkedIn, phone, or video, to generate interest and start sales conversations. The cold refers to the absence of prior contact, not the tone.

Warm-up is the process of gradually increasing sending activity on a new email domain or LinkedIn account to build a healthy reputation. Ramping up slowly signals to providers that you are a real, trustworthy sender rather than a spammer.

Email deliverability is the ability of your emails to reach the recipient's inbox rather than the spam folder or being blocked. It depends on your domain reputation, authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), sending volume, and content.

An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is a description of the type of company that gets the most value from your product and is easiest to sell to and retain. It defines who you target, based on attributes like industry, size, and role.

Lead generation is the process of finding and attracting potential customers and capturing their interest. In B2B outbound, it means identifying the right prospects and starting conversations that turn into qualified opportunities.

LinkedIn automation is the use of software to run repetitive LinkedIn outreach tasks, such as sending connection requests, messages, and follow-ups, on a schedule, so a rep can reach more prospects without doing each action by hand.

A LinkedIn connection request is an invitation to add someone to your network. Adding a short, personalized note (up to 300 characters) that gives a genuine reason to connect significantly increases acceptance rates over a blank request.

InMail is LinkedIn's paid messaging feature that lets you send direct messages to people you are not connected with. It is available through LinkedIn premium and Sales Navigator plans, with a limited number of credits per month.

Multichannel outreach is reaching prospects across more than one channel, such as LinkedIn and email, within a coordinated sequence. Showing up in multiple places makes you more memorable and consistently outperforms single-channel outreach.

A personalized video is a sales video tailored to a specific recipient, referencing their name, company, or other details, rather than a single generic recording sent to everyone. Personalization is what makes video outreach feel one-to-one.

Reply rate is the percentage of outreach messages that receive a response. It is the core health metric for cold outreach: a rising reply rate means your targeting, timing, and message are working, regardless of how many messages you send.

A sales cadence is the timing and rhythm of your outreach touches: how many, on which channels, and how far apart. The terms cadence and sequence are often used interchangeably, though cadence emphasizes the schedule and sequence emphasizes the steps.

A Sales Development Representative (SDR) is a salesperson focused on the top of the funnel: prospecting, qualifying leads, and booking meetings for account executives to close. SDRs handle outbound outreach rather than closing deals themselves.

A sales sequence is a predefined series of outreach touches, across channels like LinkedIn and email, delivered on a schedule to move a prospect from cold to booked. Each step adds a new angle rather than repeating the same message.

Social selling is the practice of using social networks, primarily LinkedIn, to find, connect with, and build relationships with prospects rather than cold calling or mass emailing. The goal is to earn trust and start conversations before ever pitching.

The Social Selling Index (SSI) is a LinkedIn score from 0 to 100 that measures how effectively you use LinkedIn to build a professional brand, find the right people, engage with insights, and build relationships. A higher SSI generally correlates with more room for outreach activity before LinkedIn applies limits.

Video prospecting is using short, personalized videos as an outreach touch to book meetings. A video stands out in a crowded inbox or LinkedIn DM because it proves a real person is behind the message and is far harder to ignore than text.