Definition

Sales cadence is a structured sequence of coordinated outreach activities across multiple channels including email, phone, social media, and direct mail, organized with specific timing, messaging, and purpose to systematically engage prospects and advance sales opportunities.

What is Sales Cadence?

Sales cadence emerged as a formal sales concept in the early 2010s as organizations sought more systematic approaches to prospect engagement beyond ad-hoc outreach. Early cadences typically focused on simple email or call sequences with limited coordination across channels or personalization capabilities.

Today, sales cadence has evolved into a sophisticated, multi-channel discipline combining strategic planning, content alignment, and precise timing. Modern cadences leverage advanced technologies to coordinate touchpoints across numerous channels while adapting to prospect responses and engagement patterns. Sales intelligence platforms like Saber enhance cadence effectiveness by providing insights about prospect preferences and behaviors that inform channel selection, identifying optimal timing windows based on engagement patterns, and delivering intelligence about prospect priorities that enables more relevant, personalized messaging within structured sequences.

How Sales Cadence Works

Sales cadence creates systematic, strategic engagement paths that coordinate multiple touchpoints into coherent conversation flows rather than disconnected outreach attempts.

• Sequence Design: Planning the specific order, timing, and channel mix of outreach activities to create natural conversation progression while maintaining appropriate frequency without overwhelming prospects.

• Channel Orchestration: Coordinating complementary touchpoints across multiple communication channels including email, phone, voicemail, social media, video, and direct mail to leverage the unique strengths of each medium.

• Message Alignment: Developing cohesive content themes that build across multiple touchpoints, with each interaction advancing the narrative while maintaining consistent positioning and value propositions.

• Adaptive Pathing: Creating conditional branches and response-based routing that adapts the sequence based on prospect engagement, automatically adjusting subsequent steps based on how prospects interact with previous outreach.

• Purpose Progression: Structuring cadence steps with specific objectives that evolve throughout the sequence, typically advancing from awareness and credibility-building through education and value demonstration to specific call-to-action.

Example of a Sales Cadence

A B2B software company implements a sophisticated, multi-channel sales cadence for engaging senior decision-makers at enterprise accounts. The carefully orchestrated 21-day sequence begins with a personalized LinkedIn connection request referencing specific initiatives identified through research. Three days later, it continues with a tailored email sharing a relevant industry insight and case study, followed by a voicemail on day five that references the email content while adding new value rather than simply checking in. On day seven, the cadence includes a personalized video message addressing specific challenges research suggests the prospect's organization is facing. Day nine features a second email with different but complementary content focusing on ROI metrics relevant to the prospect's role. The sequence continues with strategically timed touchpoints including a direct mail package containing a printed industry report with personalized note (day 12), a follow-up call referencing the sent materials (day 14), a third email sharing a relevant customer success story (day 17), and a final break-up" email on day 21 that respectfully concludes the sequence while leaving the door open for future engagement. Each touchpoint builds on previous communications while introducing new value