Here’s a situation most sales leaders know well: your SDR team is running solid sequences. The list is clean, the messaging is tight, and the reps are putting in the dials. But connection rates are flat, reply rates are low, and the meetings that do happen feel like starting from scratch every time.

The problem usually isn’t the SDRs. It’s that they’re calling strangers.

No matter how strong your outreach is, cold calls and cold emails hit differently when a prospect has never heard of your company. There’s no familiarity, no context, and no reason to trust you before you’ve had a chance to earn it. You’re asking buyers to give you 30 minutes before you’ve given them a reason to care.

The fix isn’t better sequences. It’s building awareness before your SDRs reach out so that the cold call isn’t really cold anymore.

Stop starting every conversation at zero

Think about what it feels like on the buyer side. A prospect gets an email from your SDR, but they’ve never heard of your company. The email might be relevant, personalized, and well-timed, but their first instinct is to ignore it because they have no frame of reference for who you are.

Now imagine a different scenario: that same prospect has seen your company in their LinkedIn feed a few times over the past few weeks. They clicked on something once. They didn’t fill out a form or raise their hand, but your brand registered. Then your SDR’s email lands in their inbox.

Same email. Completely different reception.

That’s the difference between cold outreach and warm outreach. The gap between the two isn’t luck; it’s strategy.

LinkedIn advertising

Be everywhere your prospects are

One of the most effective ways to build awareness with a target account list is LinkedIn advertising. The platform lets you upload a defined list of companies and serve ads to employees at those organizations, targeting by job title, seniority, or function. That means you can put your brand in front of the exact decision-makers your SDRs are trying to reach, on a channel they’re already using, before a single call ever goes out.

What does this look like in practice?

You’re not running broad awareness ads to everyone on LinkedIn. You’re being surgical. Here’s what a coordinated LinkedIn program looks like running alongside your SDR outreach:

• Promoting a relevant case study to VPs of Sales at 600 specific companies on your call list
• Running a short video about the problem you solve to the exact personas your reps are working
• Retargeting contacts who opened an SDR email but didn’t respond, keeping your brand visible while the rep continues the sequence

The goal isn’t clicks or form fills. It’s recognition. By the time your SDR makes their third call to an account, you want that prospect to already have a feeling of “oh, I’ve seen these guys.”

That small shift in familiarity changes the entire conversation.

Custom content & landing pages

Give reps something to send

LinkedIn advertising builds awareness at the account level. Custom content and landing pages take that a step further by giving your SDRs a way to continue the conversation through content.

Instead of sending a generic follow-up after a cold call, a rep can share a landing page built specifically for the prospect’s industry or use case. Instead of a pitch deck, they can point to a case study that mirrors the prospect’s exact situation. Instead of a product overview, they can send a resource that opens with the problem the prospect is actually trying to solve.

This changes the dynamic of the follow-up. You’re not asking for 30 minutes. You’re offering something useful first, and the content does some of the selling before the next call happens.

A few examples of what this looks like in practice

• A landing page for a specific vertical that opens with a headline about their pipeline challenge, instead of a generic “learn more about us” page
• A case study featuring a company in the same industry with similar growth goals
• A short one-pager built around a specific objection that keeps coming up in discovery calls

When a prospect clicks through and reads that content, they’re not just engaging with a marketing asset. They’re self-qualifying, building context, and getting further along in the process before your rep ever calls back. By the time your SDR follows up, the conversation is warmer (and shorter).

The underlying strategy: account-based marketing

These two tactics, when deployed together, create a coordinated layer of awareness and engagement running alongside your SDR program. LinkedIn advertising builds account-level familiarity, while custom content deepens that engagement and gives SDRs a stronger follow-up motion.

This is an example of account-based marketing (a.k.a. ABM).

ABM is a strategy built for exactly this scenario: a defined list of high-value target accounts where every interaction matters, sales cycles are long, and cold outreach alone isn’t enough to break through. Rather than broadcasting to a large audience and hoping the right buyers find you, ABM coordinates your marketing and sales activity around the same set of accounts, the same personas, and the same message, so every touchpoint reinforces the last one.

It’s not a replacement for your SDR program; it’s the infrastructure that makes your SDR program work harder.

Why ABM and SDR programs are stronger together

Sales teams that layer ABM alongside outbound SDR programs see a few consistent benefits:

1. Better connection rates. When prospects recognize your brand before your rep calls, they’re more likely to pick up, respond to an email, or agree to a meeting. Familiarity reduces friction at every stage of the outreach sequence.
2. Clearer prioritization. ABM programs generate account engagement data (e.g., which companies are clicking on ads, revisiting your content, engaging with your landing pages). That data tells your SDRs who’s warm right now. Instead of working accounts in order, reps prioritize based on real buying signals.
3. Stronger conversations from the first touch. When a prospect has already encountered your content, the first conversation isn’t an introduction. It’s a continuation. SDRs spend less time explaining who they are and more time getting to the actual problem.
4. Faster pipeline progression. Deals move faster when buyers come to the first meeting with context. ABM shortens the “who are you and why should I care?” phase of the sales cycle, which compresses the time from first touch to qualified opportunity.

Who should be running ABM alongside their SDR program?

ABM is most effective when you’re working a defined list of accounts (typically in the range of 500 to 1,000 targets) where average deal values are high and sales cycles are long. If your SDRs are going after a finite universe of high-value accounts and the program is running well but hitting a ceiling, ABM is often the missing layer.

You’re a strong candidate if:

• Your target account list is defined and manageable, not tens of thousands of accounts
• Your SDR connection rates have plateaued or are underperforming
• Your ACV is high enough to justify longer, more coordinated sales cycles
• You’re selling into buying committees where multiple stakeholders need to know your name before anyone agrees to a meeting

If any of those sound familiar, the conversation is worth having.

The bottom line

Cold outreach works better when it’s not cold. Building brand awareness with your target accounts before your SDRs reach out through LinkedIn advertising, custom content, and coordinated follow-up is one of the highest-leverage investments you can make in your pipeline.

What you’re building is not a separate marketing initiative; it’s an extension of your sales program. And when the two work together, your SDRs spend less time introducing themselves and more time closing.

Ready to add air cover to your SDR program? Learn more here or talk to your demandDrive account team about how ABM fits into your current program.

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