Which SDR Strategies Will Thrive or Dive in 2025?
See which SDR tactics will thrive this year, which will dive, and how AiSDR can help
With fierce competition and a ton of shiny AI sales tools on the market, old-school sales strategies have taken a hit. This might even leave you wondering which SDR strategies will work in 2025 and which are headed for the scrap heap.
Don’t panic though.
We’ve got you covered.
Here’s a peek into what we see for sales in 2025 so that you can get a head start on your SDR strategy.
SDR tactics and sale trends to watch
We’re not Nostradamus, but there’s one thing we can be sure of.
AI will continue to make its mark on sales processes.
Here are a few AI-related sales predictions we have for 2025.
AI-powered support will become a must
Like it or hate it, AI will handle the grunt work of sales — data management, sales outreach, personalization, and lead research — freeing up reps to focus on actual selling .
According to Gartner, agentic AI and other AI assistants could make up to 15% of day-to-day work decisions autonomously by 2028.
Generative AI as a whole looks promising as nearly 21% of companies report that they’ve fully implemented generative AI in B2B buying and selling.
Early adopters seem positive about the technology’s potential for improved efficiency, top-line growth, and customer experience.
All of this leads to higher productivity for AI-assisted sales teams.
McKinsey expects that AI will add trillions of dollars in productivity to the global economy in the near future, bringing 75% of value to customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering, and R&D.
In other words, ignore AI for sales at your own peril.
There are already AI SDRs that can draft emails in your voice, prioritize high-value accounts, and predict when a client might need a follow-up while you’re prepping for your next meeting.
So what’s the hot take?
If AI sales tools were an optional investment in 2023-24, they’re now a must if you don’t want to fall behind.
The rise of relationship builders
In 2025, successful sales reps won’t just close deals — they’ll be acting as trusted advisors, helping clients through complex decisions and helping them see the value their product brings.
Sure, SDRs will need to master AI tools and apply insights to build deeper, value-driven relationships. But most importantly, with AI automating routine tasks, human sellers will need to level up in areas like empathy, strategic thinking, and operational skills.
Take, for example, the future of client interactions. AI can deliver industry-specific insights in seconds, but what about the finesse of interpreting and applying these insights to a client’s unique challenges? That’s a human superpower.
Think of it as a partnership where AI lays the groundwork, and humans seal the deal.
Dedicated reps for high-value accounts
High-stakes accounts will remain firmly in the hands of experienced reps, but with a twist: AI will become their silent partner, helping identify opportunities, map out client pain points, and even recommend negotiation strategies.
And since AI will free up sales agents from mundane tasks, they’ll have more time to dedicate to high-value accounts and their needs. This hybrid approach — AI for precision, humans for connection — ensures that major accounts get the white-glove treatment they demand.
The key takeaway:
Sales in 2025 will be less about juggling tasks and more about blending tech-driven insights with uniquely human expertise.
Which sales roles will be in demand the most?
Relationships and roles in sales teams are evolving based on three main drivers:
- SDR work is no longer just about closing deals. Many sales professionals are transitioning into a role combining consultant, tech guru, and relationship-builder, if not a GTM engineer.
- Buyer’s journeys are more complex. Buyers want personalized service. This means understanding their needs, staying ahead of market trends, and using tools to work smarter.
- Collaboration between sales and marketing is increasing. Both teams need to work hand-in-hand and align their goals to ensure smoother customer journeys.
Here are some of the specific sales roles that are changing thanks to AI.
AI assistants and their managers
AI assistants are still in their infancy, but they’ve hit sales like a bullet train. This isn’t surprising if you look at the benefits in terms of personalized engagement, efficiency, and more precise sales strategy.
These features all serve the same goals — boosting efficiency, reducing manual workload, and enhancing sales strategies’ precision, allowing human reps to focus on relationship-building and closing deals.
Still, AI tools aren’t human. They need to be trained and managed by professionals skilled in CRM management, data analytics, and sales workflows. Sales teams also need to understand how to interpret AI output effectively.
While managing and training AI assistants will likely not be a separate role, this responsibility will be added to a sales team’s job.
Inside SDRs/BDRs
The core work of inside SDR and BDRs — generating and qualifying leads outbound and inbound nurturing through calls, emails, LinkedIn outreach, and other remote communication channels — will remain the same.
Still, the approach to work will be different. AI tools will handle most of the manual parts of the job, while human reps will focus on building connections and bringing value to prospects. As a result, the big change for inside SDR and BDR roles in 2025 will be a greater focus on communication skills and proficiency in sales automation tools.
If anything, the number of SDRs and BDRs a company needs might drop as fewer are required to handle larger volumes of leads.
That doesn’t mean jobs will be lost though.
If anything, there will likely be a corresponding increase in account executives, go-to-market engineering specialists, or full-stack sales reps (more on those below).
Outside sales reps
As much as most of us love video calls and online communication, in-person contact still plays a key role in B2B sales (especially if you’re selling a physical product rather than software).
In-person contact offers a deeper connection between companies and leads, and it’s often what pushes a deal over the line. That’s why we’ll still need outside sales reps who are able to work with leads offline.
Still, AI is capable of helping outside reps handle qualification and messaging, allowing outside reps to focus on face-to-face meetings, attend industry events, and develop personal relationships with key decision-makers. These team members will need exceptional interpersonal skills, deep product and market knowledge, and negotiation expertise to drive sales and revenue and build trust for the company.
Account executives
The AE role won’t be much different in 2025: they’ll still take qualified leads from SDRs and turn them into customers through presentations, demos, and tailored proposals.
Persuasive communication, advanced negotiation skills, and proficiency with CRM and automation tools will be as much required as today, but with a stronger focus on personalization, strategic thinking, and the ability to use AI for both.
Full-stack sales reps
A big change in the near future could be the emergence of a full-stack sales rep, following the widespread adoption of AI. This would be similar to a hybrid of all the above roles and responsibilities, from prospecting to closing and post-sale follow-ups.
Until recently, such a role would have been impossible since the workload in anything beyond a small startup would be huge. But with AI tools, it’s now absolutely possible for larger companies to manage sales with less headcount.
Full-stack sales reps need a combination of SDR, AE, and customer success skills, as well as the ability to be resourceful, tech-savvy, and highly organized to juggle multiple responsibilities effectively.
But since they have AI assistants to handle mundane, time-draining tasks, this role might become a viable alternative to a traditional team of sales employees.
Both full-stack sales reps and AI-assisted sales teams will still need to focus on the right sales strategies and SDR outreach tactics to get results. And for that, they need to know the answer to one question.
Which SDR outreach tactics will thrive or dive in 2025?
Here’s our take on which strategies and approaches to sales will continue to thrive in 2025 and which might see a drop.
THRIVE – Lead nurturing
Lead nurturing will never go old. Consistent, value-driven follow-ups build trust and keep prospects engaged through longer B2B sales cycles.
Considering that the average sales cycle is from 70 to 155 days, depending on the industry, leads have plenty of opportunities to turn their attention to other brands or solutions if they don’t see value in your product and get attention from your team.
So, despite changes in the sales process, nurturing will continue to thrive as a sales strategy.
How AiSDR helps
AiSDR takes the guesswork out of lead nurturing by automating personalized content and perfectly timed follow-ups.
Whether it’s warming up cold leads with tailored messaging or fine-tuning inbound engagement using HubSpot data, AiSDR crafts messages that match a lead’s intent and buyer journey stage. Customizable properties and smart adjustments keep prospects feeling valued and moving forward.
DIVE – Traditional cold email
Traditional cold email SDR strategies — like basic templates and “spray and pray” bulk emailing — are already losing ground due to stricter regulations and aggressive filtering by email service providers. These providers now flag AI-generated content and penalize accounts flagged for spam-like behavior.
So, while official mailing quotas may not change significantly in 2025, the risk of suspension will be higher. This shrinking window for sales outreach makes cold email less viable as a scalable strategy.
How AiSDR helps
AiSDR can help with cold SDR outreach strategy by generating high-quality, compliant emails that meet ESP guidelines.
For example, AiSDR double-checks all contact data to ensure a bounce rate under 5% and pauses email sending after getting out-of-office autoreply. It also continuously adapts email practices, monitors performance metrics, and optimizes content to ensure open rates are maxed, emails land in inboxes, and accounts stay safe.
THRIVE – Account-based targeting
Account-based targeting will thrive because AI assistance can do so much of the account identification and research legwork for you. A narrower focus on fewer accounts means SDRs can tailor their sales outreach better, resulting in better engagement and conversion rates.
How AiSDR helps
AiSDR searches for companies that match your ideal customer profile in its 700M+ leads database.
When it finds a match, it checks websites, news, and social media to see if the prospect has purchase intent. It also analyzes behavioral patterns during communication to craft hyper-personalized messaging that hits the point.
Finally, AiSDR automates follow-ups and optimizes outreach timing, helping SDRs focus on relationship-building and pay more attention to high-value accounts. All these features work together to ensure no opportunity slips through the cracks.
DIVE – Mass outreach
Generic mass outreach has been losing ground for a while, but some companies still opt for the numbers game of quantity over quality. In 2025, this approach should definitely become history. Over 80% of customers prefer a company that offers a personalized experience. Generic messaging fails to resonate, leading to lower response rates and diminished credibility.
How AiSDR helps
AiSDR pulls from multiple data sources — like contact info, LinkedIn activity, CRM records, intent data, web searches, and even social media — to craft hyper-relevant content. This ensures that every email, follow-up, or pitch aligns perfectly with your prospect’s context and needs.
And AiSDR doesn’t stop at messaging — it elevates your whole strategy with built-in sales expertise. The platform incorporates best practices and email frameworks developed by over 50 industry leaders. You can also fine-tune AiSDR for specific sales personas, meaning your messages don’t just connect with the recipient but also stay true to your brand’s tone, values, and style.
THRIVE – Email frameworks
Forget pre-filled content templates — they’re outdated and too rigid to adapt to incoming requests. Email frameworks have replaced templates as a flexible but structured guide that empowers sales reps to create tailored emails while maintaining consistency.
If templates were cookie cutters with minimal room for personalization, frameworks are more like Lego sets. They let you adjust individual pieces like subject lines or calls to action to fit specific goals or audiences. This flexibility doesn’t just keep messaging fresh; it improves engagement by allowing creativity to shine.
How AiSDR helps
AiSDR comes prepped with a library of customizable email frameworks for different outreach goals, including:
- Attention–Interest–Desire–Action (AIDA)
- Problem–Agitate–Solution (PAS)
- Brevity–Bluntness–Basic (3-B)
- Jobs-to-Be-Done
These frameworks are fully adjustable, so you can tweak every aspect to match your tone, goal, or audience, and AiSDR will generate sales outreach that stands out every time and consistently avoids spam and the risks of being blocked.
THRIVE – Email infrastructure set-up
Email infrastructure is the software and hardware that manages your email delivery, including mail servers, mail agents, and IP addresses. If you don’t set it up right, no personalization and expertly crafted messages will help you get through “technical issues” and deliver your email to leads mailboxes.
Weak infrastructure can leave your system vulnerable to hacker attacks such as hijacked email addresses and forged content. And even a standard infrastructure can damage your sender reputation and lower deliverability rates if it’s poorly configured. That’s why setting up a robust email infrastructure will always be part of a good sales strategy.
How AiSDR helps
AiSDR establishes new domains with redirects to your primary website, ensuring the safety of your main domain. Each domain has three mailboxes configured with essential email authentication protocols like DMARC, DKIM, and SPF. Profile photos are added to these mailboxes to build trust from your first message.
AiSDR also warms up new mailboxes and adjusts your messaging so you don’t trigger anti-spam filters, blocks, and suspensions by using multiple domains and mailboxes to keep email volume under limits.
DIVE – Text-only prospecting
Text-based prospecting will dive in a world dominated by social media and visual content. Buyers prefer richer, more engaging formats like videos or memes, which convey messages more effectively and build rapport faster than plain text.
How AiSDR helps
AiSDR can generate text emails but make them more interesting and engaging with relevant memes tailored to each lead.
It can also generate AI-personalized videos, making outreach more dynamic and memorable. These SDR tactics help your email stand out in lead inboxes.
THRIVE – Multi-channel engagement
Multi-channel engagement isn’t a new SDR strategy, and it will continue to thrive as prospects like to choose how they will interact with a company — via LinkedIn, email, mobile message, or live chat. Reaching prospects through multiple channels increases visibility and gives more opportunities for connection.
But multiple channels alone aren’t enough — they have to be connected, so if a lead switches channel or doesn’t respond, you have all the information at your fingertips to pick up the conversation elsewhere.
How AiSDR helps
AiSDR supports multi-channel engagement by integrating LinkedIn, email, and text outreach into a unified strategy. For example, with AiSDR, you can:
- Send an initial outreach email
- Send a text follow-up, like “Hey! Ben from AiSDR here. Did you catch my email?”
- Send a follow-up email
- Send a LinkedIn connection request when a lead opens your email
- Send a LinkedIn message follow-up soon after the request is accepted
- Send a follow-up email
This cadence is customizable, and you can use the frameworks you like most. AiSDR tracks responses and helps optimize messaging across platforms.
THRIVE – Cadence optimization
If you don’t remind leads and customers about your brand often enough, they forget you. If you bombard them with emails, they get annoyed and start ignoring you.
Optimized cadences work because they balance persistence with non-intrusiveness, ensuring SDRs follow up at the right intervals without overwhelming prospects.
A well-structured cadence improves engagement rates and reduces drop-offs, which keeps this strategy highly relevant.
How AiSDR helps
AiSDR automates cadence scheduling across multiple channels, analyzing engagement data to determine optimal timing. AiSDR also offers A/B testing, so you can check and determine when your leads respond better and how frequently you need to send them nurturing emails or follow-ups.
THRIVE – Intent data utilization
Using intent data and signals will thrive as part of your SDR strategy because it lets reps identify prospects who are actively researching solutions and reach them at precisely the right time.
By understanding a lead’s intent, sales reps can accurately identify the stage of a buyer’s journey and find the best approach, content, and offer to move them to the next stage. This data-driven approach increases the likelihood of meaningful engagement and conversion.
How AiSDR helps
AiSDR takes intent data to the next level by spotting companies ready to buy and pinpointing the right decision-makers to reach out to.
It filters prospects using signals like company similarities, funding news, hiring activity, tech usage, and even media or web mentions, making it easy to create relevant, personalized outreach campaigns.
