How to start an outbound sales campaign for proptech firms in the UK

Cormac Repman
5 days ago
5 min read

Outbound sales for proptech is a different beast than knocking on fintech doors. The buyer personas are more fragmented, the decision-making is slower, and the gatekeeping is tighter. But the opportunity is massive. UK proptech firms raised over £2.7bn in 2023, and most of them are severely under-penetrated by modern sales tactics.

We've run hundreds of outbound campaigns for fintechs and insurtechs. Here's what we've learned about proptech specifically, and how to build a campaign that actually converts.

Understand your actual buyer

First mistake most proptech campaigns make: they spray broadly. PropTech spans commercial real estate platforms, residential property tech, conveyancing software, property management tools, and dozens of subsegments. Each has different buyer problems.

A conveyancing software vendor needs to reach solicitors and conveyancers. A property management platform needs operations managers or portfolio directors at larger agencies. A construction fintech needs head of finance or project CFOs. These are three completely different decision trees.

Start by narrowing ruthlessly. Pick one buyer title at one company size in one subsegment. Target that vertically before you expand horizontally. We've seen 3-4x higher connect rates when campaigns are laser-focused versus when they spray across five different buyer types.

Document your buyer's day: What keeps them awake? Are they swimming in operational spreadsheets? Dealing with regulatory changes? Losing money to inefficiency? The pain point drives the message, and the message drives the open rate.

Build your UK proptech target list

You need accuracy and comprehensiveness. Generic B2B databases miss nuance. Here's how to build properly:

Start with direct sources. Pull company lists from LinkedIn filtered by: proptech keywords in company description, UK location, company size (usually 50-500 employees is your sweet spot for outbound). Manually review the first 20 companies to spot-check fit.

Cross-reference with industry-specific sources. Check listings from UKTI's fintech and proptech tracker, the Property Tech Association, and Proptech UK events databases (Proptech Expo attendee lists are goldmines). These validate that companies exist and are actually proptech, not just companies with "prop" in their marketing.

For each company, build a contact list. Don't just grab the main company email. Identify:

Operations managers and finance leads (they feel operational pain acutely)

Commercial leads (they own budgets)

Heads of department in the core function your product touches

Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator for precision targeting. Filter by title, seniority, and engagement. Cross-verify emails using MillionVerifier before adding to a campaign (invalid emails tank your sender reputation).

Expect 5-10% of your list to be outdated or invalid after verification. That's normal.

Message timing and channel selection for UK decision-makers

Timing matters. UK business decision-makers typically check email around 9am, 12:30pm, and 4pm. Midweek (Tuesday to Thursday) outperforms Monday and Friday by about 20-30%.

Proptech buyers are harder to reach by phone than fintech. Call connect rates for proptech typically land around 15-22% depending on seniority. That's lower than standard B2B (usually 20-30%) because property professionals are often site-based or in meetings.

Mix your channels:

Email first: Open with one genuine, specific email. Reference their company, a specific product feature they use, or a measurable problem in their space. Generic templates get 2-3% response rates. Specific emails (even if they take longer to write) hit 8-12% among decision-makers.

LinkedIn follow-up: After 3-4 days with no email reply, send a LinkedIn message. Keep it short. "Hey [Name], saw your post about [specific thing], thought this might be relevant..." gets better responses than copy-pasting email into LinkedIn.

Phone: Call 5-7 days after initial email if they've opened it or engaged on LinkedIn. For proptech, have a research angle ready ("We're running a quick survey with property operations teams about [specific process], would you have 10 mins?"). That frames it as research, not a pitch.

Build your messaging around measurable outcomes

Generic proptech pitches die. Specific pitches live.

Instead of "We help proptech firms scale sales", try:

"We placed 14 conversations last month with operations directors at commercial property management platforms. Three turned into pilots. We find and call your actual buyer persona, so your team doesn't have to."

Notice what that does:

Specific number (14 conversations)

Specific buyer (operations directors)

Specific subsegment (commercial property management)

Specific outcome (pilots)

Buyers believe specificity. It signals you know their world, not just B2B sales broadly.

If you're a proptech firm, reference metrics from your own product:

"Property managers using our platform cut admin time by 12 hours per week"

"We've helped 8 conveyancing platforms reduce cycle time by 4 days"

"Our data shows compliance updates take 6-8 weeks for most agencies. We cut that to 10 days."

Real metrics beat aspirational claims.

Structure your follow-up sequence

One email is noise. A sequence is a system.

Email 1 (Day 1): Research angle + specific insight about their company or role.

Email 2 (Day 4): Social proof angle. Drop a case study or metric from a similar company in their vertical (not a competitor, an adjacent player).

LinkedIn message (Day 5): Short, casual. Reference something they posted or follow-up from email angle.

Phone (Day 6-8): Call with specific research angle in mind. Not "I wanted to see if you'd be interested" but "I'm running a quick survey with property teams about how they handle [X], would you have 5 minutes?"

Email 3 (Day 10): Final soft touch. "One last thing I thought might be useful..." + resource or insight, then clear off the list.

We see 12-18% response rates on first email, with another 4-6% responding to the full sequence who didn't respond initially.

Book and qualify aggressively

When you land a conversation, you have one job: get them on a call, not to sell them on the call.

Most proptech founders pitch too early. The first 5 minutes should be discovery. "What's the biggest operational challenge your team faces right now?" Then listen. Proptech buyers are smart and they can smell a premature pitch.

Qualify ruthlessly. Not every conversation should become a meeting with your core team. Some people are curious but not budget-holders. Some have no actual problem. Some just like talking. Only escalate the real opportunity.

Get expert-run campaigns done right

Building this yourself works, but it takes months of learning, testing, and iteration. Most proptech firms don't have spare capacity to run their own cold outbound.

Nurturance runs real outbound campaigns for B2B SaaS through our Glencoco marketplace. We hire and train calling teams who know proptech, fintech, and insurtech space. We handle targeting, messaging, calling, and qualification. You get qualified conversations with actual decision-makers.

No dials-for-dials pricing. No vanity metrics. We charge per confirmed meeting booked on your calendar.

If your proptech firm needs to consistently fill pipeline with real buyers, let's talk. Head to [cal.com link] to book time, or email us at sales@nurturance.uk with your ideal buyer persona.

Real outbound works. It just needs to be done right.