In 2022, there are more ways for businesses to connect with customers than ever before. Business owners from decades ago would have their jaws dropped if they could see the cavalcade of marketing opportunities provided by the modern moment.
However, the trouble today isn’t finding the opportunity to connect with a consumer, but finding a way to cut through the noise. The average person spends hours and hours on their virtual devices, but that doesn’t mean that digital marketing is always the smart way to go.
Cold calling, believe it or not, still is just as effective as a marketing tactic. While many people feel as if cold calling is dead, it can actually help cut through the noise and connect you with a consumer far better than many other kinds of marketing.
What do you need to know about cold calling and why might it be a strategy worth implementing in your business? Read on.
What Is Cold Calling?
Let us start with the basics. If you’re not familiar, cold calling is the act of phoning a potential lead that knows very little about your company before your initial contact. The ‘cold’ in cold calling refers to this relative lack of knowledge about your brand and product prior to the call.
The whole art of cold calling is in the attempt to turn this ‘cold’ prospect into a ‘warm’ customer.
Depending on your business and industry, these kinds of cold calls might be made to other businesses or directly to individual consumers. It all depends on who your target market is and who you’re trying to sell to.
Where do businesses get their cold call numbers from? Some purchase lead lists or number databases from other third-party data providers.
Others still, get these new numbers as referrals from customers they’ve made in the past, or those they pick up from word-of-mouth and other in-person events. Sometimes, businesses might even do the work of collecting numbers from around the web.
Phone numbers can be found everywhere: on websites, in email signatures, on LinkedIn, and other such profile-based websites.
Defining a “Cold Call”
While cold calling specifically refers to the art of telecommunications, the same philosophy is often applied to cold e-mailing or cold direct messaging. For the purposes of this piece, however, we’ll keep your attention trained on connecting with potential leads over the phone.
Exactly how cold a potential lead is will also depend on the situation. A prospect may have a mild awareness of your business and product, or they might have no idea at all.
Some sort of lack of awareness is an essential element. If a customer has a deep awareness of you as a business, or is a former customer, reaching out to them would not be considered a cold call.
Does Cold Calling Still Work?
There is an idea out there that since the invention of the internet has transformed marketing, cold calling is no longer effective or necessary. This simply isn’t true.
Every kind of business, from the massive and well-known to the local and relatively small, uses cold calling. One can’t argue that cold calling isn’t still a major factor when huge companies still employ Lead Generation Services to do this kind of task every day.
There are many benefits of cold calling that no other form of lead generation can live up to. It’s due to these many benefits that companies continue to pick up the phone and dial.
82% of buyers have admitted to taking a meeting with a salesperson after accepting a cold call. That’s a huge, huge percentage. If you discount the potential power of cold calling, you’re turning your back on those kinds of numbers.
Of course, cold calling is a difficult task, and getting that connection to happen can feel like finding a needle in a haystack. That’s because many companies don’t have the skills needed to make cold calling work, and they refuse to hire services that could help make it easier.
If you think you’re going to tackle your cold calling on your own, there are a number of tips and tricks you’re going to want to get familiar with.
Cold Calling Tips and Tricks
What are some of the most important things to keep in mind when cold calling? There are a number of important details to remember, and each could continue to the overall success of your cold calling enterprise.
Obtain Quality Leads
One important thing to keep in mind when it comes to crafting your cold calling lists is that quality is more important than quantity. Proper research is key when crafting a list of contacts.
If you spend your time calling potential leads who have no need for your business’ services, it will only be your own fault when everyone turns you down.
Ensuring your contacting customers who have a need that you can fill will be essential to your overall success. Make sure you keep track of who you speak to and log if it’s someone you might want to revisit later on.
Likewise, keep track of who really isn’t interested. The last thing you want to do is waste further time later on with leads who are never going to bite.
Determine Best Times to Call
Depending on what kind of work you do, the best time to call your potential clients and leads will differ. It all depends on who your target audience is and what their lives are like.
It will take a little trial and error to get this right. Make a note as you begin your cold calling efforts if there is a certain time of day you tend to make a better sale.
If there is, begin to hone your efforts into this kind of time window.
Try To Engage
One of the reasons cold calling is so effective is that it allows actual human-to-human connection to occur. In a world of marketing that has become more and more automated, this can be a huge advantage. It allows you to cut through the noise and connect with someone’s true self.
A lot of people ruin this opportunity by acting as sales robots as soon as they get someone on the phone.
Avoid the impulse to land a sale right away. The more you can provoke an engaging human conversation with the person on the line, the more likely it is they will open themselves to the possibility of a sale.
Yes, it’s important to keep your end goal in mind, but not at the cost of throwing away the benefits you have at your disposal.
Benefits of Cold Calling
Speaking of benefits, why is cold calling something you should be sure to consider? The tips and tricks above can help you get it right, but why put in the effort to take on this kind of marketing strategy?
Cold calling, as we’ve mentioned, is one of the most direct forms of marketing one can engage in. Today, the average consumer is harassed by hours of indirect marketing every day. They get ads in the mail, on tv, on their phones, on the radio, and so on. They are surrounded at all times with business-speak.
This is all well and good, but it makes it easy for everything to get lost amidst the noise. A direct form of marketing like cold calling allows you to push yourself to the top of a potential customer’s mind.
It makes you stand out from the crowd, create a personal relationship, and get to know the type of people your business might want to work with.
That’s not the only benefit, of course, even if it is the major bottom line.
In addition, cold calling happens to be one of the most cost-effective forms of business marketing.
It doesn’t cost too much to pick up the phone and dial, after all, and the returns can be better than more costly ads you put elsewhere.
There’s a flexibility to cold calling that also benefits companies. Cold calling can be done from just about anywhere, at any time, with little planning needed to be done ahead of time. That means less money needed on tech, and more flexibly allowed for your employees.
In addition, that means you can more easily re-engineer your strategy and adjust to changes, should they arise.
Understanding Cold Calling
If you’re looking to connect with new leads in 2022, you might be considering what type of marketing strategy you want to deploy. Despite what you may have heard, cold calling is one such strategy that you’ll want to take very seriously. The above information can help you to understand why.
Need more marketing tips and tricks? Keep scrolling our blog for more.
