Is cold calling dead?

As inbound marketers, we have a tendency to go back to the idea of ​​calling our prospects cold. Usually, we think of cold calling as a violation of incoming best practices.

“Cold calls refer to calling a potential customer with whom you have not previously connected before sending them an email or calling them on the phone to tell them about your product or service.” That does not mean that the person you are calling has never heard or expressed interest in your product or service. It simply means they haven’t asked you to call them. Cold calls are not dead, and inbound marketers do it all the time. But in the era of inbound marketing, the way we practice cold calling has evolved.

But in the last 40 years, a variety of more effective alternatives have emerged. While it is likely that it is naive to say that cold calls are never effective, useful or necessary, it is crucial to raise the rest of your prospecting strategy so that it is never your starting tactic.

So before you pick up the phone, consider the following reasons why you should give cold calls the cold shoulder:

• It’s Outdated
• It Wastes Time
• It’s Irritating
• It is infuriating for employees

Why cold calls are not dead

Although social networks, mobile text messages, email and other online applications have made cold calls seem a bit outdated, it is still valuable to pick up the phone and have a conversation directly with a person.

While all of these things have changed the sales game, here are some reasons why you can’t completely rule out cold calls.While the digital age accelerated things without much verbal interaction, we have reached a point where human interaction is important again.

Chabot’s, Slack, an influx of email, social messaging has made everything feel more impersonal. By picking up the phone and talking to someone, that human element returns to sales and business conversations.

Inbound Cold Calling: Fetch and Analysis

You may not be convinced yet! But the same chart says that almost three quarters of buyers choose the first seller to provide value and information, and that is the key. Traditional cold calls are abrupt, invasive and often occur before a potential customer has heard of your brand. Traditional cold calling drives an immediate sale.

On the contrary, an inbound sale is about adding value before extracting value. The objective of the initial contact should not be to sell your product or service, but to be useful and provide value.

If you are operating in an incoming way, then you have probably identified through your investigation the person of the person you are calling and have some knowledge about your pain points and common challenges. When you receive them by phone, you should be able to start addressing those challenges immediately and provide that value.

The most effective cold calling approaches involve delivering content to your prospects even before the initial call through emails, social networks and videos. In New Breed, our dissemination process consists of sending a personalized video to present to our sellers, so that potential customers can put face to the people with whom they are talking and think if it is worth or not to receive a call from us.

Depending on how the prospects interact with your content, you can gain a better understanding of the challenges and needs that you must address during the call. Look out of your own content too; you may also be able to obtain additional information of the interest of a potential customer in the content of other brands.

Cold calls is not dead, it’s just expanded.

The end result: if you call without context, you are also wasting your time.

Today’s consumers have an extremely negative visceral reaction by having products stuck in the throat. By doing your research and disclosure in advance, you can align the buying stage of a potential customer with your sales approach for a more relevant and meaningful conversation during the call.

Remember, at the heart of inbound marketing there is a genuine desire to be useful, humane and holistic. It’s time to reinvent the way you practice cold calling to provide more value to your prospects and, ultimately, more success for your business.

The key to any sales reach is that it adds value with every touch. Telephone, email, social networks, etc., if you are not providing solutions to problems and value, why should prospects worry?

Even in this extremely digital atmosphere, cold calls are certainly not dead, but it may not be your only sales tactic.

Also, the battle between people over whether cold calls are dead or if social sales are better is really a waste of time. Because combining these and other sales tactics together will ensure that the conversations have a favorable outcome independently.