The Horrifying Reality of Cold Calling

What's your favorite scary movie?

Mine's the one where your sales team is wasting all of their time calling people who have no interest in your company or service.

All that wasted time, effort, and money. It's chilling.

I mean, let's say for the sake of argument that you don't enjoy wasting time. Safe assumption? I think so.

But here's the thing, there are still many marketing tactics performed by businesses and marketers everywhere that have simply lost effectiveness, or in most cases, have been replaced by more effective, modern methods.

Take the Internet for example. It's enabled buyers to conduct more product research and even company research before they are good and ready to buy. Buyers have taken a great deal of power back from the sellers due to the Internet and the speed and availability at which we receive and digest information.

So why are so many salespeople still relying on cold-calling as a means of making a sale?

Interested in learning more about transforming your marketing to generate more qualified, sales-ready leads? Contact IMPACT and learn how we can help!

Content Creation vs. Cold Calling

Want to hear something scary? According to Harvard Business Review, cold calling doesn't work 90.0% of the time. Talk about a waste of time.

Some other scary stats:

• Cold calling costs 60% more per lead. (HubSpot)

• Has a rate of less than 2% of phone calls resulting in a meeting. (Leap Job)

• Only 5-10% of people pick up the phone. (Honest Selling)

These are terrible statistics. The bottom line is salespeople shouldn't be used as a means to find customers, but rather as the end point for prospects that have come to your business based on demand and quality content creation.

As discussed earlier. due to the Internet, buyers do not want to be engaged with until they are further down the sales funnel, or more sales-ready. This is why statistics show very little people actually pick up the telephone for a sales call, and even less actually stay on the phone long enough to hear a pitch.

Basically, cold calling ignores the entire sales process that often occurs for a prospect to become a buyer. It's main function is to skip ahead a few steps and make a sales. Well...as those statistics state, how well is that working out?

Creating Demand with your Content

So is there still value in the phone call? Absolutely!

However, it's all about timing. Why are salespeople being forced to jump on the phone to talk with people who have no interest or aren't ready yet? It's a waste of everyone's time and money.

However, scheduling a phone call or assessment at the right time (when prospects reach the bottom-of-the-funnel) will have a much more effective and profitable end result. But how do you get them there?

While cold callers rely on the phone call to unknowingly force their leads down a sales funnel they had no clue they were in in the first place, creating demand through content creation and other inbound marketing methods effectively qualifies all of your prospects for the eventual phone call.

Inbound marketing focuses on creating attractive marketing content that creates demand and generates leads, resulting in a much more segmented and qualified contact list for your sales team to contact. I mean think about it, wouldn't you rather your sales team spend their time and effort making phone calls to prospects who have already taken an interested, rather than aimlessly dial the phone in the hopes you won't get hung up on?

Of course you would.

This makes your sales team much more productive, as they're only spending time on the phone with prospects who are actually interested in, or have already taken an interest in your company or service. Soliciation has taken a huge hit as the Internet weaves itself further into our lives. We've become so efficient about blocking unwanted marketing and advertising messages.

Ways we ignore solicitation:

• Cold calling? Thanks to caller-ID I can enjoy my dinner uninterrupted.

• Direct mail? You mean the stuff that actually comes in the mailbox? People even get their bills electronically now. Your marketing message could end up in the garbage.

• Print ads? Newspaper subscriptions continue to plummet.

You get the picture. Create attractive content that creates demand and drives traffic to your website. Let your prospects come to you.

It's how they would want it.

Transform your Marketing

Looking for a more effective way to generate leads for your business? Contact IMPACT and learn how we can help!