As a sales tactic, cold outreach is often criticized as ineffective and intrusive. Yet many companies say they’re able to grow their pipelines and generate new qualified leads through the process. So, who’s right?
Cold outreach tactics have been around for quite a while, though they’ve evolved from simple telemarketing or “cold calls” to include emails and social media. Another change has been that modern technologies now allow sales agents to use targeted lists and multichannel sales engagement workflows to contact with potential leads.
Done right, cold outreach the most effective way to reach the right people to pitch your product or service. Doing it correctly involves finding your prospects, getting their contact information, and creating targeted messaging to engage with them.
Here’s how to manage cold calls, emails, and social media for ideal engagement.
The Benefits of Cold Outreach
Most sales reps would likely agree that cold outreach is challenging. But many also say it’s a successful way to gain more leads and increase sales, especially if you use the right strategies.
Benefits of cold calls, emails, and social media outreach include:
- Low investment. All your business needs are LinkedIn and Google to research your prospects.
- Increased results. Cold outreach tactics reach potential leads where they spend the most time—taking calls, reading emails, or scrolling through social media.
- Scalability. You can easily ramp up your cold outreach with automated workflows.
- Refining your pitch. The more prospects you reach out to, the easier it is to learn from their feedback. By analyzing open rates, click-through rates, and response rates, you quickly discover if your messaging is working, or if you need to fine-tune it.
- Increased brand awareness. Each time you reach out to a prospect, you’re making another step toward a potential conversion.
Let’s now look at each tactic and how you can use it to increase sales leads and grow your customer base.
Cold Calls
Cold calling makes it much easier to get in direct contact with the best potential leads. It also lets sales reps use their personality and tone of voice to humanize the company they’re selling for. A downside is being limited in the number of follow-up messages you can leave before a prospect becomes annoyed.
Surveys indicate promising stats for cold calls:
- Over 80% of buyers say they’re willing to meet with a sales agent who uses a cold call to contact them.
- 60% say they hope to hear from a sales rep when they’re actively looking for a solution to their problem.
- 75% of people contacted with a cold call end up scheduling a meeting.
To increase your cold calling success rate, be sure to research a prospect thoroughly before picking up the phone so you understand what they need to hear about your product or service. And be patient—it can take over ten calls to make a connection with a buyer.
Note: You might have heard that B2B cold calling is illegal. The Federal Trade Commission’s Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) defines how a business can use telemarketing to reach customers while protecting them from bothersome calls at home or on their personal devices. Other regulations cover topics like upsell requirements, pre-record message restrictions, and caller ID transmissions.
That said, most B2B cold calling is exempt from the TSR, with a couple of exceptions. For instance, one business can call another business, but it can’t call a consumer at their place of business.
Many states also have telemarketing rules and, in some, B2B marketers must register their activities before calling to or from those states. And in the EU, GDPR rules that went into effect in 2018 cover cold calling, email marketing, and social selling. Fortunately, B2B marketers have less to worry about than B2C ones. As long as you have a “legitimate interest” and handle a prospect’s information correctly, you can safely cold call them in most countries.
Cold Emails
Cold emails are usually less time-consuming than cold calls, but some sales reps say their cold-calling efforts are more effective at collecting direct responses.
However, there are many benefits to cold emails, including:
- Easier distribution and tracking, as you can automate, track, and forward emails.
- Unlike cold calls, they’re great for building relationships over time.
- They’re minimally intrusive. You don’t disturb recipients who are free to check their inboxes at their convenience.
- Help with networking and brand awareness. Recipients can easily share your emails with other buyers who might benefit from your product or service.
To ensure cold emailing success, your top priority should be selecting a B2B sales engagement platform that offers everything your business needs, including personalization and analytics. Keep the focus on creating relationships, not selling, and follow up extensively.
Note: There are instances where sending unsolicited emails is illegal, so we recommend you consult with your legal and privacy professionals for advice. This marketing approach can be a delicate matter but, done properly, it can be navigated successfully.
Social Media
Some sales agents are convinced that social media is the new cold calling.
It’s true that commenting on LinkedIn or tweeting can seem less personalized than calling or emailing. But skilled sales pros can use social media to effectively convey much of the same qualities that come across in calls or emails. Well-constructed comments and tweets can be perceived as informed, helpful, or even funny by potential prospects. And using LinkedIn's InMail is a fantastic way to send direct messages to prospects.
Creating a presence on social media helps you form familiarity with prospects and allows for greater transparency. Best of all, if prospects don’t follow you back or comment on your tweets or posts, you can still use hashtags and other techniques to create an impression with the people around them.
When diving into social media outreach, keep in mind that it's distinctly different from our other two tactics. Social media is about playing the long game, sharing insights and offering ideas and feedback that slowly but surely proves to a prospect that what you offer is relevant and useful.
Lastly using social accounts also evades most legal obstacles, as they are hosted on a private platform.
Ready to learn more about these cold outreach tactics and how you can use all three to broaden your reach and engage more prospects? Contact 3D2B online or call us at +1 813-320-0500 (US) or +39 06 978446 60 (EMEA) today.