Why should you cold call when you’re sending targeted emails?

Cold calling and email marketing are two tried and tested ways to reach new customers. Each has its own benefits, yet few know how to use them correctly to enhance profits. This post will focus on how each of these sales support techniques can benefit your business.

Many times sales teams struggle trying to figure which way to go. Should we hire a B2B sales support team to do our cold calling? Or do we buy email lists and send out thousands of emails a week and hope we reach new customers? The answer is simple – both methods work when done in the right environment. And when used together, create a solid game plan for covering all of the bases.

The Hard Part

In the past, a company would just pull out the phone book and call. But now with the advancement of technology, email marketing has become an effective method for gaining new customers. Trying to decide which B2B sales support methods you want to use to find new customers can be difficult. For example, some of your sales team may prefer to cold call because they may feel that it’s more personal and a better way to build a rapport with the customer. And then others that prefer email marketing because of its extensive reach to thousands of customers. Bringing these two philosophies together can be challenging but essential to increased sales.

Making First Contact

Deciding on how to contact potential prospects is almost a dance that needs to be performed the first time correctly, or else you’ll turn off the customer. You’ll never get a second chance to make a good impression. So instead of trying to figure whether to call a new prospect or email them, it’s better to use the method they are most responsive to. Cold calls and cold emails are both effective when prospecting. The difference between is one-to-one contact versus a matter of volume and convenience. Email marketing is easier, less time-consuming, and has greater reach. Yet cold calling is better at engaging and gathering direct responses. Cold calls also allow you to adjust your strategy. Whereas, with email marketing, you have to analyze and figure out why people aren’t opening your emails.

The Ups & Downs 

When you are a B2B company in search of qualified leads both methods of lead generation have their ups and their downs when dealing with customers. First off, cold calling is an intrusive process that many people aren’t very receptive to. Many businesses make it almost impossible to get a direct line. And the process is much more expensive and less efficient than email marketing. And while an email is less intrusive, the chances that it makes it past the spam filter and is opened is around 15% to 30% depending on the type of email, according to Mailchimp. Emails are easy to ignore.

Cold Calling and Email Marketing – The Perfect Mix

Rather than deciding whether to call a new prospect or send an email based on personal preference, use both methods as your company’s B2B lead generation tool. To use both cold calling and email marketing effectively, here are some things to think about to help you decide which one to use:

Time and Day of the Week

• Cold Calling:
  • Prospects are more likely to answer later in the day and later in the week, like Thursday or Friday.
  • Always leave voicemail because prospects check their messages later in the day.
  • Calling later in the day is also a win-win.
• Email Marketing: 
  • The best time to send an email has a smaller window but is more frequent.
  • The best time to send out B2B emails for the average 8 to 5pm sales support team is mid-week, around 10am. However, entrepreneurs and executives open emails more frequently, according to Kayla Carmicheal.
  • In general, the highest click-to-open rates are 10 AM at 21%, 1 PM at 22%, and spike near 6 PM.

Other things to think about…

• 31% of sales teams find sending personalized emails more effective than automated cold emails.
• With cold calling, you have 10 minutes to appeal to the prospect.
• Discussing ROI can reduce cold email responses by 15%.
• The best days for cold calling are Wednesday and Thursday before lunchtime or between 4 and 5 p.m.
• Personalized emails sent late morning and late afternoon have better open and click-through rates.
• It takes est. six call attempts to convert a new customer, and conversions increase with each call by 70%.
• 48% of sales support teams don’t make any follow-up attempt after a cold call.
• The typical cold email response rate is just 1%.
• Only 24% of cold email pitches are opened by recipients.

Want to learn more about B2B sales support and email marketing strategies? Call Grindstone 1-888-724-7463.

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To learn more about B2B lead generation techniques please visit www.b2bleadexperts.com for more industry information.