The Best Alternatives to Cold Calling – The Evolution of Inbound Lead Generation
August 22, 2016
I have a friend who’s been applying for sales jobs.
He asks, “I’ve seen a surprising number of jobs that ask for anywhere from 50 to 150 outbound cold calls a day. Are these jobs even legitimate anymore?”
To answer, let’s remind ourselves of what an outbound cold call is. This is a phone call to a business or consumer who has expressed no direct interest in the solution or offer. It’s an act of canvassing a target segment and playing the numbers. The goal is to wade through as many “potential” clients as possible, with the hope that the timing will be right with enough of them to be worth the effort.
Cold calling is as old as sales. Salespeople knocked on doors and picked-up the phone for as long as quotas needed to be met. Few liked it, but overall it worked.
It was part of the salesperson/lead transaction. It distracted and interrupted most, but every once in awhile, you’d hit on someone who had an active need. Wallah, new lead.
There was a certain necessity to cold calling. Marketing had a limited reach, so it was difficult to create blanket awareness for an entire target segment. There were too many “potential” clients who didn’t know about the solution. Salespeople had to “reach out” to this potential to meet sales numbers.
But is this practice still legitimate? Is there another way to make a target segment aware of a solution without interruptive advertising or cold calls?
Today, that’s a rhetorical question. Obviously, the internet provides a way to reach target segments that didn’t exist before, ways that circumvent the need for cold calling.
It’s what we call inbound marketing, which uses the business website as a focal point of lead generation.
The idea is sensible: a business puts their initial sales pitch, solution info and call to action on the website. They make the website findable to their target segment via online channels so leads find them when they have an active need. If the lead has interest, they make initial contact with the business, initiating the sales process based on their interest.
The underlying idea – and benefit – to inbound marketing is that it removes the need to interrupt/cold call large numbers of people who have no interest in your offer. It’s using technology’s efficiency to save everyone the time and aggravation of unwanted solicitation.
So why, 25 years after the internet first emerged, do so many businesses still hire salespeople to sit on the phone all day, making cold calls?
The reason is that inbound marketing has its ideal state and its reality. Ideally, every business would have total visibility online so leads find the content when they have an active need.
The reality is that search marketing is competitive and gaining ranking is itself a challenge. It requires an investment across the board in data gathering, customer profiling, and content creation. Reaching the right people at the right time is not a given.
A Matter of Perception
The most effective businesses rely on inbound marketing. They get enough lead generation via inbound that they don’t have to use cold calling.
But what about the companies out there today still trying to hire cold callers? What does the fact that they must use this strategy say about them?
Unfortunately, nothing particularly positive. When you cold call in the digital age, you’re starting from a point of desperation. You’re sending the message that you can’t get on top of the inbound lead generation movement, that you’re not able to compete for attention or communicate value effectively on your website.
Worse, consumers today are aware of this transaction. They know if they have a problem, they can research online to learn about a solution. They’re less receptive than ever to the interruption of a cold call that rudely interrupts their work day (or worse yet, their lunch break).
We use the term cold calling referring to telemarketing, but it really applies to most types of traditional outbound marketing.
For instance, we have a local pizza restaurant that sends us print coupons in the mail. The problem is I don’t want to keep print coupons around. They’re a nuisance.
But when I get out my phone to look up their website, I find an outdated, confusing site that I can’t navigate. I can’t even find their phone number, much less a coupon.
If I search for “pizza near me” I need to find their ad. They need an ad extension I can click on to find their specials. When I arrive, they scan the coupon on my phone.
Now consider that I’m irritated by a pizza restaurant using outdated marketing. Imagine the B2B transaction where an executive is interrupted by a cold call on the phone. Do you think she’ll want to work with a business that has to resort to cold calling?
Can I Still Use the Phone?
Sometimes people wonder if, with all this internet technology, direct phone calls are no longer effective – or even possible.
Actually, at Marketing 360® we strongly encourage businesses to phone leads. One-to-one conversations are still indispensable to the sales process.
But this is not cold calling. First, you have to get leads to identify themselves to you. Your call to action requires them to leave their phone number on something like this, which is our “Get a Quote” form submission on Facebook ads:
This lead form is the icebreaker. Now the person has acknowledged their interest and even provided a phone number. Not only should you call, you must call, prepared with all your most effective phone sales skills.
Cold Calls Going Cold
We are still in a period of transition with inbound marketing as direct lead-generation. Many businesses struggle to create a website that is the right combination of information and persuasion. Search marketing, both paid and organic, is still not as straightforward as it could be, leaving many small businesses confused when it comes to gaining consistent, long-term exposure.
Furthermore, there are advanced targeting methods that let you put ads in front of demographics that are highly likely to have an interest in your offer, even predicting their needs. It’s outbound marketing, but so targeted it fits into the inbound paradigm.
The technology is tantalizing, but complicated for many SMBs to execute.
So, in desperation, they turn to what used to work. They scour the workforce for people who are willing to take the abuse and rejection necessary to hit on the rare cold call lead.
However, the trend towards inbound lead-generation is evolving and irreversible. Every year we get better at facilitating this transaction. Every year, the cold call gets colder.
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