If you’ve never had to cold call, consider yourself lucky. Cold calling is the practice of calling up, or approaching in public or even at their door, a complete stranger whom you’ve never had prior business contact before. It’s easy to see why cold calling seems inviting to a sales team at first glance. Cold calling is a proactive way to hit the ground running and spread the word about your business.
The biggest problem with cold calling is it’s invasive. If you’ve ever done cold calling before, you’ll know what I mean. You catch people at odd times, when they’re busy, when their kids are screaming for their dinner, when they’re waiting on another important call, or they’re just hoping you’re one of their friends calling for a chat. You’re interrupting your potential customers when they’re just trying to go about their day.
There’s a reason, though, that people still use cold calling. Despite it’s invasive nature, it still works. The thing is, with inbound marketing, you get all the same positives as cold calling without the negatives.
Cold Calling versus Inbound Marketing: Inclusive or Invasive?
1.Pro of Cold Calling: You don’t need connections to get started.
It’s probably the most enticing aspect of cold calling: you can start from square one and get results. Just hit the streets or the phones and get selling!
How does inbound marketing compare? Inbound marketing also doesn’t need an existing network to get started. You do need an idea of a customer who’d be interested in your product to create customer personas, an inbound technique that allows you to quickly target interested groups of customers with tailored content. Once you have personas, you can start from nothing and build up interested contacts easily. Because you’ll be nurturing leads and letting them come to you, they won’t find the approach intrusive.
2. Pro of Cold Calling: You can cold call at any time.
This is why a lot of businesses still like cold calling. You can call whenever you have a free moment. This is more of a plus for the cold caller than for the customer, but it is undeniably convenient.
How does inbound marketing compare? Because it’s in a digital format, inbound marketing works at all times of day as well. However, if you cold call someone at two in the morning, you likely won’t get a good reaction. But if someone is reading your inbound marketing materials at two in the morning, it’s because they want to, not because you’re forcing them. So inbound marketing effectively works for even more hours of the day than cold calling, because the choice is ultimately up to the target audience.
3. Pro of cold calling: A good cold caller can start a great conversation by knowing what the person on the other end wants.
Because a phone call or a door knock is a personal thing, if you do it right, you can create a quick one-on-one bond by essentially saying “Here’s something you want, and I can get it for you.” You can customize your script on the fly. That’s not something an impersonal commercial can do.
How does inbound marketing compare? Inbound marketing can also customize its materials to each individual, but while the marketing ends for cold calling when the person on the other end hangs up, inbound marketing can keep working on a lead over time, guiding a person from mild interest to a sale. And the best thing is, the lead can go at their own pace, giving them a greater sense of control and, therefore, comfort. Comfort helps build trust with your brand, helping you make other sales.
With inbound marketing, you aren’t taking a random guess and hoping that whoever you end up with will want your product.
Inbound marketing is based on research: you (or a consultant) builds a customer profile called a persona, based on the sort of client you’d like to attract or who you know already buys from you. And then you develop online content marketing that is built to help solve that customer’s problems, which will help build a positive brand association with you. As you nurture your leads, you give them all the information they need to contact and buy from you.
Let’s not waste our time and the time of other people on leads who aren’t and never will be interested. Build an inclusive inviting company brand and the leads will come straight to your door.
Don’t believe us? One of our clients at Area9 Lyceum, said that since hiring Tangible Words, he hasn’t had to make a cold call in over a year.
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