Cold Calling Vs. Cold Emailing: What Would Work Best?

Marshal, November 19, 2021

Prospecting is the process of locating potential customers and making contact with them to get them into a sales funnel. The ultimate goal of this B2B sales strategy is to convert the prospect into a buyer of your product or service.

A company can find prospects by cold phoning, emailing, or doing both. A salesperson uses cold calling to contact potential clients with whom he has had no prior contact. On the other hand, cold emailing entails sending an email to someone with whom you have had no prior interaction.

The decision of which of the two ways to utilize remains critical for organizations since each has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Before we can answer the issue of which is superior, let’s take a closer look at what each of them comprises.

Insights into the Pros and Cons of Cold Calling

As previously stated, cold calling is a sales method in which a sales representative contacts a potential customer with whom they have had no prior contact. This indicates that the prospect has not requested to be reached and has not anticipated receiving the call. That is the first stumbling block for this procedure as a sales technique. In the middle of a hectic day, most individuals will not respond favorably to a random caller trying to sell them something they don’t need.

• How Has Cold Calling Evolved Over the Years?

From the late 1980s to the late 1990s, cold phoning was an efficient sales approach. However, digitization threw a wrench in the works by altering how consumers shop, bringing in a tectonic shift in the B2B marketing approach.

Customers may now receive all of the information they need about a product or service by going online. Cold calls are intrusive by nature, and some people may find them irritating. Prospects can now block unknown callers or put nuisance calls to voicemail – thanks to technological advancements. Sales professionals will find it even more challenging to reach out to prospects as a result of this.

• Some Number Crunching on Cold Calling

When it comes to cold calling, statistics are also not encouraging. According to research, only 2-3 percent of cold calls are successful, and 71 percent of sales professionals say cold calling is the most challenging part of their work.

Cold calling may appear to be dead and buried as a result of these difficulties. Despite this, firms continue to use this strategy to schedule meetings and close transactions. Cold calling, when done correctly, can be highly rewarding.

• The Importance of Researching About your Prospects

Accurate cold calls will not function in the twenty-first century. Instead, sales staff will be better positioned to convert prospects if they research them, learn who they are, their trouble spots, and the solutions they require.

This means that a salesperson must have the appropriate value proposition and offer it to the proper person for cold calling to work. Even if you have a great offer, if you keep pitching to gatekeepers rather than decision-makers, you’ll come to the conclusion that cold calling is dead.

Businesses that employ cold calling services should ensure that the salespeople know their consumers, the product or service they’re selling, and that they’re using optimum scripts and methods. Statistics reveal that a good percent of clients have agreed to meet with a sales representative after receiving a cold call – which addresses the client’s pain points.

Insights into the Pros and Cons of Cold Emailing

A first email sent to a prospect with whom you have had no previous interaction in the hopes of piquing their interest in a product or service is known as a cold email outreach. Cold emailing has its origins in traditional cold selling, which involves salespeople going door to door. This ultimately evolved into post or courier services, through which firms might send pamphlets or promotions to potential clients. This strategy, like cold phoning, was quite successful.

• The Impact of the Digital Era

With the advent of the digital era, this sales method evolved into what we now know as emailing. This is mainly executed by businesses offering email marketing services. Email is a popular mode of communication, and according to Statista, over 300 billion emails will be transmitted per day by 2022.

These communication methods have also evolved, with most individuals and millennials preferring email to phone calls. Emailing as a B2B sales and marketing method can help raise potential customers’ awareness of a product or service. This means that firms can use this strategy to attract prospects and increase revenue in various ways.

• Importance of Planning your Cold Email Blasts

On the other hand, effective cold emailing necessitates meticulous planning as part of your email marketing services. According to research, 52 percent of those who receive cold emails regard them as spam even before opening them.  How can salespeople present their emails in such a way that they get a positive response? It starts with crafting subject lines that strike a chord with your audience.

Sending a deluge of emails to 1000 random persons is unlikely to provide many results. Like a cold caller, a sales representative must study their recipient’s interests and potential pain spots.

This enables them to personalize or tailor an email. People are more likely to open an email that is individually addressed to them.

A successful email must also provide the recipient with ‘something,’ primarily in the form of a solution to a problem. Finally, a cold email should be brief and contain a direct request that does not need the receiver to consider.

What Outweighs the Other: Cold Calling or Emailing?

The benefit of cold calling is that it is personal. You can make your pitch and get an immediate answer when you have the prospect on the phone. You can guess how things are going by listening to their voice and tone and making modifications as needed.

On the other hand, email benefits from the fact that it is most people’s preferred mode of communication. Also, with a B2B Email List, you can reach out to many people in one go.

According to a 2020 survey, workers spend around five hours each day in their inboxes. In comparison to, for instance, a blog post, an email is also direct and gets directly to the intended recipient. Similarly, sending an email allows the prospect time to read it, consider it, and determine what to do with it.

After examining both cold calling strategy and emailing, we believe that any company serious about making sales should employ both methods. As can be seen, each has its own set of benefits and drawbacks, but combining the two can be a game-changer for business.