Nevertheless, if you have the requirements for the perfect phone pitch, these issues won’t be a problem anymore. Whereas, there are other issues that you need to pay attention to.
For example, sales representatives are always having problems with finding good leads to call for a business proposal. They need a list of highly qualified leads that they haven’t even any contact with in the past.
For sales persons, cold calling is challenging since the chances of getting quality leads are low. Adding to the fact that time changed and the yellow pages are outdated.
However, for most businesses, there is no alternative to cold calling for lead generation. Especially those businesses established in the following industries:
- Travel (airlines, automotive, etc) companies
- Utility companies (infrastructure, construction, real estate…)
- Telecommunications companies
- SaaS (software-as-service) companies
- Insurance companies
- Banking/finance companies
- Big retail companies
In this article, we will go through the best ways to find phone leads for your targeted audience. In addition, we will list down the best tactics for a successful cold calling for lead generation.
What is cold calling for lead generation?
Cold calling is a sales process and a method for outbound marketing.
Salespersons or sales representatives phone call potential customers or prospects that they didn’t get in touch with before. This person does not know your business but might be interested in what you have to offer.
It is the unsolicited interaction between a lead and a salesperson, that’s why it’s called cold calling.
Why is cold calling for lead generation the best practice?
If it worked for your competitors and showed progress with your business, then it’s probably the best option for you.
Cold calling is still an effective way if the sales representatives can do it right.
Nowadays, cold calling is the best option for converting lead generation into sales. It is also a way to collect important information about your leads.
For many businesses offering certain services, cold-calling lead generation can turn leads into prospects. It also helps with market research and improving customer services.
Here are some benefits of cold calling lead generation:
Cold calling remains a relative tool that businesses add to their sales and marketing strategies.
Whether you have been practicing this method or you are considering it, you have to determine why your business needs it.
1. Cold calling identifies your market:
As we already mentioned, cold calling utilities can extend to market research. This means if you ask the right questions, you will get the information you need to qualify your leads.
For example, let’s say you have a travel agency and you sell travel packs to companies. With cold calling you can know:
- What type of business are you addressing?
- How many employees do they have?
- What are their interests, motivations…?
- Where are they located?
- What kind of work environment do they have?
In the end, by collecting information with cold calling you will recognize which business or leads you have to target.
2. Cold calling determines your strength and weaknesses:
Sometimes, sales are not as you want them to be and nothing is going according to your strategy.
In this matter, it doesn’t hurt to inspect and figure out what it is you are doing wrong.
Maybe you are targeting the wrong audience, or your services do not meet client’s expectations, or your team is not well qualified.
In any case, cold calling will open your eyes and give you answers to your questions and concerns.
Many insurance companies use surveys and prepare a script that most of the time can help with lead generation.
In addition, this way you will be able to find the skilled salespersons you need for your business. Or in most cases, helps you figure out whether or not your team needs training.
The team will become, with time, experienced in cold calling, which will give you the advantage of delivering a proposition.After all, most of your audience will appreciate the idea of dealing with skilled people.
Either way, cold calling will help you identify what you are good at doing and what you need to improve.
3. Cold calling for lead generation builds up your brand identity
In case you didn’t know, when your audience connects with you and has any sort of interaction, they become familiar with you.
They will, eventually, trust you as a professional and share with you all the information you want.
Moreover, automated emails and messages became the marketing trend businesses are using. Therefore, cold calling will probably give you an advantage when it comes to building connections.
For B2B businesses, cold calling is the key to greater conversion rates because of its ability to humanize a business.
Given that this process is focused on communication, negotiation and human interaction, it will help build business relationships.
In the end, people will recognize and trust your business since your approach was well structured and have a human touch.
4. Cold calling for lead generation boosts your sales:
According to the type of industry you are in, cold calling is the best way to increase conversions and boost sales.
By practicing an excellent strategy for cold calling, the purchase decision will be fast and adequate.
The business should use the relevant tools and understand the cold calling techniques to ensure higher conversion rates.
After all, it’s all in the pitch and the staff’s potential!
Also, there are a lot of leads and potential customers that you don’t even or haven’t contacted before. They don’t even know that you exist in the first place!
Therefore, cold calling for lead generation will help you expand your prospect list and get better results.
We will present to you, in this article, ways and tools that would help with finding new phone leads for cold calling.
5. Cold calling for lead generation is proficient with resources
Even though many marketers think cold calling is expensive, it is still the most cost-efficient technique for B2B and B2C companies.
Sure, cold calling softwares and tools for automated dialing, tracking, and recording are expensive! But there are some that you will be paying for only once.
The other expenses for leads and calls, in the long run, will be cheaper, especially if you use them right.
Now, you have to ask this question: If cold calling is dead, then why do salespersons get the highest salaries?
If companies didn’t realize the importance of experts performing phone calls to get leads and sales, then they won’t invest in them.
This in fact proves how important cold calling is for lead generation.
Tip: Don’t waste your resources on incompetent employees, always look for prospecting rock stars.
How to identify your targeted audience to cold call for lead generation?
This idea might sound insane!
Cold calling means soliciting new prospects in hopes of closing sales deals. This means that you should determine first who you are calling.
Long gone the days where businesses call random phone numbers and have no expectations.
Most of the time, salespersons find themselves calling over 100 people per day without any result.
Surely, you will think that they are not qualified enough to close a deal. But in most cases, the quality of leads are poor since the business is not reaching their targeted audience.
Among the questions you need to answer before getting any results are:
- Where can you find them? (this will help you determine the phone code area)
- What is their occupation or type of industry they are in? (which in return will determine how relative your offer is to them)
- Did they spend money before on similar services? (after all you don’t want to waste time convincing car dealers to buy tires if they sold nothing other than cars)
Demographics, interest, and all other information are mostly irrelevant to phone call targeting. Unless you think the opposite which depends mostly on your business.
If you are in the B2B industry, then surely you will need more information like:
- What type of business are you calling? (B2B, B2C…)
- How many employees do they have?
- Are they a startup, small or big business?
These data you can get with market research, a simple Google research, or by just asking. One of the tricks we saw in telemarketing companies is that they start by asking simple questions, survey style!
To conclude, determining your targeted audience for cold calling is an important step to avoid wasting resources.
How to find contact numbers for cold calling lead generation?
There is the traditional way of finding leads that most businesses have been using for decades now. Or the innovative tools and techniques developed to get you quality leads.
Networking:
In general, for any business, having business relationships is really important. Collecting those business cards and sharing yours will surely get you leads.
However, it doesn’t stop at swapping cards, but it also requires you to approach the right people at the right moment and place.
For this to happen, you need to get more involved by subscribing or attending:
- Meetings
- Events
- Conferences
- Associations
- Clubs
- Organizations
- Chambers of commerce
- Summits
Any event or place where you have your targeted audience ready to make connections.
Always be sure to have a great business card containing your contact information. And don’t forget to ask for your client’s business card.
Lately, webinars have become the place where you have the chance to host one yourself, giving business related lectures.
Especially post pandemic, since most of the events are canceled, businesses are hosting online events instead.
You can easily advertise your business webinar event on social media or with paid ads. In addition, you can add a form where the attendee must subscribe with a phone number.
To conclude, always make sure to address the right audience, maintain the relationships you make, and expand your network.
Social media:
What is the link between cold calling and social media?
For instance, social media have integrated the call or contact button to business pages.
Facebook is one of them, the potential customer can easily reach you if you integrate the button to your Facebook page. This way you can have their phone number and add it to your data.
Here is a video to help you with setting it up the call now button on your Facebook page:
Another way is to collect the phone numbers listed on your targeted audience profiles, not illegally of course. Some businesses like sharing their phone number on social media to get leads. And you should do that too!
Furthermore, some messaging and contacting via social media platforms can turn into a phone call. This is also a trick to get phone leads.
Website Design:
Let’s say with new technologies comes new options. Almost everyone is online and they are looking to solve their problems online.
What other way is better than having leads from visitors, since they are not on your landing page by chance or anything.
It’s important in this case to have a responsive design ready to convert your audience and compel them to contact you.
See the example of WebFx’s responsive website design:
You will surely notice the effect of such steps when you change your website’s design.
Don’t forget to create an offer that your targeted leads won’t refuse even if you already have a form.
Most businesses offer free consultation if they call. Or a discount if they subscribe with their contact information including phone number.
However, you should focus your efforts on getting leads for cold calling, not engaging with clients or getting more subscriptions.
Alternatively, you can make use of the CTA buttons on your website. Meaning, an efficient yet easy way to get in contact with your business.
In fact, not all online users have the patience to fill in forms and write long messages expecting a quick response from the business.
The CTA button with your phone number will make it easier for them to reach you whenever they need your offer.
Make sure you use the right layout and design for the CTA button. For example, use contrast colors and big fonts to make it stand out.
This tactic has proven its efficiency for generating phone leads for many businesses whether it’s in B2B or B2C.
Another trick is to have the CTA button clickable on a mobile since 80% of people use their smartphone for online research.
Google (My Business and Adwords)
Once you have your Google My Business, you won’t only have a great rank that will generate you leads. But you can also add your phone number button.
Most probably if the online user is searching for a nearby business, then he is looking for a solution for his problems.
If you provide clients with your phone number, they will call to ask for further information and this way, you have a potential lead.
In case you are using Google Adwords, this is probably the time to know that it gives you the option to integrate a call option.
(via seerinteractive)
This will not only be useful to generate leads for cold calling but it might result in conversion if you know how to seal the deal.
Leads search engines (3rd party vendors):
The best way to find what you want is to use the right search engine. For lead generation you will find different search engines.
So that you can successfully find the one great for you we divided the lead generation companies into:
- Sales intelligence software
- Leads intelligence software
The only difference between them is that the sales software includes CRM solutions to be able to manage your existing data. This will help you refine your contact list and enhance it to boost sales.
Whereas Lead generation software will provide you with high-quality leads that have verified contact information.
In most cases, you cannot find the data and information you need about prospects. But using this lead generation tools will get you the refined data you need.
How can you find phone numbers using Leadfuze?
LEADFUZE
The best techniques for cold calling lead generation:
When you do cold calling, it’s important to avoid a tone that might sound suspicious. Especially since cold calling has a terrible reputation with scam being everywhere.
In addition to a well-researched cold calling, perfecting the sales scripts gives a sense of friendliness. This will eventually contribute to increasing your sales.
If used properly, cold calling often proves to be instrumental in promoting your goods or services.
While it is a traditional form of sales and marketing strategy, it still has strong significance for companies in different industries to this day.
We advise you to take a look at this article being focused on the best prospecting practices. Hopefully, it would give helpful insight for your cold calling strategy.
Cold calling script for lead generation:
To get started with your first cold call campaign today, you can use a simple fill-in-the-blank sales script.
Just create a simple script! Especially, if you think selling is complicated, or you do not know what to say, or feel confused and stressed whenever you are on a call.
No matter how good or bad you are, write down the script and tweak it over time as you learn more.
With time you will get used to this and know more about how the prospects you get on the phone want to be addressed.
Getting the conversation mapped out before picking up the phone is one of the most significant pillars of cold calling.
This will set you on the right path for achieving the higher level target of your cold call, be it simply:
- Qualifying your lead
- Booking an appointment
- Closing a deal
When anyone picks up, this map structure is the easiest way of structuring the cold calling conversations.
Pay attention to your tone when on a cold call:
Yeah sure, what you say is important! But the sound of your voice is what matters the most when it comes to cold calling.
For example, if someone calls you with a bored tone of voice, you will wait with impatience when they are hanging up. Same for someone super excited and hyperactive.
To determine which tone you should use, it is crucial to understand the buyer’s psychology within the first minute of your call.
You have to turn a skeptical lead into a trusting client from the outset. So think about the tone that your leads feel comfortable to the most.
To raise your confidence and sound smarter, we suggest you stay calm, pay attention to what the others have to say, and control your tone.
This sounds easy, but in reality it’s super hard, but with practice comes perfection.
Although some salespersons have charisma and talent for cold calling, others developed their skills with experience.
In summary:
Cold calling is here to stay! As much as it is hard to practice and implement, it is still considered a science-driven profession.
Many technologies are backing up the cold calling lead generation efforts like intelligence software, CRMs, tracking tools…
Furthermore, studies and researches to understand the buyer’s psychology are the focus of a lot of industries. Not only to persuade them into converting, but also to improve sales practices.