Is Cold Calling Dead? 3 Alternative Mobile Marketing Techniques
More than 200 million people are on the national do not call list, and phone providers have also introduced data-only contracts, both of which demonstrate a dwindling consumer desire to be contacted by phone.
Whereas 40 years ago, cold calling was a reliable and successful technique employed by salespeople, now it is frowned upon as intrusive, with 90% of modern-day cold calls ultimately being unsuccessful.
Despite things not looking good for cold calling, is the technique dead or maybe you need to improve your sales pitch?
Well, no, sadly not, but it certainly isn’t thriving.
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Why doesn’t cold-calling work?
The primary reason why cold calling doesn’t work is that it sets up an unpleasant relationship between business and consumer.
No-one likes to feel like they’ve been put on the back foot, and ringing someone on the fly about something they have never come across before does precisely that.
As soon as the sales representative starts their three-minute speech, the person on the other end of the phone feels attacked; there’s no room for pause, their conscious that their time is being wasted, and to a certain extent, they feel their privacy has in some way been violated by a stranger getting hold of their number.
Now, there are several people out there who’ll claim that cold calling does work, and if you don’t see results, then you’re just not doing it right. Maybe there is some truth in that, but ultimately we now live in an internet age where ringing someone unsolicited is just not the thing to do here are a few things to try instead.
Alternative Mobile Marketing Techniques
Voicemail drops
Voicemail drops are a clever way to engage with your customers directly and personally through their phone without making them feel like they have been the victim of an unsolicited cold call.
The service works by placing a pre-recorded message into the voicemail box of the recipient without them ever needing to hear their phone ring, removing the unwanted surprise element of a cold call, and allowing them to digest and listen to your message in their own time when they are often more receptive.
At the end of the message, you can sign off with your own number or ways you want to be contacted, and this then puts the ball entirely in the other court, making any lead who reaches out to you from a voicemail drop effectively warm.
Voicemail drops are also comparatively cheaper than hiring cold-callers and can ensure a much higher level of consistency across all recipients.
Warm calling
As the name suggests, warm calling involves calling an already warm lead with whom you have previously made contact by some other means, such as through social media.
Once again, warm calling reduces the intrusive nature of the phone call as the recipient feels that they have already connected with you elsewhere.
Because warm calling is about creating a relationship with a prospect, there’s no need to jump straight into a 3-minute sales pitch in an attempt to get as many words out before the person hangs up, and instead the call can be used to set up a meeting or arrange a better time for a more detailed chat.
There are varying different temperatures of warm leads, and so how you set up your call will need to reflect the relationship you have already developed.
Social media
More social media activity is now conducted via mobile than on any other device, making it the perfect place to build a company presence and find new prospects.
Start by researching which social media channels your target customers use, be that LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok, and then make sure that you create a profile on those accounts for your business.
Your business profile should represent your company values and not be overtly sales orientated; otherwise, it could put off prospective followers.
The next thing you will want to focus on with your digital marketing is creating value-adding content that your customers will want to read – this could be sharing informative articles, creating funny content, or publishing industry knowledge.
Whatever type of content you choose to publish, be sure that it is optimized for inbound marketing, i.e., it encourages the reader or viewer to take further action and to interact with your brand.
This can help to bring people to your website or to look at your products or services.
Social media is also a great way to put targeted advertising in front of your ideal customers – with so many advertisements now on social media, and you need to make sure that advertising content is engaging and interactive to stop people from scrolling.
Things to remember
Make sure your content is optimized for mobile
Now that most smartphones act as mini-computers, people are spending more time on their mobile devices. This means that the content you produce needs to be mobile-friendly in order for it to be successful.
Mobile-friendly content is optimized for smaller screen sizes, ensuring that all the buttons are still clickable, and the text is legible even when viewed in a smaller font.
In general mobile-friendly content is also much shorter than web content to save people needing to scroll through endless paragraphs of text; this is also why visual content such as images, infographics, and videos are so successful on mobile devices.
Everyone wants to feel special
Personalization is the key to lead generation, with 72% of consumers more likely to engage with personalized marketing techniques.
Even if you are using a script or are pre-recording messages, it’s important that you make sure that your prospects don’t feel like they’re a part of a mass prospecting technique.
One of the easiest ways to make a prospect feel special is to use their name rather than using a generic greeting.
Relationships take time
In our age of instant gratification, it can be easy to forget that building the relationship that will ultimately take the lead from a prospect to a customer will take time.
Don’t rush into sales pitches son the first call. Try to book a meeting and build some trust with your prospects first.
