There’s a phenomenon making B2B cold calling more effective than ever: remote work.

Entire sales and marketing teams work remotely, so sales teams have to rely exclusively on phones and video conferencing software to connect with customers and decision makers.

In fact, 40% of B2B sales teams rely on “contactless” sales. Against the backdrop of lockdowns and sheltering-in-place orders, B2B sales teams have rapidly scaled up: 90% already rely solely on video conferencing and phone. What’s more, teams operating in the tech, media, and telecommunications space rely entirely on phone and digital as a means to source leads, interact, and then close deals!‍

The bottom line is clear: B2B cold calling is experiencing a revival — and, with a clear strategy, you’ll be well-positioned to harness the power of this shift.‍

In this article, we’ll take a look at how to gear up a cold calling strategy — and you don’t want to miss a neat little experiment showing you how to locate and scrape mobile phone numbers through digital channels 💪.

What is cold calling?‍

Cold calling is exactly what it sounds like — it’s an activity or a sales technique where a sales professional calls prospective customers to offer them a deal. The reason it’s called “cold” is that the lead has likely never heard of the offer, or even the company before, and hasn’t expressed any interest in the offer.

In other words, they’re “cold.” And you’d be right in making the connection between a “cold” lead and their often “chilly” response — on that first interaction, people could be hostile, hurried, uncooperative, or generally uninterested.

In contrast, a “warm” lead or prospect is a customer who has some kind of familiarity with the company, the offer, or even the sales professional connecting with them. The “calling” aspect of cold calling has only been around since telephonic communications (or telemarketing) became a viable way to — around the 1980s.

But even “field sales,” where salespeople would venture from door to door, is a form of cold prospecting. The idea with any form of cold outreach or outbound sales is that it requires salespeople to make the first move in contacting or interacting with a prospect, rather than a prospect approaching or calling a business with an inquiry (or even ready to buy).

Cold calling in the digital age

Things have changed since the 1980s.‍

Methods for successful cold calling as a means of lead generation have become increasingly sophisticated and refined. One of the most fundamental ways it’s changed is that cold calling is rarely cold — instead, sales teams will make calls from focused lists of leads (known as ICP leads) that usually conform to demographic or behavioral criteria.

For example, a lead list may be compiled of prospects who are all employed as growth managers, working in businesses with a company size of 50-200, based in London, and who raised funds in the last 6 months.

Those information are relevant to sales team doing cold calling because their product or service can specifically help this group of potential customers. They can also be used as buying intents.

However, a lead list may also include a list of customers that have purchased a CRM in the last 12 months or, in terms of digital interactions, wrote a linkedin post about sales prospection.

This is behavioral data and sales teams rely on it to make judgments about which of these prospects are likely to respond to them. It’s part of a data enrichment strategy, which uses additional points of information about customers — beyond just their contact information — to improve:

• Offers
• Messaging
• Preferences
• Personalization
• The overall business-customer relationship

Now, there’s some debate whether this “extra” information makes prospects technically warm or not, since sales teams will conduct background research and use this data to increase the likelihood of a positive response.

But think of it this way: the data increases a salesperson’s ability to make relevant offers based on purchasing behavior or adjust your sales script to make persuasion easier.‍

Challenges of cold calling

Harnessing a data enrichment strategy is just one part of the picture. These key insights can help sales professionals tailor their conversations to the needs of their prospects, but that doesn’t make cold calling any less intimidating.

Rejection is always possible and even likely. Even the most persuasive salespeople with a true gift of the gab frequently fall short on the number of prospects they successfully convert into paying customers.

The challenges of cold calling aren’t dealbreakers, but they are significant enough to strike dread in some sales professionals who don’t have enough practice or a reliable process to bank on when natural talent isn’t enough.

These include:

• The perceived potential of spam calls. A survey found that 46% of respondents received fraudulent “robocalls” on their cell phones every day and 24% receive these multiple times a week. In this kind of climate, where individuals need to protect themselves from these types of calls, it can be hard for them to distinguish between spam calls and a sales professional’s legitimate call.
• It can be inconvenient. Unexpected calls from unknown people make many customers feel overly cautious. The sheer volume of sales calls from different companies can even become annoying - since the call is unscheduled, there’s a good chance that you’ll catch a prospect at a bad time even if you’ve got additional data to tailor your conversation.
• “Persuasive” can become pushy. It’s a fine line between the two. And even if you, as a sales professional, come from the former camp, a previous interaction with a “pushy” salesperson can quickly sour your prospect’s attitude towards you. It’s also sobering to find out that while only 17% of salespeople think they become too insistent, 50% of prospects feel salespeople are consistently too pushy.
• Fear of rejection. Just because you’re employed in a sales position doesn’t mean you don’t experience the normal range of human emotions. Rejection can be intimidating — and when it happens continuously, it can exhaust you or leave you feeling unmotivated. But consider this: It takes an average of eight cold call attempts to reach a prospect. Meanwhile, persistence wins out: 80% of prospects become buyers if contacted between five and 12 times. And an initial “no,” or “not interested” doesn’t stay that way: 83% of cold calling prospects don’t buy for three to 12 months anyway.
• It can feel transactional. Often, following scripts proven to work and well-tailored to the parameters of a lead list help break the ice. But scripts can also make these interactions feel transactional. Remember that cold calls are only the beginning of a human-to-human relationship. So it’s okay to stray away from the script to forge that relationship.

Is cold calling still effective in the marketing game?

Don’t be fooled by the challenges. There are solid reasons why cold calling is still a viable and effective sales and marketing strategy.

At the most essential level, the fact that so many people remain intimidated by the prospect of cold calling is itself a win. Many sales professionals won’t even make the calls they need, so all you have to do is show up and make the call.

But even without this fact, there are real payoffs. Consider these compelling cold calling statistics:

• 82% of of buyers accept meetings with sellers who simply reach out first
• 69% of leads have accepted phone calls from new providers in the last 12 months
• The higher you go, the easier it is — 57% of C-suite and VP-level decision makers actually prefer phone contact
• 62% of buyers are ready to take action if they hear from sellers when they’re actively looking for a solution to their problem (in other words, plan to be at the right place at the right time.
• 42% of prospects convert to a customer if a sales rep calls them back at an agreed-upon time.
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So it sounds like what you really need to do is harness a combination of insightful data and contact information. Well, there’s a bit more to it. Everyone loves to quote the “Cold calling has a 2% success rate” statistic. But the truth is that the “success” or conversion rates for cold calling varies on a few other factors as well.

Factor #1: Your prospect: Industry, profile, and account characteristics

Did you know that 75% of prospective customers like to be cold emailed instead — and then prefer an email follow-up? It’s true. Though the “cold” part never changes, cold emailing is sometimes even more effective than cold calling as a mode of sales communication because it’s seen as less invasive or time-consuming

It has its drawbacks, too — people can leave emails unopened and it’s harder to ignore someone speaking right to you. But the main takeaway is that you’ll need to understand your prospect’s preferences.

And, for this, you’ll need to have done some deep background research into your target audience or customer. Understanding your customer’s industry, their demographic profile, and even their account history or behavioral characteristics and tendencies can help you tailor conversations, messaging, and offers.

Businesses using cold calling often start with defining their ICP, also known as an Ideal Client Persona (or IAP, for those using an account-based marketing strategy). This aggregate profile clearly defines the specific characteristics of your ideal buyer — and any customer closely matching that identity will be a good lead that, while “cold” in interaction is still “warm” in terms of fit. ICPs and IAPs also mean that you can funnel your time, resources, and sales talents into contacting only these key accounts or decision makers.

It’s extremely helpful to have this kind of knowledge to back up your offers, interactions, and conversations. And the research on sales prospects prove it:

• 59% of prospects are annoyed by a “generic” sales pitch.
• 60% of leads feel that, in more than half of cold call cases, it was clear the salesperson had not done enough (or any) research on the company.
• Conversely, 86% of respondents say they’re more likely to buy when a sales rep demonstrates an understanding of their prospects’ aims and needs.
• 57% of respondents clearly recall whether this understanding actually occurred during a sales call.

Part of your ICP or IAP definition will include industry. Remember those 75% of individuals who prefer email? Well, those are likely people who sit behind a desk all day.

Some industries, such as construction or home services, have service professionals that prefer phone calls. For example, if your solution’s ideal customer were plumbers or electricians, you might find that you have an easier time reaching them by phone because they’re not in an office or constantly connected to a screen.

Factor #2: Sales strategy

Once you nail down your ICP or IAP, you’ll also be able to articulate an overall sales strategy. Based on where, online and offline, these individuals “live,” you’ll craft a multi-channel sales strategy that delivers the same consistent overall messaging adapted for each platform or medium.

So, if you’ve already defined acquisition channels (email, social, paid traffic), and your results are consistently good, cold calling is not your only source of lead generation. And, as such, you can add this method to the list for a 360-degree, omnichannel outreach approach.

There are ways to make cold calling, as an activity, a more insight-rich one as well. You can harness tools like Gong or Salesloft to actually analyse calls, improve their efficiency, and train your sales teams.

It’s also worth noting that certain aspects of the digital transformation agenda has made cold calling more effective than ever before. And that’s because the strengths of AI-powered interactions (think chatbots) is also a weakness.

GetVoip ran a comparison of chatbots versus live agents when it came to customer service. Time, efficiency, ease — these were all areas where chatbots scored winning points. But there was one significant need that chatbots couldn’t fulfill: personalization. That requires the human touch.

The comparison found that, without personalization, customers feel like a company doesn’t value them. They feel alienated. And because personalization is often used to reduce attrition rates, human interaction is a necessity.

Similarly, the rise of automated messages and somewhat suspect AI content in our feed or inbox makes human-to-human interaction even more valuable.‍

<div class="cms-tips"><div>💡</div><p>“Chatbots do very little to appease an irate customer, and in most cases, make the situation even worse. A live agent can establish empathy, ensure they’ve clearly understood the problem, find a way to resolve the customer’s issue, and provide an incentive like a discount or refund to keep the customer coming back.”</p></div>

The verdict? Cold calling remains a valuable sales strategy — especially when it takes advantage of personalization and begins with research that understands the customer’s needs and pain points.

How to find and source phone numbers and data in 2023

Because many of us — customers and sales reps alike — turn to the web for everything, sourcing phone numbers may not seem as easy as finding email addresses. But that’s when you move from strategy to tools. You’ll need to narrow down your search for mobile or work phone numbers to the right software platforms designed to source, target, and collate this data.

First off, consider three factors: price, accuracy, and API access. Price and accuracy are no-brainers, but many businesses get stuck on price. Instead, look for a tool that’s, of course, within your budget range but that also provides API access. This is key because it makes your use of the tool far more extensible.

Two of the most common mobile phone number sourcing platforms are ZoomInfo and Cognism. However, their tiered pricing packages can limit your use and their software, while robust, requires a sharp learning curve because of their complexity.

If these options are not for you, there are other platforms available on the market. 3rd party solutions like Datagma, Lusha, Kaspr, and Apollo.io can help you zero in on mobile phone numbers, specifically.

Check out Datagma’s mobile phone lookup API analysis, which harnessed Captain Data’s own LinkedIn Sales Navigator workflow, capturing and enriching lead generation data with phone numbers.

That’s why API access is so important — you can connect a handful of software solutions to turn your cold calling-focused sales strategy into a well-oiled machine.

Conclusion

Clearly, cold calling is not dead — but the question about whether it’s useful or relevant should definitely be put to rest. In terms of tools on the market, insights available to enhance customer interactions, and the unique moment in the online landscape, the time may never be more ripe for cold prospecting through phone calls.

But, like any strategy, approach, messaging, and efficacy need consistent evaluation, especially when cold calling forms just one part of a multichannel outreach technique. Make sure to use the best tools to have more accuracy when you want to find phone numbers.

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