Death of Cold Calling… How to Use Inbound Marketing to Generate Warm Leads?

If you’ve landed on this blog then it’s clear that we’re all here to sell in some form or other, be it – a service, a business or a product. The top priority for a salesperson is to find someone (essentially a quality lead) to sell to!

Traditionally, cold calling was the foremost (and, usually, only) approach that a salesperson could vouch for to generate leads. Cold calling is a very convenient way to fetch prospects and schedule meet-ups, but with the rise of the internet, humongous amount of information is accessible to consumers at an instant. Today inbound marketing is seen as a much better way to convert buyers into customers. Undoubtedly inbound marketing has been proven to work better than cold calling as it delivers warm prospective leads who are receptive to interact with a sales person.

Has Digital Marketing Killed Cold Calling?

The answer is a definite yes! We bet you would hesitate to answer a phone call from an unfamiliar number. And even if you did answer, would you be very receptive to the hard selling which the person on the other end is trying to pitch? The answer is clear…an increasing number of consumers avoid answering unrecognizable numbers and hence businesses are failing to get the return on investment which they used to.

Moreover, with the advancement of high-level apps on smartphones it is not rocket science to identify who is calling. In this age of information, we can conveniently turn to Google for all questions that we might have, anytime and anywhere. When it comes to buying, businesses need to understand that a millennial consumer spends a fair amount of time in doing a thorough research online, and only becomes ready to connect with a sales person at the final stage of the entire buying process.

That’s not all, the great leap of social media has moved the one-directional channeling of information from brands to buyers to a two-way interaction among people and businesses. For instance, social media channels like LinkedIn, brings consumers, businesses/brands and sales people together and helps build mutually beneficial relationships.

For a sales person the picture is never rosy, they encounter several negative experiences while making redundant cold calls. Those who redundantly cold call, usually endure mental fatigue and see a steep drop in productivity. It can be concluded that cold calling is virtually non-existent in this millennial age and is an utterly inefficient use of a business’s time and resources. It’s time brands need to understand that their salesheros are well equipped at building great relationships with consumers and it is useless to wither their time and talent dialing cold leads (which by the way, can be easily automated).

It’s time to embrace Inbound Marketing…

Inbound marketing comes in the picture, to solve all these struggles…Contrary to cold calling, inbound marketing hands salespeople a readymade list of warm leads that have initially contacted you through your online marketing efforts. This hot plate of prospects might have enrolled for an event, signed up to your emailer, downloaded a whitepaper from your website, messaged you on social sites, or simply viewed a video relating to your product or service.

Here’s How You Need To Treat Inbound Marketing Leads…

There’s a completely different approach that you need to follow while connecting with these inbound marketing leads. Unlike cold calling, there’s no particular script that a sales rep says repetitively on every call. Here, each call is exclusive and needs to be addressed differently as you already know the customers digital history on what actions he performed.

1. Perform prior research : Be prepared, this is what distinguishes inbound marketing from cold calling. As with inbound marketing, there is already some data known about each caller. For instance, you have the data about the items they’ve seen from your website, and what product/service they’ve browsed or downloaded from your website. With access to each prospect’s established history, you readily know the problem they’re trying to resolve. This helps you have a more quality and engaging conversation with them.

2. Have a meaningful interaction : Understand that these prospects you are calling have already shown interest in your brand and have taken steps to find out if your solution/product is the correct fit. So, you need not sell the need, just sell the solution. Here you need to make the conversation sound more like a discussion and counsel each lead about your product so that it sounds less like a sales pitch. Help your lead to obtain the correct solution and develop a feeling of assurance within them.

3. Automate your process : Capturing the attention of the right set of target audience with appropriate content via strategic marketing mechanism is very critical. As you direct hot leads to your website via inbound marketing, marketing automation passes those prospects to a centralized database, where it tracks each consumer’s activity on your website. It signals your salespeople about the most favorable time to connect to a warm prospect. Complete automation will not just make your salespeople’s workflow efficient but also save a lot of time and effort. They spend less time in organizing schedules/tasks and more time having meaningful conversations with prospective buyers.

In this millennial age, cold calling is almost non-existent and inbound marketing has swept it off. Considering inbound marketing for your business helps generate warm prospects to sales team and transform more potential leads into buyers. For a good sale to happen a business needs to create an impact by establishing healthy relationships first and therefore inbound marketing is trusted by many.

Want to adopt inbound marketing for your business? Get in touch with us!