However, to enhance its Return on Investment it should be used in conjunction with other marketing techniques. One of the most cost effective marketing techniques requires just a working phone line.
It is sometimes pushed under the umbrella of sales or new business but really is part of marketing and that is cold calling. There are few certainties for SME owners but here’s one undeniable fact – if you do not get enough customers your business will fail. For B2B businesses this means that cold calling should be part of your repertoire.
Here are 5 tips for successful cold calling that will help you.

How to cold call?- 5 tips for successful cold calling

1. Prepare

What have you found out about the person you are calling? Or discovered about their company? Why should they require your products / services?
What recent developments have you noticed within their company or the marketplace that prompted you to call?
Within the first few seconds of your call you will need to communicate the relevance of your call. Be ready for this. Be comfortable discussing their business and content on their website.
How far away are they from where your company is based? If you’re desired outcome is a meeting then you should think about this prior to your call along with any diary slots you have available.

2. Good time to call

Monday mornings is a good time to call because the majority of your targeted decision-makers will be at their desks for at least part of the morning.
Try to make your cold calling a regular diary slot and stick to it each week or fortnight depending upon chosen frequency. Keep a spreadsheet of calls, meetings set up, results callbacks etc.
Do not allow this practice to lapse just because you have a number of actual clients to look after – that is a very common mistake. You should be able to look after existing customers and try to find new ones at the same time.

3. Conversation content

It makes sense to have an idea of the conversation content, your opening statement addressing relevance and your desired outcome, for example setting up a meeting. It is a good exercise to draft a call script but you should not read directly from a script during your call. You will need to adapt to the information you receive during the call. It’s quite easy to tell when someone is reading a script to you over the phone and new business prospects are usually put off by it.

4. Right pace for the call

Remember that you are calling busy people you don’t know on a Monday morning. You should be polite, warm and professional and adopt a reasonably good pace for the call. You want to deal with any objections, discover more about the company and arrive at your desired outcome fairly quickly. Make your comments and questions concise and ensure you project the right image for your company.

5. Listen

This is the most important tip by far – if you are able to listen to your decision-maker and adapt to what you are hearing you will have a far more productive call. Once you have established the relevance of the call in your opening statement you should be listening intently for any clues about your prospective customer’s current business or future plans.
If you follow these 5 tips we are sure that cold calling activity will be more productive than it has been previously – as Bob Hoskins once said on behalf of the UK’s national telecoms provider (BT) , ‘It’s good to talk.’

We hope you find this information useful.We are a leading Marketing Agency in London.

Kind regards,

Marketing Fundamentals Team

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