Cold calling, despite it’s popularity, is almost always the worst possible customer acquisition approach as a pure method. Find a way to warm up the call.
If “Cold Calling” is Your Answer Please Reconsider
Q: I am launching a new live chat service and trying to decide the best way to acquire new customers from cold calling, email marketing, social media outreach by posting content to Facebook pages. What would you recommend?
Technology vs. Business Model: A live chat service is a technology, what is your business model?
Who is the Customer? What Is Their Need? In particular who is the customer and why aren’t they using one of the several dozen live chat services already available? To determine the best tool for acquiring a new customer you have to have a clear hypothesis for who the customer, their need or pain point, and how your offering is differentiated from other alternatives already available to them.
Cold Calling Is Almost Always The Least Effective Approach. The question cannot be answered in the abstract although “cold calling,” despite it’s popularity, is almost always the worst possible customer acquisition approach as a pure method. If you can make a “warm call” either via an introduction or because a prospect has indicated or expressed interest then that’s has a much higher chance of success. But that normally means you have to use multiple outbound methods (e.g. email marketing, SEO, SEM, advertising,..) to generate that interest and warm up the call.
Related Blog Posts
- Cold Calling Won’t Find Your First Business Customer
- Peter Cohan: Differentiating Your Offers Starts With The First Contact
- How To Start a Warm Conversation About a Customer Problem
- Are You Generating iPod Fishbowl Leads?
- Treat Prospects Well–Allow For Another Conversation
Image Credit “Bare Tree” (c) Sven Birkerts (@SvenBirkerts) used with permission