When was the last time you got a real-life cold call that you didn’t instantly hang up on – never mind actually making a purchase?
As a marketing tactic, cold calling is long past its sell-by date, and inbound marketing just can’t match the lead generation potential of outbound. This leaves marketers looking for alternatives for cold calling to bring in leads at scale.
Cold calling is more or less extinct , but that doesn’t mean you can’t still attract leads. Here are some alternatives to do cold calling.
To get the best results possible, don’t just look for one single tool to replace cold calling as a strategy. Below, you’ll find a number of alternatives to do cold calling, but you don’t have to pick just one. Instead, use them all! You’ll cast a much wider net and generate more leads overall when all your bases are covered.
Content Marketing
Wait a minute. Didn’t we just mention that inbound doesn’t generate leads at the same pace?
We did, but you should still be create and publishing awesome content. For one thing, it’s standard practice in a lot of industries. Blogs are a great way for you to showcase your expertise, build authority and SEO, and generate traffic in general.
How does that tie into outbound? Website visitors coming from outbound will still take a look around your site. If your website is full of useful information and clearly demonstrates that you’re at the top of your field, that goes a long way toward building trust and coax your visitors closer to a conversion.
So, while content marketing like blogging, infographics and so on isn’t really a direct replacement for cold calling, it will make your outbound efforts that much more likely to succeed.
Learn more about Content Marketing.
Cold Email
This is the new, improved “cold calling” for modern marketers. Where cold calling requires a rep to phone each contact individually, often interrupting their day, cold email allows you to reach hundreds of thousands of contacts at once.
Talk about an efficiency boost, right?
Further, a cold email doesn’t interrupt someone’s day. People check their email at their leisure, so you can send campaigns out with the assurance that although most might not see it immediately, they will see it.
Email lead generation is one of the most powerful tools in a B2B marketer’s arsenal and makes a perfect substitute for cold calling. It does come with its own set of challenges though.
For example, with cold calling, if you have someone’s phone number, you’ll be able to at least get their phone ringing. The email equivalent to that is getting your message placed in their inbox, instead of their spam folder, which can be harder to do.
That’s because unlike a phone call, your email campaigns get scrutinized by spam filters. This means that you need to take steps before sending a campaign to make sure you’ve maximized your deliverability.
First, get yourself a good-quality contact list that’s appropriately targeted. Your contact list is a huge factor in determining how successful your campaigns are. Much like phoning someone who’s not interested, your email campaigns won’t bring in many leads if they aren’t going to the right people.
On top of that, low-quality lists are often full of bad data, like spam traps and addresses that aren’t even real. Why waste money on something that has no chance of working?
Second your content needs to be polished, too. In an email, you have the chance to lay out a compelling case for your product, but you need to convince the reader not to just go do something else. That means just the act of reading the email should provide some sort of value.
This value can be as simple as conveying “hey, we know you have this challenge, here’s a way to fix it” with your product. The key is presenting it in a way that hooks them right off the bat. That requires excellent cold email writing skills.
There’s plenty of other challenges around cold email. Luckily, if you use Clickback, the software takes care of most of them for you, and even gives you tools to nurture unconverted contacts much more effectively.
It’s the best 1-to-1 replacement for cold calling in modern B2B marketing, hands down.
Learn more about Ways to increase your cold email response rate.
Outbound Advertising
Another excellent alternative to cold calling, to proactively generate leads is by using paid advertising platforms such as Google Ads and social media.
These sorts of platform are great because you can put as much or as little budget as you want into them and still get results. Of course, the more budget you give them, the better they’ll do, but overall they have such a low barrier to entry that you can experiment and see what works best for your particular industry.
Google Ads lets you catch people who are searching Google for terms and phrases that relate directly to your product, while platforms like Facebook and Instagram get your ads out to people who match your target audience.
It’s worth experimenting with all the various types of ad platforms and finding the ones that generate the most leads for you, then leaning more into those.
Learn more about Outbound Marketing.
Host Webinars
A webinar is a great way to personally connect with potential customers while also educating them on your product. You’ll improve your credibility and have the chance to demonstrate the value of your product.
In addition to being able to answer questions and really showcase your product, the information you pass on through a webinar is very effective at preparing your contacts for further conversations. The more informed about you and your product someone is, the more they’ll remember – and the more likely they are to choose you.
This is especially true if your presentation is engaging, and your presenter connects well with people.
Use Your Available Tools
Each of these alternatives to cold calling is valuable to invest in, but they truly shine when used together as part of a cohesive marketing plan.
Cold email in particular is the best way to outright replace cold calling as a strategy, as it’s the most reliable way to reach targeted contacts in great numbers.
