Cold Calling Doesn’t Work, Nor Does “Cold Emailing”

Here’s a new one in my email inbox this morning: “As per my discussion with you receptionist, I have enclosed…” Yeah, my receptionist, which I don’t have.

That was in an email from a company some would consider “legitimate” in the SharePoint space. They have a set of products for SharePoint that may work well (I have no first hand knowledge), but it doesn’t matter. By sending me that come-on via LinkedIn mail they are guaranteeing that I will actively stay away.

People, cold calls don’t work! It doesn’t matter whether you send them via LinkedIn, email, voice mail, whatever. Scatter-shot approaches to sales and marketing in the 21st century just can’t yield enough value to continue doing it.

From “Why Cold Calling Is A Waste Of Time (And What You Should Be Doing Instead)“:

 A little internet surfing revealed that the stats for cold calls were not encouraging:

• It doesn’t work 90.9% of the time (Harvard Business Review)
• It costs at least 60% more per lead that other methods (HubSpot, The State of Inbound Marketing)
• Less than 2% of phone calls result in a meeting (Leap Job)

And that’s for cold calls in the traditional sense: picking up a phone and dialing a number. Email response rates are so much lower.

Unfortunately, sending bits is way too cheap. The bad guys have figured that out. Just a sampling from my Junk E-Mail and Spam folders this morning:

RE: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: Sir/Madam, My name is Brown Morgan, Esq. I am a Barrister, Solicitor and Financial Advocate based in the Republic of Ghana West Africa. I brought a Business Deal at your doorstep for your consideration and hereinafter to confirm if you will be willing and interested to participate in the Business Deal. My client has privately acquired the sum of US$88 million and whereas need someone that is trustworthy to receive the aforesaid funds on condition that my client’s information will not be disclosed as the Original Owner of the Funds. Send me your telephone numbers for discussion of this offer in full details including your commission for your participation. Yours Truly, Brown Morgan. Barrister-At-Law

Have you been searching for a Business loan, Company loan or loan to pay off bills? This is to inform you that We Offer all kinds of loans at 3% interest rate.

Mr. Edgar Walker of compensation and finance house, as he is our representative in United State, contact him immediately for your Compensation payment of $500,000.00 USD (Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) Funds will be release direct to you in accordance with legal clearance and procedure.

Рассылки по любым предприятиям  Большой выбор аудиторий  Обращайтесь по любым вопросам: (Ч 9 5 ) 54 5   1 4 92

No idea on that last one. Am I likely to dial that phone number? Ever?

Blasting out thousands or even millions of emails has about the same cost as sending out one: almost nil. Therein lies the problem that marketers today face. There’s too much noise and chaff and it’s too easy to do the wrong thing.

After I attend a conference, something similar happens. I get a slew of emails saying things like:

• “Thanks for stopping by our booth” when I haven’t stopped by any booth at all
• “We enjoyed the conversation we had with you about our products” when I didn’t talk to a single person at that company
• “Because you attended conference XYZ, we’re sure you’d be interested in…” even when there’s no connection to what I actually do in my business

The “legitimate” marketers are just riding the “free bits” tide. There’s no shortage of articles out there with titles like “5 Secrets to Cold Calling Success” or “Secrets To Successful Cold Calling”. Those articles are the cold calling of the blog post world, trying to suck you into following a practice that the writer can profit from. That’s an even more circuitous cold calling approach that probably leads to an even *lower* success rate.

Looking forward to having a long lasting business relationship with you and your Organization.

If I thought you had the least idea about who I am or what my organization does, maybe, just maybe I might read your email.

I’ll leave you with a few last thoughts on this. Do you want to contact people who may feel the way I do about it and even take the time to rant about it as I’m doing here? Or do you want to carefully seek out people who truly might buy your product or at least listen to your pitch? In this age, your “social presence” is based on the sum of every one of the interactions you have with potential customers, no matter how inconsequential those interactions may seem. How do you want your potential customers to think of you?

</rant>