January 13, 2022

Is Cold Calling Or Cold Emailing Better?

In this cold calling vs cold emailing debate, have you wondered which is more effective for your business? Let’s find out!

Ayush

Reading time: 6 minutes

Modern businesses have witnessed radical changes, and the concept of cold calls is now contested with cold emails. There has been a constant debate about the effectiveness of each and it has become difficult to determine which would prove to be more successful in boosting sales.

Cold calling is a marketing technique where businesses approach prospective clients to pitch their products and services. Cold calling allows you to speak with the clients and develop a rapport personally.

Cold emailing serves the same purpose, but it is done via electronic emails instead of calls. It also offers an opportunity to reach a wider audience in a short span of time when compared to cold calling.

The efficacy of each is different in varied scenarios.

However, the most intriguing question would be: Cold calling or cold emailing, which of them is more effective? 🤔

The pros and cons of cold calling and cold emailing

Before we dive into the debate about which of these two are better, it would be wise to peruse the benefits and limitations of cold calling and cold emailing individually.

Benefits of cold calling

A more personal approach

When you approach a prospect on a phone call, you get the opportunity to tailor your opening lines depending on the prospect. You also get the chance to deal with their concerns and other reluctance immediately and more personally.

Moreover, the caller also gets the chance to change the selling tactics on the spot based on how the conversation is flowing. Based on a prospect’s interest, your sales reps can then gauge whether it’s a good time to convince them to buy your products or services.

Over email, however, it can be a challenge to understand the prospect’s tone of voice and can lead to misinterpretation.

Instills more trust

Prospective clients find it easier to communicate with humans rather than deal with virtual bots. Hence, developing trust becomes easier on a cold call when compared to cold emailing.

After all, talking to a human seems more real and personal, don’t you think?

Having a polite tone, using a personal greeting, and creating a comfortable space for prospects is much simpler on a cold call. Many people who are not tech-savvy respond better to polite and useful cold calling techniques.

Personalized tactics

When cold calling, there are times when prospective clients immediately refuse to entertain sales reps. While this is a cold calling objection that happens more often than not, your sales reps can immediately deal with it over the phone.

They can switch up their pitch to further understand the concerns their prospect is facing. If a prospect is busy at the moment, they can easily arrange another time during the call or offer to send more documents.

If you’re rejected over an email, it’s highly likely the prospect would have already moved your email to the junk folder.

Higher likelihood of receiving a response

In a poll done by Hubspot, over 37% of respondents have anywhere between 11 to over 50 unread emails. This means that there’s a higher chance that your cold emails are being ignored entirely or go unnoticed as compared to if it was a phone call.

I mean, it’s pretty hard to ignore a vibrating or ringing phone right?

Hence, with a higher likelihood of your calls being answered, this means you’ll most likely get to wow your prospects with your pitch and engage them in a meaningful conversation.

Disadvantages of cold calling

Cannot be done on a wider scale

Cold calling can be time-consuming because you have to dial every prospect’s phone number, hit call, wait for the phone to ring, and hope that someone would pick up.

Though this can all be significantly sped up with an autodialer, there’s no denying that cold emailing is much faster.

With so many email marketing tools available, cold emailing can be done with a click of a button, and you’ll be sending thousands of emails in no time.

People find them annoying

People generally don’t enjoy receiving unexpected phone calls, especially if they’re in the middle of something or have a packed schedule.

Also, if you don’t choose the best time to cold call, you’ll probably end up annoying your prospect even more. On top of that, if your reps deviate from their cold calling scripts, you might end up creating a very bad impression.

Benefits of cold emailing

Wider reach

You can expect to spread the word quickly using cold emails, which is not possible when you cold call. Hundreds of emails can be sent with a click of a button, and reaching more prospective clients becomes easier.

Less invasive

Cold emailing is less invasive when compared to cold calling. When using cold email marketing services to improve sales, you give the power to the customers to choose if they want to communicate further.

They also aren’t caught off guard at odd timings and can freely check your email at a convenient time.

Cost effective

Cold emailing is one of the most cost-effective methods to help you improve your sales. This technique is very productive when you need to promote your content and convey the message to a large audience.

While cold calling is not necessarily expensive, expenses can accumulate if you have a lot of prospects to call and multiple agents on the job.

Disadvantages of cold emailing

Cold emails are easily ignored

One of the most common disadvantages of using cold emails is that you can never be sure if your client has checked and understood your email. After all, about 24% of the emails are never opened.

In fact, you can never be sure if the email has even reached their inbox, if it’s gone directly to the spam folder, or if they’re deliberately ignoring your emails.

And as we mentioned earlier, emails are much easier to ignore than a phone call.

Cannot be personalized

Another disadvantage of using cold email is that the content is generic and cannot be catered to individual requirements.

Cold calls offer the convenience of a personalized approach, but cold emails are usually focused on a wider scale and hence, miss out on this element.

Cold calling vs cold emailing: which is more effective in increasing sales?

The answer to this question is highly dependent on various factors. Each of these tactics would serve the purpose of increasing sales, but your choice should depend on the following aspects:

Buyer persona

The very first factor that must be analyzed before examining if your sales would increase with a particular tactic is your buyer persona. Their age, nature of job, industry, and more would help you choose whether to reach out to them via email or cold call.

That’s because people have different communication preferences.

For example, millennials prefer to communicate via electronic means, so cold emailing would reap better benefits. Tech-savvy people also find it easier to communicate via email, and if you have something lucrative to offer, then a cold email would work wonders for you. For example, a simple training video to explain how they can use your products or take advantage of your services would be sufficient to close the deal.

On the other hand, people who are less tech-savvy or more traditional would prefer to talk personally, so cold-calling would be a better option. If your products or services are meant for the group of people who fall into this segment, then cold calling would help you escalate your sales figures.

The role of your prospective customer

This factor is often overlooked, but it’s more important than you think.

If your target audience is someone in a high-ranking position, cold calling will improve your chances of sales closure. People in the c-suite buy differently, and statistics have shown that 57% of such buyers prefer to be contacted via phone.

Deal momentum

If you are at a stage where the client is unresponsive to your emails or skeptical about your products or services, the best way is to approach them directly with a cold call. Calling them directly would help you address their concerns or objections and close the deal.

Whereas, if you have already received a lead or a client who is interested in your product or services, a courtesy email to touch base should do the job. Find out what stage of sale you have reached and make a choice accordingly.

Consider this example:

Numerous online and offline campaigns like questionnaires or social media lead generation are used by companies. The data of prospects are gathered from such activities, and the question of approaching them arises.

For prospects who have shown little interest in your product or service, cold calling would help you close the deal. You can deal with their queries personally on the phone call and clarify their doubts.

Cold emailing would help improve the sales figures when the clients have readily shown interest in your product or services. An email nudge should help them ease into closing the deal.

Conclusion

So in this cold calling vs cold emailing debate, which is more effective?

The answer is: It depends.

Cold calling and cold emailing are equally capable of increasing sales figures. However, their effectiveness can only be justified if used adroitly. A perusal of the above points would offer better clarity on which option would be more effective in improving sales.

Whether you choose cold calling or cold emailing, your decision should always be based on the prospected effectiveness of your approach.

If needed, you can also use a combined approach to make the initial contact via cold calling and follow-up with an email. It also appears to be more professional since you give them time to get acquainted with the information first and then develop a relationship on a personal level.

Ayush

Ayush is a content writer and he likes to write about SEO, digital marketing, and social media. He enjoys sharing his experience with like-minded professionals and aims to provide attention-grabbing content.

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