How to Set Up an Effective Cold Calling Campaign

More than 30% of prospects never receive a follow-up call after the first cold call. And yet it takes an average of 8 interactions to make a sale.

Clearly, not following up on the first call is a big mistake that can derail your prospecting campaign and keep your conversions low.

This is part of why it's so important to have a clear plan and strategy when beginning a cold calling campaign. But if you don't really know how to put together a solid campaign, it can seem overwhelming.

In this post we're going to go over the steps you need to take in order to build an effective cold calling campaign.

1. Develop Your Cold Calling List

One of the most important pieces of your campaign will be the list you put together of potential leads for cold calls. But you can't just choose businesses to call at random. Developing cold calling lists requires a strategy of its own. The more targeted this list is, the more likely prospects will be to convert.

One of the best ways to create a list is by looking at your current customers. Determine if they have anything in common and what the pain points you're solving for them are. It's especially important to include your top customers in this analysis.

If you have a particularly good relationship with an existing customer, ask them directly about how your product or service helps to make their day-to-day lives easier.

Once you have an idea of how exactly you're helping these businesses, start looking for other, similar businesses that are likely experiencing the same issues. Build out a spreadsheet of the companies you identify. Make sure to include as much information about the companies as possible in the spreadsheet.

2. Understand Your Target

After you've built your cold calling list, your inside sales team will need to really dig in and understand the persona of the companies you'll be calling. 

Depending on how long your list is it may be more or less realistic to do deep research on every single company. But they likely all have similar attributes that you can use to understand them and determine the best way to sell to them.

In order to effectively market your business, you need to know exactly whom you're trying to sell to. Not only what company, but what person or position within that company you'll likely be dealing with. 

When you know who you're talking to and why your business is the right fit for them, it can give you a big leg up. It can help you know even what kind of language to use.

Different industries and positions within those industries have different buzzwords that they'll respond to best. Just don't overdo it when using them.

Knowing all of this and preparing will help you to better connect with prospects and build important relationships. This in turn means a higher conversion rate.

3. Build a Script 

Building on the idea of knowing what to say, you'll need to write a cold calling script for your sales development team to use. It's very important to keep in mind when writing this that the last thing you want is for your calls to sound stiff or forced. No matter what, these calls are still supposed to feel like a conversation.

The script should lay out different options depending on how the prospect is responding. This gives you a chance to make sure your team will remember all of the most important points when actually speaking to potential customers. And they will have answers to any questions right there in front of them while they have the prospect's attention.

This also gives you a chance to anticipate any objections or concerns prospects may raise and prepare for them so your team doesn't get blindsided during a call. When writing, keep focused on the prospect and how you're going to help relieve their pain points.

With that said, your sales team will still need to be able to adjust if the call is going off track, and mirror the tone set by the prospect if it doesn't match the tone of the script. 

4. Determine Your Call Cadence

Part of cold call preparation is setting a cadence for your contact attempts. Your call cadence is a plan for how often your team should be reaching out to and following up with their prospects to try to move them forward through the sales pipeline.

Having a defined cadence for your campaign helps to keep things organized and your team all on the same page. It also helps your team keep from annoying a prospect by contacting them too frequently. 

Your cadence doesn't have to only include calls, either. In fact, it's more effective if it contains multiple channels of contact. Consider adding follow-up emails and some kind of social media interaction to help build those relationships.

5. Don't Be Afraid to Pivot

While it's important to have a set plan and B2B marketing strategy before beginning your campaign, you also have to be willing to make changes if need be. 

If prospects aren't responding well to a particular part of the script, change it. Leave room for your team's cold calling technique to improve as you gather more feedback from prospects. Even the best-formulated campaigns have room for improvement. 

Conclusion: Follow the Roadmap to Effective Prospecting

Cold calling campaigns require solid planning and research beforehand to be effective. Take time before you begin your next campaign to follow these steps and you may be amazed at the results.

If you're looking for a partner to help you boost your prospecting skills even further, our sales development team can help!  Our Sales team has booked thousands of meetings and created billions in pipeine for our clients. Book a consultation with us today