How to get rid of cold calling – and win new customers for life
How to make cold calling redundant through targeted campaigns and sustainability
Let’s get this out of the way: In the 21st century, few companies are successful because their marketing is good or because they are successful at cold calling. This is especially true in B2B business. They are successful because they have products that deliver better results than others from the customer’s point of view and/or a service that makes them irreplaceable for their customers. How can companies do “good marketing” and what alternatives do you have to cold calling? Find out here!
Let’s get straight to the point: Few companies are successful in the 21st century because their marketing is good or because they are successful at cold calling.
This is especially true in B2B business. They are successful because they have good products that deliver better results than others from the customer’s point of view and/or a service that makes them irreplaceable for their customers. Their sales and marketing strategies are closely aligned and they are better at communicating the transformative power of their solutions to their customers.
In each case, their product is differentiated by the added value that results from the product or collaboration. The task of marketing is to place these via the channels relevant to the target groups in such a way that the solution and brand are perceived at all despite the oversupply. Today, this is an arduous process that requires the right strategy, effective levers and, in B2B, active collaboration with sales.
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What does this mean for interchangeable products in saturated markets?
- No matter how “good” the marketing may be, i.e. how well it generates inquiries, conversations in social networks and reach: if the product does not deliver what it promises, even the largest marketing budget is useless.
- Differentiation does not take place via marketing channels, a la “If the competitor is active on LinkedIn, we’ll just do Xing”.
To be distinctive, your product must be better, your service more comprehensive and the benefits more tangible than your competitors’ solutions.
I can’t tell you whether you have a good product. But I can tell you how to link marketing and sales in such a way that your customers identify with your offering – and how to free yourself from annoying and completely pointless cold calling.
At best, marketing and sales do the groundwork hand in hand
To be successful today, you need to be as close as possible to your potential customer. Put yourself in their shoes. What are they thinking about? It’s best to simply ask them.
Do you know your customers?
Do you know the feeling of finding unsolicited spam emails in your mailbox and wondering how a company managed to acquire you as a customer? Then we have bad news for you. If you send targeted advertising and your product is still not bought, you are the sender of these newsletters. When it comes to acquiring new customers in the B2B sector, a high level of distribution is rarely important. Expensive campaigns aimed at everyone only sell the products of large, well-known manufacturers. In B2B marketing, you have to know your customer. You need to know what they are working on, what the future of their work looks like and what they need your product for.
If you want to sell successfully in the digital age, you have to put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Why? Because internet research usually reveals many alternatives – how do you want to stand out if the customer doesn’t feel addressed? Sales success requires customer-oriented communication.
Tip #1: Conduct a regular customer survey
For example, ask:
- What are the top 3 issues on your mind right now?
- What hurdles are standing in your way?
- How can my product help you overcome these hurdles?
- What terms do you google in connection with my solution?
Make a comparison and see what similarities or differences there are between your customers. Which answer applies to the majority of your customers? Take up the topic and publish a blog post to test the reactions. Actively approach your customers in dialog to find out whether they assess your expertise on the topic correctly and comprehensively. There are often more white spots on the customer side than we think.
Which answer surprised you? Address this too and try to adopt your customer’s perspective. Adopt the language of your customers and communicate authentically using the words of your target group. In future, new customers will understand you more quickly. This is because your accuracy is usually higher than artificial, lifeless marketing language.
Tip #2: Become more personal in your dealings with your customers – and save yourself the cold calling!
Your customers want solutions. You have them. In Hamburg alone, there are thousands of marketing specialists and hundreds of agencies. Google finds 9,990,000 results for the search term marketing agency Hamburg. How do you stand out? And how do you stay in people’s minds?
With all the hundreds of thousands of messages that are sent every minute via internet platforms (hundreds of million text messages were already sent on WhatsApp), the level of personal contact is the only way we can remember someone or a message at all.
So use your marketing to build personal, trusting relationships. Sure, this takes time. New leads will not buy immediately, but on average after four to six months. But once the trust is there, they will be your regular customers of tomorrow. This will save you cold calling when acquiring new customers, and that’s my point. Because cold calling is always a sure way to waste money. Believe me, customer acquisition is easier today!
Think about how you can get new prospects interested in you over a longer period of time, how you can start a conversation, perhaps even in person. To put it in marketing terms: personalize your sales funnel and nurture your leads until they are ready for sales. You can find out how to use social media (keyword: social selling) for your acquisition in the article Why you are more successful with social selling in B2B on morethandigital.info.
Tip #3: Actively support your sales with sales campaigns
Sales campaigns are the most effective method of providing targeted support for sales. The aim is to generate real sales opportunities. Your metric is therefore initially an estimate of how many offers you can place via a campaign. This also includes the commitment of the sales department. Because without their active cooperation, at least in B2B, it is not possible. You should constantly check the target value during the campaign and communicate any deviations at an early stage in order to optimize the campaign if necessary. A sales campaign differs from traditional marketing campaigns, as it is measured using key sales figures. Sales campaigns are therefore particularly suitable for short-term increases in sales, e.g. for new product launches or to reactivate former customers. Based on the target group and sales targets, marketing and sales work together to design the course of the campaign. The campaign incorporates all the know-how that marketing and sales can bring to the table. Think about which triggers you can set so that your desired customers approach you. The most important prerequisite for sales campaigns: clean addresses!
As you can see, there are many alternatives to cold calling. Use them – after all, you don’t have any money to give away, do you?
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