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Cold calling opinions!
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I've hired call centers for 2 businesses, one for direct sales, one for customer feedback. Neither produced enough results to return a positive ROI. I gave each an honest chance at working, 90 days +.
If you're looking for product sales, I found direct response ads work best (for offline endeavors) on a consistent basis over long periods of time. With the advent of the Internet, direct response ads in publications have become less and less costly, and they tend to have great information of their demographics. They're also somewhat flexible on ad-spend if you tell them that you're only interested in a specific segment of their demos they will work with you on ad-spend. For example, if I'm only interested in 80% of their demographics, I'll hardball to only end up paying 80% of their after-discount rates for the ad space. Get the discount first (they always hit you higher), then address the demographics.
If you just want lead generation, I have found buying leads from reputable brokers within your specific market segment as a more fruitful endeavor.
Hope some of that helps.
If you're looking for product sales, I found direct response ads work best (for offline endeavors) on a consistent basis over long periods of time. With the advent of the Internet, direct response ads in publications have become less and less costly, and they tend to have great information of their demographics. They're also somewhat flexible on ad-spend if you tell them that you're only interested in a specific segment of their demos they will work with you on ad-spend. For example, if I'm only interested in 80% of their demographics, I'll hardball to only end up paying 80% of their after-discount rates for the ad space. Get the discount first (they always hit you higher), then address the demographics.
If you just want lead generation, I have found buying leads from reputable brokers within your specific market segment as a more fruitful endeavor.
Hope some of that helps.
@K
We bought various types of leads. People seeking specific types of services. Similar product purchase leads.
It's not possible to give an average. You pay more for quality leads. You pay less for bulk, unspecified leads.
You have to factor in whether it's a service-based business your buying leads for (consulting, educational, etc.), for which you can spend a premium per lead for quality, proven leads.
If it's product-based leads, which can be less specific, and either filled with people who show consistent interest in purchasing products in your market (such as people who are interested in auto-ship supplements), or targeted leads of people who have (for example-->) purchased more than 2 items within you broad business category, at a price point between $39.99 and $69.99, and have purchased at least one OTO in the post-sale process, within geographical region XYZ.
You have to factor in the value of leads based on an average conversion ratio, product costs, etc. Lead generation through a broker is not generally a supplement to ad-spend, but rather a replacement. So you approach it in the same way, factoring in what each converted lead can cost you to meet your margins. Such as with web-based traffic sources, SEO, etc. there is a trial and error phase, and working with brokers can be difficult finding a good one.
We bought various types of leads. People seeking specific types of services. Similar product purchase leads.
It's not possible to give an average. You pay more for quality leads. You pay less for bulk, unspecified leads.
You have to factor in whether it's a service-based business your buying leads for (consulting, educational, etc.), for which you can spend a premium per lead for quality, proven leads.
If it's product-based leads, which can be less specific, and either filled with people who show consistent interest in purchasing products in your market (such as people who are interested in auto-ship supplements), or targeted leads of people who have (for example-->) purchased more than 2 items within you broad business category, at a price point between $39.99 and $69.99, and have purchased at least one OTO in the post-sale process, within geographical region XYZ.
You have to factor in the value of leads based on an average conversion ratio, product costs, etc. Lead generation through a broker is not generally a supplement to ad-spend, but rather a replacement. So you approach it in the same way, factoring in what each converted lead can cost you to meet your margins. Such as with web-based traffic sources, SEO, etc. there is a trial and error phase, and working with brokers can be difficult finding a good one.
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I had managed a contact center for about five years and cold calling was one of the services that we offered. Sometimes, it worked extremely well, and other times it did not. It depends on a number of factors, such as the quality of the calling list, product/service offer, and especially the script. Some clients would ask us to use a specific script to pitch to their customers, but the script would be garbage and produce no results. Other clients would let us develop our own script, but their product/service was crap so again no results. Then others would have a great service, great script, and terrible calling list, so we would be pitching their service to people who did not care or have a need for it. However, if your product/service is great, script is solid, and calling list is fresh and targeted, then cold calling can certainly work. The stars must align first.
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Theres a variety of factors involved in cold-calling. I managed a call-centre for a finance company for about 5 years and we were instructed to perform some cold-calling during that time. It was normally done for a specific reason or to promote a specific product as cold-calling can cause a lot of negative feelings in established customers. We had a strong, well-known brand with a loyal customer base, we were attempting to increase sales in a generously rewarded bond, which our customers had asked for, yet it had never been offered before. On this occasion, the people being called were not existing customers but people who had, at some stage, requested information about this type of bond. Technically it wasn't classed as cold-calling because of this 'request', however the request itself was quite possibly a box they had failed to tick on some of our literature, so lets be honest, it was cold-calling. The scripts were good and the product was good, we did better than expected, maybe 0.2% lead to business generation. I don't think that you could ever expect much more in terms of business from your leads but it really depends on what you're trying to sell, and who you're trying to sell it to.
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We do calls for marketing our business, because our service is geared towards psychiatry only. We've paid for the area directory that is available, and we split the calls between our employees, so that some get done each day. We have brought in clients in this manner, but it IS time consuming, and we're looking to branch out in other directions. But it does indeed work, slow though it may be.
I don't personally know anyone who's had success with this, but from my own experience, I find cold calls to be quite a bother, to say the least. There might be some nice, patient people out there who'd be interested in what a cold caller has to offer, but I think they're a bit rare compared to the number of irate potential customers you'd have to deal with when making calls. I'm not totally discouraging cold calling for businesses, however, seeing as some of the commenters in this thread has had success with it. My advice would be, simply to assess whether or not the industry you belong to, and the product you're offering, would be a good fit for cold calling. Success with this really varies.
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When our call-centre peformed cold-calling there was a very high ratio of calls to sales. However, about 50% of the sales came from 2% of the callers. They were the top three or four salespeople in the team, so again theres that magic X-factor that some salespeople have, and just like in normal lead-driven sales, your top performers are far more likely to get sales than the more mediocre salespeople. I can't emphasize how important your script is as well, in my experience a hard-sell strategy will be unlikely to yield good results in cold-calling, it will always work on a small number of people, but its unlikely to leave a good impression of your business to everyone else.
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Cold calling is still something that is still done highly for legit business and illegal. Either way, you will by a lot of leads that go no where and some that do. You will receive more NOs than YESs. However, how well it would do does depend on a lot of factors such as is it something that is in demand, are you accessing to see if the prospects have an issue that this product/service can/will fix, if not you can give them more information and they can then look back into it if that becomes a NEED and those who do have the problem, you need to sell them on how this will fix it, what it is, and that it is worth the price.
I honestly had been in sales in the past and it is not my cup of tea.
I honestly had been in sales in the past and it is not my cup of tea.
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