Cold calling can be a daunting task for many sales professionals. It requires a great deal of confidence, persistence, and the ability to handle rejection.
However, it can also be a highly effective way to generate new leads and close deals!
That is because cold calling allows for direct and immediate engagement with potential customers, which can be beneficial for establishing a personal connection and building a relationship.
Additionally, cold calling can be a cost-effective way to generate new leads and close deals, as it eliminates the need for expensive advertising or marketing campaigns. Cold calling can also help to identify and qualify leads, allowing sales teams to focus their efforts on the most promising prospects.
Furthermore, cold calling can help a sales team to increase their pipeline, and it can also help a salesperson to improve their communication and negotiation skills. Overall, cold calling can be a valuable tool for any sales professional or business looking to expand their customer base and increase their sales.
26 Interesting cold calling statistics
Cold call approach
- A study by SalesHive found that the average length of a cold call is around 2.5 minutes.
- InsideSales states that sales reps who use social selling are 50% more likely to meet or exceed their sales quota than those who do not.
- A survey conducted by InsideSales.com found that the average sales representative spends around 4 hours per week on cold calls, which equates to around 208 hours per year.
- According to CallHippo, the best time of the workday to make sales calls to prospects is between 4:00 to 5:00 pm because these are high connection times.
- 71% of buyers want to hear from sellers early in the buying process according to Rain Group.
- According to eMediaUSA, representatives that leverage a triple touch have 28% higher MQL-to-SQL rates than those that only use phone and email.
Cold call reliance on data
- B2BMarketing states that on average data decays about 2% per month, which means more than 20% of your data will become unusable in a year.
- According to LeadJen, inaccurate B2B contact data wastes 27.3% of sales reps’ time. That’s 546 hours a year per full-time inside sales rep.
- DemandGen shared that 62% of organizations rely on marketing or prospect data that is 20%-40% incomplete or inaccurate.
- RRD shares that companies that employ consistent data hygiene create 700% the number of inquiries and 400% the number of leads than those who do not.
Cold call follow-up
- According to Rain Group, buyers accept meetings with sellers who proactively reach out.
- You increase the likelihood of converting your prospect by nearly 400% if you contact them within the minute they were tagged as a lead according to Velocify.
- According to CallHippo, making at least 6 cold calls can increase contact rates by 70%.
- 44% of salespeople do not make a second follow-up call according to Invesp.
- According to SalesTrail, sales representatives need to average 6 to 8 phone calls per prospect to have a successful cold call conversion rate.
Cold call success
- According to a survey by Salesforce, the average success rate of cold calls is around 3%, with some companies reporting rates as high as 10%.
- According to Zoom Info, inaccurate data causes sales representatives 27.3% of their productive hours. This totals around 546 hours per year per representative.
- Cold calling is more successful when you target the right people. According to a survey by the Sales Management Association, cold calling is more successful when you target decision makers.
- A survey by Salesforce found that cold calls account for about 8% of sales.
- According to the Sales Management Association, cold calling is more successful when you use a script that is tailored to the customer’s needs.
- Organizations that don’t use cold calling experienced 42% less growth than businesses that did according to Crunchbase.
- According to a survey by the Sales Management Association, cold calling is more successful when you use technology such as predictive dialers and automated voice systems.
- Cold calling can take a lot of time. According to a survey by the Sales Management Association, it takes an average of 8.3 hours to make 100 calls.
Cold call top performance
- Top performers ask 39% more questions in discovery calls than their teammates according to Sales Insights Lab.
- Top performers’ discovery calls are 76% longer according to Sales Insight Lab.
- According to Sales Insight Lab, top performers speak at an average rate of 171 words per minute whereas their teammates speak at 182 words per minute suggesting that reps who seem impatient or in a rush perform more poorly.
Cold Calling Wrap Up
The success of cold calling campaigns relies heavily on the quality and accuracy of the data being used. Having access to good, accurate data allows sales teams to target the right people, at the right time, with the right message. Without this information, sales teams can waste valuable time and resources reaching out to the wrong people or outdated contacts.
Cold calling can also be a cost-effective way to generate new leads and close deals. To maximize the effectiveness of cold calling, it is important to have a strategy and approach in place, and to invest in high-quality, accurate data.