15 Oct 10 Cold Prospecting – Which Medium to Use?

Many marketers look at cold prospecting tools with much disdain. They contempt the use of such tools, but many among them secretly use some of these as well. My stand at this should not be seen either as in favor or against it, for the mere goal of this article is to tell you what tool to use, if you have to use cold prospecting to grow your business.

What are the tools of cold prospecting?

Ideally, any tool that connects you with your audience could be uses for cold prospecting, but practically, many of those tools cannot be used because of the expense involved. Typically, a business will use one or more of the following communication tools for cold prospecting:

• Call on cell phones
• Call on landlines
• Text messages
• E-mails
• Direct mails on home or office address

Each of the above tools are also overused (read abused) tools, and that is why all the unsolicited attempts to get in touch with your future market are considered spam or junk. This perception is not too far from reality. It is such perception that renders these tools useless?

Then how to use any?

This is a natural question that springs out in the mind. But the good news is that there is a way to put these tools in use, which I going to outline below.

• The very first rule of cold prospecting is moderation. Do not go on steroid. Everyone equally hates, and some hates more, cold callers. But not all the time. At times people are receptive to the messages they receive. Do not bombard users with multiple calls or multiple variants of your message. They are already too bogged down by such messages.
• Once a user expressed his unwillingness to buy your product or services, strike out his or her name from your database. Your database software should have a list of out of bound contacts, whom you should never contact.
• Instead of cold calls, send emails, text messages, and creatively done postcards to suspects. These are less intrusive mean of communication.
• Never call in the peak time or the peak season when your suspects are busy doing their important works.

Take the above precautions, and you will increase your chances of acceptance. Your cold calls will not remain as mindless.

Tags: Attempts, Audience, Cell Phones, Cold Callers, Cold Calls, Communication Tools, Contempt, Database Software, Disdain, Future Market, Marketers, Moderation, Natural Question, Office Address, Peak Time, Perception, Postcards, Prospecting Tools, Text Messages, Variants