While one of the mainstays in the business world is cold calling, we at Dubb believe that you and your business need to stop cold calling.

Yes, this may initially be a relief. No one likes cold calling.

I’m sure you feel the same way.

If you’ve made cold calls before, you’ve undoubtedly encountered frustrated, annoyed people who have no interest in your product or service. And if you have been the recipient of cold calls, you likely have received them at the worst possible times, leading you to express your annoyance to the person making the call.

As you can tell, the operative word of cold calling is annoying. However, you may feel some hesitation about eliminating cold calling from your lead generation portfolio. Cold calling is such an old, established practice that it almost feels negligent to totally abandon it.

However, I believe that however scary this may be, you and your organization should move away from cold calling and move toward content creation. By doing so, you will find better leads, can avoid the annoyance and awkwardness of cold calling, and save time in the process.

The Problems with Cold Calling

Recently, Dubb’s content producer Shannon and I were on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, just minutes from Dubb’s world headquarters. It was a beautiful day and we wanted to illustrate why everyone should stop cold calling.

As we were on the Walk of Fame, Shannon held a large stopper block and dropped it on the ground. While it caused some initial chaos, the block settled and a large weight was lifted off of Shannon’s shoulders. Shannon was happy (as he always is) and we moved on with our day.

This is exactly what you need to be doing with your cold calls.

Cold calling can be a significant weight on us and our organizations. It takes a significant amount of time and effort to get a list of potential leads, trying to get a buyer on the phone, and ultimately making the sale.

After thinking about cold calling on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Shannon and I went to one of our favorite restaurants—Box Choy. There, I actually received a cold call.

Like many cold calls, I have no idea how this company obtained my number. But when I tried calling the number back, I received an automated message saying “The number you dialed isn’t a working number.”

If I, a customer, call back a cold caller because of potential interest in a product, yet I can’t connect with a human, what’s the point? How do they get any business from that?

The fact is that they see a return on investment in cold calling. If you hit a certain button on a website or phone call, you will be added to a list. Your one action qualifies you as a lead for a particular product or service. From there, the organization will continue calling until they, to put it bluntly, get the message. Others, however, will respond and engage with the cold caller, which leads to the return that executives see on their spreadsheets.

Organizations rely on cold calling because they have extremely cheap leads. Cold calling is the vehicle allowing organizations to explore those leads with the lowest possible cost. Even though social media ads—like Facebook ads—may be more effective, they can be expensive.  

So even though organizations and corporations may see some ROI from cold calling, it can be a mind-numbingly frustrating experience. Even though they may see an initial bump in sales or traffic, companies are incurring brand debt the more that they rely on cold calling. These companies aren’t building brand equity and, in fact, are turning off potential customers from their product or service—no matter how great it is.

In fact, there is an opportunity cost to cold calling. Hiring a team of individuals to randomly cold call individuals on a list costs time and money. That time and money can certainly get expensive, and companies could be spending that capital in other ways.

There has to be a better way.

And in fact, there is.

Replacing Cold Calling with Content

At Dubb, we firmly believe that you should be replacing cold calling with content marketing. Content marketing allows you to obtain the same benefits of cold calling, all while removing some of the major annoyances within each and every cold call.

To further explain this thought, I’d like to share one example that may be useful.

Previously, I’ve gone on Facebook and seen hilarious videos of auto salespeople. In these videos, the salespeople film themselves showing off some new cars in a funny, humorous manner. They’re willing to go ballistic in order to have the videos go viral. These videos show that the salespeople don’t take themselves too seriously. Ultimately, they do attract a following on Facebook because they are funny. They are super entertaining to watch. And this entertaining content becomes their lead generation system, as each video has a link and phone number if viewers are interested in purchasing the vehicle.

This is almost like the modern version of used car sales ads on television. They often included “out there” personalities who weren’t afraid to show off their true colors. The modern version of this is putting your content on Facebook, where you can introduce your product and what you’re about to an extremely large audience.

Therefore, the remedy for boring cold calls is compelling, creative content on social media. Better yet is content that is evergreen, meaning that it isn’t relevant only for a specific period of time. It is always relevant, so users can continue to discover it even after you hit publish.

For instance, some pieces of evergreen content on our website include our ultimate guide to using video for sales or our modern guide to email marketing. This content is always relevant to our audience and is a great way for us to show off our brand and our knowledge about marketing.

Importantly, these videos exist forever. This is a significant difference from a cold call, which is ephemeral.

Once the cold call is complete, you cannot keep referring to that cold call to deliver value. It’s over. The value was delivered or it wasn’t delivered.

You can, however, deliver continuous value with content—especially evergreen content. Videos will exist forever. Often, it is the case that some of the best converting videos aren’t the ones that you expect, so the more content you put out there, the more likely that your videos will lead to real, paying customers.

Companies that choose to leverage cold calling aren’t building up their own brands. During many of those cold calls, the majority of recipients choose to hang up as quickly as possible. This simply isn’t the case with content. If you are able to create quality content that people enjoy, that content will inevitably lead to warm leads. There’s no doubt about it.

In effect, this is the distinction between a cold call and a sales call.

They are not one and the same.

There is relationship building and then there’s lead generation. Personally, I think that the ideal place to be is in relationship building. You get to know a lead on a personal basis—even if the “ask” is days or weeks down the road. You understand what that customer’s wants and needs are, and you can ensure that your product solves those needs. By contrast, with a cold call, you know little (if anything) about the recipient’s business.

And without having this in-depth knowledge about your target’s wants and needs, how can you satisfy them?

It is extremely difficult. You have to find people and prospect for potential leads. This is much easier said than done, and it requires significant time and effort from your company.

Ultimately, I recommend that you rebrand your cold calls as social media posts. Reallocate the time that you spend on cold calls by spending time on creating compelling, awesome content. By doing this, you can find better leads, interact with happier customers, and increase your bottom line.

The Cold Calling Resistance

By starting a cold calling campaign, you may feel like you are being productive. In fact, you may see the “positive” results on a spreadsheet, as some cold calls convert into actual sales.

However, I implore you to think differently. Instead of placing hundreds of cold calls, you can spend that time creating compelling, entertaining content that will delight your customers. By doing this, you know that your work won’t evaporate when a potential customer hangs up the phone. Your content will exist forever on the internet and users—wherever they are—can get to know about you and your company. These nuggets on the internet can lead to future sales, so it is in your best interest to put down the phone and start recording compelling content.

Ultimately, build your brand. Close more deals. And generate consistent, awesome content that surprises and delights your audience.

You will undoubtedly be satisfied with the results.