How to Generate B2B&B2C Leads and Cold-Call Them Effectively

Despite all the technologies we have, cold calling remains relevant. Let’s try to figure out how to generate leads for it and how Voiptime telemarketing software can help you to cold-call them effectively.

Lead generation tools

Lead magnets

Offer free trials or demos. People will gladly complete the form and enter their data because free trials give them a taste of your product or service. Moreover, they are more likely to buy from you. Even if they choose not to buy right now, don’t worry. Having their consent, you can inform them about new products or services, the latest offers, programs, etc.

Create gated content. It may be guides, reports, white papers, webinars, and other types of content. Users can download it for free but only after entering their contact details. Another type of gated content is surveys or calculators. For example, you need to have your windows replaced. You go on the renovation company’s website and try to learn more about the price and conditions. They provide you with an online calculator where you can enter all the necessary information (window’s size, material, etc) and get the calculations on your email. 

Loyalty programs, discount clubs, free shipping offers. This type of discount can also be used as lead magnets, especially for B2C leads. People like to feel belonging to some community and have access to unique proposals so it might work.

Lead generation software

To start with, lead generation software can be useful mostly for B2B lead generation. As for the B2C segment, you can simply purchase contacts (i.e., from a mobile network operator). B2B leads’ contacts are often publicly available – on social media, Whitepages, corporate websites, etc. The software just helps you to mine this information in a quicker way. 

There are many lead generation tools available so we will list just a few of them to provide an outline. 

Global Database. It is an online platform that provides a broad range of data solutions. You can find contact details of businesses and executives from different countries and industries. Each company or executive that is listed there has a comprehensive profile with email, phone number, social links, employment history, birth date, etc. Advanced filters can make search faster: you can target leads by company size, revenue, job title, industry, location, nationality, sic code, etc. Another major advantage is integration with CRM platforms and marketing tools.

Hunter. This online tool allows you to find emails by typing in the person’s name and their company. Hunter works as a simple extension in Google Chrome. It has a free Google Sheets add-on that helps you to find all the emails linked to a domain and upload them to Google Spreadsheet.

Leadfeeder. This product generates leads from your website visitors. It identifies the companies that have visited your website and pulls up their employees’ contact information. Leadfeeder also tracks other metrics, such as pages visited and automatically updates your CRM when the lead visits your website again. 

Sales Navigator from LinkedIn. Aside from traditional social media features (instant messaging, profiles, groups, feed, etc), this network has its own lead generation tool. Sales Navigator integrates with different CRMs – Hubspot, Dynamics, Zoho CRM, Salesforce. It allows you to automatically import filtered accounts, contacts, and lead records.

How to Cold-Call Your Leads Effectively and How Call Center Software Can Help You

Now, when you know basic ways of lead generation, let’s talk about how to cold-call them effectively. Here are several simple tips.

Be prepared. Your agents need to make a thorough research, define a list of targets, choose the right time, and prepare a call script. 

Avoid distractions. Distraction is your salespeople’s biggest enemy. Noisy conversations, social media, notifications on your smartphone – all these factors prevent your agents from being focused. It would be good if they can schedule some hours for cold calling only. 

Don’t sound scripted. The script is important but your agents shouldn’t sound like robots. It is just a guide on how to talk with customers. Also, they mustn’t just read the call script from the screen. It is easy to notice and can be perceived as a sign of incompetence.

Practice. Constant practicing can help your agents to handle conversations successfully. Cold calling scripts aren’t fixed in stone. They should be continuously improved according to your team’s results. Also, organize regular training sessions for your salespeople. It will help them to sharpen their communication skills, especially if there are some newbies among them. 

Technology is no less important than skills and preparations. Efficient telemarketing software can drastically improve your salespeople’s performance and keep them motivated, especially if it comes to dialing.

Let’s take a look at an example from B2C cold calling (numbers for B2B will be a bit different due to relatively higher average call length). A team of 10 salespeople works 8 hours a day. On average, every cold call lasts 1.5 minutes. However, not every calling attempt becomes a call. Every agent can make 100-120 calling attempts per shift and they never know if someone grabs the phone. According to our data, only 42 (35%) of these calls are answered and routine actions like recalling the failed attempts eat a lot of time. What is their occupancy in this situation? It drops below 20% and sales conversion is only 1% of all the numbers they dialed. ln total, all these agents are able to process a maximum of 1200 contacts per day. However, only 420 of these attempts become live calls. Therefore, their contact rate reaches 35%. Isn’t it awful? We in Voiptime Cloud think that it is.

Our predictive dialer changes this situation dramatically. It starts by dialing one number for each free agent. After collecting statistics on handled calls, the dialer calculates the required speed and places multiple concurrent calls automatically. Using the collected data and intelligent algorithm, the system dials the next number when the agent is about to finish the conversation. It detects all the answer machines, busy signals, no answers, and filters them out, scheduling retries due to preconfigured redialing rules. Your agents don’t waste time on manual dialing and become much more productive:

• Every salesperson can make 188 live calls per shift.
• Talk time increases from 63 minutes to 5.6 hours, while agent occupancy skyrockets to 70%.
• Sales conversion reaches 2.5% of all dialed numbers.

In total, the dialing automation allows 10 agents to process 2500 contacts per shift. 1880 of these are live calls, so contact rate increases to 75%. Isn’t it awesome?

As you can see, leveraging technologies allows you not only to generate leads quicker but also to cold-call them with quite decent outcomes.