Unsolicited Calling Is Dead
Recently, Marketing Land had an article about the ongoing debate about telephone sales and whether they are still effective. A new survey and report from Zipwhip argued that the phone channel in marketing is decreasing for multiple reasons. Other old studies show that fewer than 2% of cold calls result in meetings and that cold calling is ineffective more than 90% of the time. Plenty of informal evidence shows that reaching consumers or B2B buyers over the phone has been a growing problem across all markets.
The Zipwhip survey showed that 87% of people ignore phone calls from unknown phone numbers. 63.27% said they ignore unknown numbers “very often” and 23.85% said “often.” This is driven by the increase in robo calls and phone spams. The study asked people about the various reasons people don’t answer the phone and the highest reason was, “I’m busy throughout the day and it’s hard to answer.” Other high reasons were they don’t feel like talking on the phone or they prefer to communicate in other ways. When it comes to marketing this changes the strategies of how to effectively connect with consumers.
Why Is This Important?
The data shows that while calls are declining it is more specifically unsolicited calls. Majority of small businesses see the phone as their most important channel from consumers to contact them. For other businesses and brands it is important to diversify their communication strategies to reach audiences through the marketing channels they prefer.
