Cold Calling vs. Direct Mail Marketing

Cold Calling

Cold calling is a marketing technique where you approach the client or prospect, usually on the phone or now through email, without them expecting to hear from you.

With cold calling, you get a lot of “no”s, you get hung up on, you’re interrupting people’s pattern and their day, they’re annoyed by you. Sometimes, you call that lonely person who wants to talk on and on about what’s going on in their life. It’s always good to be a help to others, but this may not be the highest and best use of your time.

Running in a  hamster wheel is a great comparison to cold calling. As long as you’re prospecting, making outbound phone calls, approaching prospects, you’re generating business. When you step off the wheel, your business stops.

Direct Mail Marketing

Direct mail marketing changed my life and changed the trajectory of our business.

With direct marketing, you send out your message, your promotion, your ad, to a pre-selected customer. If you’re a fit for their needs, they pick up the phone and contact you. No more chasing business – let the business come to you.

You can send out postcards, brochures, door hangers, any number of media types and, in the end, accurately track response and modify your marketing accordingly. If you’ve never done direct mail marketing, you’ll find it brings a whole new quality of people.

Direct response allows the customer to make a decision in their own time. When they call, they already know who you are and what you do. The client is raising their hand, telling you they need what you have to offer.

The Results

As for our business, when we switched from cold calling (calling ads in the paper, calling for-sale-by-owners) and began direct mail marketing (post cards, letters, flyers, post-it-notes), our business skyrocketed and our use of time became much more efficient.

Instead of trying to find clients who wanted to work with us, the marketing piece made the introduction so, when our phone rings, those clients are pre-screened. The ones who don’t call back aren’t interested, today. Time saved for us both!

Side note: it’s amazing how many clients call back months, even years, later to say they saved our marketing piece and now need what we have to offer. That doesn’t happen with cold calls.

So, which do you use? Which do you prefer? And, importantly, are you tracking results?