Effectiveness Of Cold Calling And SEO

Implementing various tools and practices, up-to-date businesses strive to capture and hold leads. And for many reasons, this can often force business owners to run around in circles. Modern companies have chosen online marketing as the primary tool for their promotion, but we should also consider offline methods to generate leads and increase sales. Moreover, these two approaches could be interrelated. For example, cold calling will be more effective when the target user can easily find your website (this is where search engine optimization helps) and ensure you’re a trusted company.

This article explains two different marketing channels – SEO and cold calling – in words that are easy to understand. You will learn the effectiveness of SEO strategy, dive into the cold calling process, and discover how to make these essentials work for your company.

The data behind effective SEO

The effectiveness of SEO is hard to overvalue. Search engine optimization is a powerful digital marketing channel that can dramatically improve a website’s online visibility in search results. The reality is that many online customers research the goods they desire by employing a search engine before making a purchase. And almost 50% of marketers evaluate SEO outcomes, reporting that organic search delivers the best ROI. 

This data shows that a robust and well-thought-out SEO strategy that contains adjustments to technical SEO, website content, on-site SEO, and off-site SEO is beneficial for businesses and their prospects. Consumers find what they need and have a delightful shopping experience, while companies enlarge their customer pool, promote their products and services, and grow their revenue.

The right SEO strategy helps businesses comply with search engines’ rules and achieve better rankings in search results. The worldwide desktop market share of leading search engines indicates Google, which takes almost 82% of the global search market, as a dominating search engine. So, to make your ranking positions game-changing, follow Google Search algorithm regulations and their ongoing updates. 

Effective SEO here leads to first-page rankings and a better CTR. For example, businesses that retain the top three positions in Google SERPs get the lion’s share of all clicks. The first rank obtains almost 29% of clicks. The second place gets over 15%, and the third position, 11%. After the third position, the percentage decreases steadily, which is crucial to consider.

Why SEO is the oxygen for your website

Even though there are several marketing channels to benefit from, the effectiveness of SEO makes it the most beneficial due to its straightforward approach, cost-effectiveness, and long-lasting results. At its core, SEO refers to improving website structure and content to make site pages accessible and relevant for users and web crawlers. Thus, by implementing proven search engine optimization practices, you can boost your rankings in organic search and get more potential clients acquainted with your products or services.

In essence, SEO helps to obtain relevant traffic to your website. You can attract your target audience, as in-depth keyword research will collect data on how users search for goods in your business niche and implement the insights within your site pages. Using the appropriate keywords will allow you to enhance your rankings by getting more clicks and impressions. Moreover, with SEO, you can gather information on your competitors’ performance and utilize the retrieved data for your benefit. If you opt for a state-of-the-art SEO strategy, ongoing rankings monitoring is on the list. 

By analyzing your website pages’ positions in organic search results, you can promptly remove the weak points and realign your efforts to create a blueprint for coming optimization activities. For this, you’ll need a rank tracker like the one by SE Ranking, which allows you to understand which keywords you are ranking for at top results, pinpoint pages competing for the same keyword, track ranking positions from different locations to a specific zip code, acquire valuable traffic forecasts, and more. You can also connect your Google Search Console, and Google Analytics accounts to get even deeper insights to make sure that your SEO strategy is working.

Search engine optimization allows for improving different areas of your website, considering its speed and accessibility, the relevance of information, user experience, overall site architecture, and more. SEO encourages you to make your business website a better place for customers and boost your brand awareness.

It is a worthwhile, high-return investment that allows for consistent, high-quality traffic at a low cost. However, bear in mind that you should update the content to meet customer demand and comply with search engine ranking algorithms.

Myth: Cold calling is dead

Stirring up controversy is a scourge of our times. That is why the web is full of information on unlikely search engine optimization outcomes and grinning predictions about the death of SEO every forthcoming year. However, the truth is that SEO will be valuable for businesses as long as search engines exist. And every new Google Search Algorithm update with precise attention to website structure and content undeniably proves this.

Apparently, SEO is not the only essential for businesses that are surrounded by myths and fake facts. The effectiveness of cold calling also invites many questions; some even consider cold calling dead and irrelevant for businesses. However, cold calling will be in-demand as long as there are dedicated sales reps and prospects fascinated by something that may meet their needs. Thus, those who think that cold calling is dead are certainly wrong.

Traditional cold calling, when salespeople have no idea whom they attempt to capture, is outdated. The reality of social networks and web surfing as a daily routine has affected the way sales reps perform cold calling. Nowadays, you need to find details about the people you want to attract with your calls. So modern cold calling has been enhanced with cold calling best practices like personalization and research on customer data, which has made it different but not dead.

The data behind effective cold calling

In essence, cold calling refers to a sales and marketing technique that involves reaching out to leads via outbound phone calls. With cold calling, you can reach businesses (B2B) and individual consumers (B2C). Almost 70% of buyers accept cold calls, and over 50% of C-level clients prefer to be contacted by phone, which means that cold calling still matters.

Effective cold calling means valuing prospects and building relationships with people you do business with, so it goes far beyond regular selling. Responsive cold calls with a personalized approach can bring exceptional data insights on the quality of leads, issues in the target markets, expectations for products and services, and existing strategy gaps. Besides, appropriate cold calling can even help with investigating competitors’ efforts. Sales agents can gather information on the number of prospects using competitor goods and discover the weak points competitors embellish or hide.

Process of cold calling

The effectiveness of cold calling depends on three primary stages: pre-contact, the cold call itself, and the follow-up. Below you can find some handy cold calling tips that will help you to hit the mark.

Preparing for the call

Preparation is a fundamental stage of cold calling. To capture prospects, you need to make them want to hear you out until the end of the call. Therefore, take your time to get to know the people you intend to pitch by gathering more than just their names and phone numbers. Consider searching for their current job position, the industry they work in, competitors’ products they may opt for, etc. 

Additionally, try to find them on social media like Instagram or LinkedIn. Instagram will help you to discover their hobbies and interests, while LinkedIn will assist you in getting their career information and connections. This data will boost your chances of closing the deal as you will be able to understand if your products or services can resolve the problems they may be facing.

Also, think about the right tone for the upcoming conversation. Introduce yourself accurately, clearly state the company you work for, and convey the purpose of your phone call. Find a good conversation opener to personalize the call and sound more polite, friendly, and uplifting. You can excite your leads with ad-libbing or switch to cold calling scripts if you don’t have a knack for out-of-the-blue conversations. Eventually, to avoid awkward situations and frustrated prospects, learn the ideal time for the call and check the time zone.

During the call

Once the conversation is in progress, it is the right time to use an active listening approach and ask open-ended questions. Active listening will help you stay on the same page with your leads and ask only pertinent questions without bothering and confusing the person on the other end of the line. Moreover, it also helps to show your prospects they are respected and valued, so they are more likely to listen to your pitch and provide you with important information.

As for the open-ended questions, they come as an excellent tool to prolong your communication with leads and boost the effectiveness of cold calling. You can precisely understand prospects’ pains and provide better solutions. Just stay consistent and avoid questions that may elicit innuendos. Then do your best to evade yes/no questions and avoid the why questions overload, as such a conversation will look like an obnoxious interrogation.

After the call

Professional cold calling never ends after putting the phone down. After the call, you can analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the conversation from your side. To do so, record all calls with prospects, as this is key to improving your performance and seamlessly reviewing the main parts of each call. Also, use handy notes for additional insights after ending the call to memorize all the essential information that can affect future communications.

Additionally, you can utilize the power of follow-ups to achieve your goals. Once a call is over, send a follow-up email to acknowledge all the decisions made during the conversation and to help prospects recognize you. Here, persistence and regular progress tracking are crucial to making sales and hearing back from prospects. 

Blend cold calling and SEO

The effectiveness of SEO and cold calling is hard work that provides excellent results. Search engine optimization and cold calling can perfectly complement each other with a well-thought-out strategy used for these two essentials. Even though SEO and cold calling may serve different purposes, they are both similar in that they stimulate you to discover your customers and understand their needs and anticipations. Moreover, they help to improve all your marketing efforts, enhancing company performance and outcomes.

With an effective combination of cold calling and SEO, you can operate valuable data that covers everything related to your online promotion and customer satisfaction. Here, it is definitely worth the effort as it significantly helps you to measure the quality of your traffic, listen to customers, and adjust to the requirements of your business niche.

Conclusion

Measuring the effectiveness of cold calling and SEO is crucial for every company striving for online success and a steady customer flow. When employed separately, SEO and cold calling have their pros and cons. Nevertheless, they are brilliant when working together. 

Search engine optimization aims for coherent site architecture, evergreen content, appropriate keywords corresponding to user search queries, and excellent website usability and accessibility that draws more curious users. Meanwhile, cold calling provides you with priceless information, such as product or service accuracy, competitors’ performance, client preferences, and more. A blend of SEO and cold calling is also a great solution for company teams’ collaboration. You will be able to fine-tune all the business processes on short notice.

Break a leg!

mm

Andrew Martin

Andrew is the Chief Executive Officer for Teamgate CRM. With 10+ years of experience as a Military leader, he specialises in leadership and management and is a lover of all things sport.

five stars five stars five stars five stars five stars

Our experience with Teamgate has been exceptional. The platform has enabled us to have a clear view of our sales pipeline, allowing us to focus on high-impact activities that drive results. The customer support has been top-notch, and the regular updates demonstrate the company's commitment to innovation and continuous improvement.

Learn More
Abe D

Abe D.

CEO

Appsembler

five stars five stars five stars five stars five stars

TG is an all around CRM that does almost everything very well and with an intuitive approach. When we've had questions or identified anything working out of the ordinary, they have been lightning fast to respond and deploy fixes. Overall this is a company that can support businesses at scale, yet nimble enough to deliver exceptional customer service.

Learn More
Patrick

Patrick I.

Regional Manager

Marlin Water Solutions

five stars five stars five stars five stars five stars

I have been very impressed with TeamGate and the support network behind it. It has been super simple to integrate. I transferred data from my old CRM to Teamgate over the course of a few days. Plus the near instant customer support, it was basically impossible to make any operational errors.

Learn More
Simon

Simon C.

Owner

JSC Property Investments