Making your first sale through cold outreach, be it a cold call or a cold email, is not just a talent but an art that can be learned.

When you start your business for the first time, you have two options.

Either wait for the customers to come to you, or market to them directly so that they can learn about your products or services.

The second option is better considering that your business is new, and people won’t just start visiting your site without any marketing.

In the second option, you have two types of approaches available.

1. Cold Calls
2. Cold Emails

Both approaches are great for anyone who wants to start cold outreach activities. But, how do you know which one is the best for your business?

This article will discuss cold calling vs cold email approaches in detail and see how they can help your business get the boost it deserves.

What Are Cold Emails?

Cold emails are unsolicited emails sent to a potential customer without having prior contact.

If sent properly by adding the right value points, cold emails can be productive and lead to conversions.

The word ‘cold’ means that the recipient never asked for such emails.

That’s why they are not even opened by potential customers and land directly in their junk mail folders most of the time.

Benefits Of Cold Emails

The benefits of cold emails are:

Cold Emails Are Easier to Scale

You can easily scale with cold emails. If you are emailing a few email addresses only, you may not even receive a reply.

The industry-standard conversion rate for cold emails is between 1% and 5%.

So, the more can customize your email messages for your target audience, the better your chances of recipients reading your email.

For example, if you send emails to 100 potential consumers with ideal customer profiles (ICPs) daily, you are likely to increase the chances of receiving multiple responses and seeing a higher conversion rate.

Cold Emails Are Easier to Track

Cold emails, unlike cold calls, are a lot easier to track. You can use email marketing software to send out emails.

This software will help you track click-through rate, open rate, bounce rate, and even conversion rate.

You can also add a UTM URL to your campaigns to track the number of link clicks.

Cold Emails Are Cheaper

In comparison with cold calls, cold emails are a lot cheaper. You don’t have to pay for each call you make.

Instead, you can buy a $20 package from email marketing software to start sending cold emails.

Disadvantages Of Cold Emails

Cold emails also have some disadvantages. Before you start your campaigns, you should know that:

Cold Emails Have Lower Conversion Rate

In comparison with cold calls, cold emails have a lower conversion rate because the feedback is never instant.

Most people won’t even get your emails, some emails will land in the junk box, and some will simply ignore the emails.

All these combined lead to lower conversion rates for emails.

Cold Emails Are Easier to Ignore

Since emails land in the inbox, any recipient can ignore them if they want to, and most do.

No one likes to receive unsolicited emails. That’s why they have a higher bounce rate.

Cold Email Statistics

1. Cold emails have an open rate of only 18%. Out of 100 emails sent, only 18 get opened. (Source:Smartwriter)
2. Cold emails have a conversion rate of 1%. This means out of 100 emails sent, only one gets a reply. (Source: Dailyblogging)
3. An average ROI for cold emails is around $30. That means on every $ spent on cold emails. You can expect to get $29 back. That’s about 2900% in ROI. (Source: Writecream)

What Are Cold Calls?

Cold calls are unsolicited calls made to a potential customer without having prior contact.

They are often made to introduce a business opportunity or sell something to the person called.

Benefits Of Cold Calls

Some of the apparent benefits of cold calls are:

Cold Calls Can Be Personalized

You can make the cold calls personalized by getting more information about the prospect.

Let’s say you are selling a data migration software and looking for prospective customers.

Your ideal customer profile (ICP) would be of a company CEO involved in business transformation.

You can make a personalized pitch for the customer with this information available.

Cold Calls Receive Instant Feedback

Another great advantage of making cold calls is that they offer instant feedback.

When you make a call to your prospect, they will either become interested in your product or directly tell you that they have other things to focus on at the moment.

This will help you get direct feedback, and you can move on to another ICP.

Disadvantages Of Cold Calls

Cold Calls Can be Annoying

Yes, the bitter truth is that people don’t exactly like cold calls because they are just annoying.

What will be your first reaction when someone calls you out of the blue?

How did they get your number? Why are you calling them without your permission?

These are some reasons people cut the line as soon as they hear the person calling is a sales representative.

That’s why you must do your proper research before you make a call to someone.

Success Isn’t Guaranteed

Another drawback of a cold sales call is that success is non-linear.

You can move upward in the sales cycle with your prospect, but you are technically not successful if they don’t buy your product or service.

The problem is that many potential customers will simply ghost you when they are not interested in your product.

They may ignore your calls or simply cut the line when you call them, or maybe the call will end up going to voice mail.

You will have to face simple realities as a sales representative. So, just accept them and move on to another prospect.

Cold Calling Statistics

1. It takes eight calls on an average to reach a prospect.
2. The average B2B salesperson makes between 35 and 100 calls a day.
3. The majority of senior-level executives say they would prefer a sales call instead of an email or a brochure.
4. 1 out of every 59 calls ends up in a meeting or a referral.

Which Is Better? Cold Calls or Cold Emails?

Now that we have data available, let’s go back to our initial question. Cold calls or cold emails? Which one is better for your business?

The answer is: It depends on the nature of your business.

For making cold calls, you need enough research about the person you are calling.

This is not always possible. Making cold calls without proper research can also impact your brand image.

At the same time, cold emails are not always targeted at a single individual. Email clusters usually have a few hundred emails in them.

They are great when you have to reach out to many potential customers at the same time to understand their interests.

A good business strategy will be a mix of cold emails and cold calls.

You can warm the customer by sending them an email drip campaign.

Once the lead is warm enough, you can move to cold calls to learn about their intention and move them through the sales pipeline.

Still, Reading?

A quick question for you: What strategy are you using for your business growth?

Cold calls or cold emails? Let us know about your current process and how it impacts your business growth in the comments below.