Cold Calling vs Appointment Setting

• • What is cold calling?
  • What is appointment setting?
  • What is the difference between cold calling and appointment setting?
  • Pros and cons of cold calling
  • Pros and cons of appointment setting
  • When is best to use each strategy?
  • How Toucan Telemarketing can help

What is cold calling?

Cold calling is defined as placing a B2B telemarketing call to an identified prospect with whom you have no prior contact – that’s why the call is ‘cold’.

It’s a chance to build awareness and establish new sales leads, as well as to present your product or service to someone who might hopefully be interested in it, and in a position to place an order.

There is a typical process to cold calling, which involves some or all of these steps:

1. Identify prospects: Research your market, find potential leads and build a contact list for your campaign.
2. Prepare a script: Decide which aspects of your product to focus on and what you want to say about them.
3. B2B telesales outreach: Place the cold calls and attempt to engage each recipient with interesting, relevant information.
4. Lead qualification: Assess the recipient’s level of interest, available budget and authority to make a purchase decision.
5. Closing and follow-up: If the prospect is good, schedule a follow-up call, set an appointment and/or pass their details to the sales team to close the deal.

This is a very simplified roadmap for any B2B cold calling campaign. There are lots of nuances, such as deciding when to go off-script and focus on other aspects of the product, but this is a good overview of the typical cold-calling sales funnel.

What is appointment setting?

You may have noticed appointment setting mentioned in step 5 above. As the name suggests, this is the process of scheduling a meeting with a potential customer, either in person, over the phone or via webcam (or some other similar method).

An appointment with a qualified sales lead carries some expectations on both sides. The lead has likely expressed an interest in your product. It’s reasonable to expect that they have a genuine intention to place an order, but may be looking to negotiate the specifics.

While appointment setting in itself is a momentary event, it too is part of a typical process: 

1. Identify prospects: As above, this means building your contact list and trying to focus on the most relevant prospects.
2. Make contact: Often via cold calling, establish initial contact with each prospect and pitch your product to identify qualified sales leads.
3. Schedule appointments: Agree on a time when your sales team can speak to the qualified lead about the product via telephone, video call or face-to-face.
4. Confirm and carry out: Keep the lines of communication open to keep the prospect engaged. Carry out the appointment as scheduled, with an aim to complete a sale.
5. Feedback and follow-up: Welcome honest and constructive feedback, including from leads who failed to convert. Follow up with further communication if the prospect is still interested, but is not ready to place an order at the present time.

A lot of this process is about nurturing the relationship and building rapport. Appointment setting sits at the heart of that process, as it is the moment when you translate that rapport into a face-to-face (or voice-to-voice) meeting and a chance to land a sale.

What is the difference between cold calling and appointment setting?

In this table, we compare some of the characteristics of cold calling vs appointment setting, so you can see the main differences at a glance:

• Lead Quality

  • Cold Calling: Lower

  • Appointment Setting: Higher

• Lead Quantity

  • Cold Calling: Higher

  • Appointment Setting: Lower

• Qualified Leads

  • Cold Calling: No

  • Appointment Setting: Yes

• Chronology

  • Cold Calling: Early in campaign

  • Appointment Setting: Later in the campaign

• Sales Impact

  • Cold Calling: Slow – “A process”

  • Appointment Setting: Fast – “A moment”

• Cost

  • Cold Calling: Low cost but intensive

  • Appointment Setting: Higher cost but efficient

• Perception

  • Cold Calling: Intrusive / Unwelcome

  • Appointment Setting: Relevant / Engaged

It’s worth noting that what may appear to be a disadvantage of a specific method can also be a defining characteristic of why it is needed.

For example, cold calling is a high-volume, low-relevance technique because it is the first step towards whittling down an unqualified contact list, whereas appointment setting has lower output because it occurs later in the sales funnel.

Pros and cons of cold calling

No two marketing methods are the same – even when there is some overlap – and each is suited to a different set of circumstances. Because of this, there are times when cold calling is the way to go, as well as some situations where an alternative method might deliver stronger results.

Pros of cold calling

Let’s summarise some of the main benefits of cold calling:

• Large and fast audience reach: Cold calls can be placed to a large contact list as a fast way to identify potentially interested parties.
• Real-time feedback: Telephone calls take place in real time – they are not mediated in the same way as emails and direct mail – allowing more flexibility in your sales strategy.
• Build brand awareness: Cold calls that do not translate into sales are not necessarily ‘unsuccessful’ as they can start to build better brand awareness and nurture long-term business relationships.

Cold calling is especially effective for new startups and new product launches, as a way to get the word out when you don’t have an established customer base for your product.

Cons of cold calling

Some of the challenges you may encounter during B2B cold calling campaigns include:

• High rejection rates: Most calls will be unsuccessful, with an initial conversion rate of around 2%. Again, this is a way to quickly eliminate uninterested prospects.
• Unwelcome and intrusive: Some call recipients will find your call an unwelcome distraction. It’s important to stay professional and courteous, even if the recipient does not.
• Low conversion rates: Cold calling’s conversion rate is typically lower than that achieved by appointment setting. This is because cold calling has broader reach, whereas appointment setting is a more specific, targeted moment later in the sales funnel.

Remember our definition of cold calling vs appointment setting from above – they are not directly comparable, because cold calling is a very broad initial outreach method, while appointment setting is the necessary step to convert qualified leads into sales.

Pros and cons of appointment setting

Bearing in mind the difference between cold calling and appointment setting, there are also some pros and cons of appointment setting in its own right.

Pros of appointment setting

 Here are some of the advantages of appointment setting:

• High-quality leads: By occurring later in the sales process, appointment setting naturally delivers highly engaged leads who may be ready to convert.
• Time-efficient: Working through a smaller, more relevant contact list can be faster and more productive (but that list is typically compiled via cold calling).
• Higher conversion rates: Appointment setting is likely to deliver a higher overall success rate, again due to the high relevance of qualified leads by this stage.

Appointment setting offers good scalability. You can schedule appointments in advance for dates when you know you will have enough sales team capacity. In the meantime, it’s a useful tool to maintain and improve ongoing customer relationships too.

Cons of appointment setting

While it’s a necessary stage in most sales processes, appointment setting has its potential drawbacks, for example: 

• Resource-intensive: Your sales team will need to be on the ball to keep in regular contact with prospects and ensure the scheduled appointment goes ahead.
• Dependent on availability: By definition, an appointment needs a decisionmaker to be available to meet with your sales team, which can be difficult to achieve.
• Potential for rejection: At any stage, the prospect might cancel the appointment, or decide not to place an order after meeting with your salesperson.

There is also an issue of data integrity when maintaining contact databases for future appointment setting attempts.

A good B2B telemarketing agency can keep an ongoing focus on updating contact details and taking notes about the suitability of each prospect, to avoid wasting time and resources on prospects who have already withdrawn their interest.

When is best to use each strategy?

The correct strategy to use in each B2B telesales campaign can depend on what you hope to achieve, as well as on the status of your company or product. As mentioned earlier, cold calling can be an effective tool to establish brand and product awareness, especially for new startups or when entering a new market or geographical location.

Meanwhile, appointment setting is the necessary step to move qualified leads forwards from the initial stages of establishing contact, to closing the deal and making a sale. In practice, many campaigns will use a combination of both strategies. However, you may also use appointment setting in ‘warm’ campaigns where you are reaching out to prospects with whom you have already created an ongoing relationship.

How Toucan Telemarketing can help

Toucan Telemarketing can help you to craft a campaign that uses the best combination of sales strategies, with the built-in flexibility to pursue the most lucrative methods of B2B outreach and telesales.

Our cold calling services are the essential starting point to build buzz around your brand, product or service, particularly if you are starting from a benchmark of low overall awareness.

Appointment setting can then deliver meetings with qualified leads to your own sales team, so that you can negotiate terms and close the deal in your own way. To find out more about both of these services and how we can deliver them to the highest of professional standards on your behalf, contact Toucan Telemarketing today.