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Social Media Vs Cold Calling to reach out to Key Decision Makers?
Best Answer
The social network can possibly make the introduction easier, but In my opinion, there's nothing better than F2F meeting.
Cold calling is my preference, however, social media has enabled us to more quickly target decision makers and establish rapport based on commonalities. I believe it boils down to the business that you are in, who your market is, and their preferred method of communication. If you step back and analyze these factors you can easily customize your approach based on what "works" for you and your audience. There is no "magic bullet" out there and successful organizations use all of the tools in their respective tool box to communicate their message and increase market share
I agree that f2f works better than anything else. But until that point is reached when the prospect is ready to have a f2f discussion I think social networking would work better than cold calls. With cold calls all the prospect has is the voice on the other line and maybe a quick vmail message. not much to go by. With SN you have an opportunity to see who the person is and get a general idea of who they are by following a few discussion threads, check their linked-in profile etc before you accept a live discussion. I just think SN gives the prospect more control so when he does accept the contact he is already more qualified and more receptive because he/she already knows some things about you (vs just a stranger's voice on the phone).
I agree, that all, f2f, cold calling and social networking are important in todays market. SN has the advantage, that you get introduced to someone and even might contact you before you get to contact them directly. Since a lot of times, a friend posts something of importance and by being a member of their group you are a "friend", this adds to creibility and as a referral. As we all knoe referrals are the most powerfull introduction to new potential clients.
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Its a mix of both nowadays. Social media helps to identify key decision makers quickly. Depending on the network, I can even see some of the last few initatives they have been working on. That's how I currently use social as a sales executive, but the Internet is always changing, and I'm sure my strategy there will to.
Cold calling should be used as your building block. Talk to their EA and make sure they're the right person. Or a voicemail could be an opportunity to find out how to properly pronounce a name, could include an email address on their message, or provide a preferred method of contact or out of office response.
At this point, I could almost guarantee the key decision maker would much rather delete a voicemail or email on his business mailbox, then having to click ignore or block on FB, deleting direct messages on Twitter, etc. LinkedIn is a bit different, but still seems a bit more intrusive to me than just calling the executive up...