Cold calling is a common practice in most business settings; in fact, it’s one of the most widely used methods for generating leads and facilitating business development. Not all cold calling endeavors are created equal, however, and ensuring success means taking a disciplined, data-driven approach.

Being data-driven means collecting and analyzing plenty of quantifiable data points about your cold calling efforts, measuring to see how effective your cold calls really are. The use of cold calling metrics can help business development teams determine whether their efforts are generating more leads, sales, or revenues. Cold calling metrics may also point to ways in which the current strategy may be revised or fine-tuned.

Why Do Cold Calling Metrics Matter?

In fact, there are a number of ways in which cold calling metrics can help a sales or business development team to act more efficiently. Consider some of the main benefits:

• Cold calling metrics provide quantifiable data points that can be used to rate the performance of a sales professional, or of the entire sales team. This information can be invaluable when thinking about recruiting, team development, sales bonuses or pay raises, even employee terminations.
• Cold calling metrics can also help businesses forecast upcoming sales opportunities, using past data points to make informed appraisals about the future.
• Cold calling metrics allow businesses to make confident and well-informed decisions about their sales strategy, as opposed to relying solely on gut feelings.

What are the Most Important Cold Calling Metrics?

There are a number of different cold calling metrics that a business might track. Some of the most common include:

• Hit rate (also called dial to connect ratio). This simply refers to the number of cold calls that actually connect with a real, live human.
• Appointment rate. This denotes the percentage of cold calls that result in the prospect scheduling an appointment or consultation.
• Conversion rate. The conversion rate denotes the percentage of cold calls that directly lead to a sale.
• Average call length. This metric helps to assess the level at which prospects are engaging with the sales pitch or message.

These are just a few examples of the kinds of metrics that can be tracked and used to evaluate a cold calling initiative.

What About Qualitative Analysis?

So far we’ve talked exclusively about quantitative data; that is to say, hard numbers that provide an objective (if not always complete) picture of your team’s cold calling efforts. There are a number of software solutions, including CRM systems, that can be used to track these numbers and to offer comparisons against industry benchmarks.

It’s worth noting that qualitative data has its place, too. Actually recording and listening back to calls, then brainstorming ways the conversation might have been tweaked or redirected, can provide invaluable insights that ultimately make the business development team more effective. Both quantitative and qualitative data have their place here.

Learn More Effective Cold Calling

At Piedmont Prospecting, lead generation and business development are our bread and butter. Follow our blog to learn more about cold calling basics; or, to outsource your business development efforts to a team of experienced pros, reach out to us today.