What is Warm Calling?

Warm calling is an outbound sales strategy where a sales rep calls leads who have had prior contact or engagement with them it or their company. This is in opposition to a cold call, where a rep attempts to contact individuals who have never had prior contact with their organization.

Warm calls are far more desirable than cold calls, as they are more efficient, effective, and successful. This is because the prospects that are being dialed are familiar with the reps’ company, are more engaged, and have likely more interest than someone who has had more prior contact.

Unfortunately, warm calling requires extra effort and more time than cold calling, but it is worthwhile and efforts are rewarded with a higher conversion rate and more sales. In order to properly warm call, a rep must first begin with “warm” leads. They can either warm up these leads through a variety of methods, or use leads that have already been engaged via marketing or engaged in some other way.

Great places to get warm leads include events, groups, and professional associations. Contacts from these events have likely had discussions with salespeople or other representatives who attended them. Furthermore, contacts should always leave an event with a piece of branded “swag” that reminds them of the conversation that they had with your company. Reps can warm call these leads to have a positive discussion that results in a successful sales conversation.

You can also warm up leads for warm call through email sequences. Reps can schedule a set of automated emails to send on a specific schedule. These emails can include certain pieces of content or other invitations for the receiver to get to know the company. Ideally, over time the leads become more and more familiar with your company and the content, to the point where they recognize the rep’s name. Then the rep adds phone calls to the cadence in an attempt to warm call the prospect. The prospect will recognize the company and the rep will have an easier conversation as they qualify and schedule a meeting with them in an attempt to sell.

Sales teams looking to initiate warm calling plans should look for trigger events on both their emails and websites. Search your CRM for prospects who have consistently engaged a number of times, and create a list to call. Reference the content they most recently engaged with, and take the conversation from there.