ClickCease

A Cautionary Tale: Bad List Destroys Campaign

Jun 24, 2018 | Call Center, Cold Calling, Inside Sales, Lead Generation, Perspectives and Opinions

The foundation of any cold calling or appointment setting campaign is the call list. It is typically about a 60%-75% predictor of success. A bad list will produce bad results, plain and simple – no ifs, ands or buts.

Of course, there are other factors that in combination greatly affect the outcome of a campaign such as a compelling sales message, the ability of the callers themselves, and how the campaign is managed, to name a few. However, none of these factors mean anything if the list itself is bad. They only come into play with good lists.

To illustrate this point, let us tell you a story about a recent client of ours whose campaign failed because of a bad list.

The client was a software company with an association management tool for big associations. They came to us with a purchased list of associations with membership in the range of 3,000 – 10,000. The list also included the name of right person to talk to for each association listed, i.e. the Decision Maker. Or, so our client thought.

Unfortunately, the list was a bad apple. Many of the associations had a membership base of a mere few hundred, instead of in the thousands. They simply were not interested in the management tool because it didn’t make sense for them.

Plus, most of the names were wrong, making each call exceptionally long as we tried to track down who the right person was. We were averaging a mere 4.4 records called per hour. Since the software tool didn’t have a substantially high-ticket value, this time factor was a big problem. We needed to be reaching three times that number in a given hour.

In the end, we jointly decided to end the program. It was futile to continue with that list.

The moral of the cautionary tale is this: MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A GOOD LIST BEFORE YOU START YOUR COLD CALLING CAMPAIGN!

Also, it’s worth noting that at VSA, we often help our clients find and build their list. It’s one of our services. To learn more, call us today at (856) 240-8100.