Phone Call or Email Better

[BobGW]

Hello,

I had a Moz associate look at our niche, and he suggested using phone calls and emails for outreach. We are marketing an article that appeals to the humanitarian side of the organizations and companies we're contacting. We're contacting sites that are already listing useful articles.

When you have the choice between a phone call or an email for outreach, which do you choose?

The emails would be personalized, to a specific person when possible, and letting them know that we are a reciprocator by sharing across social channels and/or blog post commenting for them.

The phone calls would be to the companies' general contact numbers.

Which do you do first?

[IndustrySteve]

Hi Bob,

Personally I've always had more success emailing first. Then I follow up with a phone call. Reason being is that I found myself spending way too much time explaining myself to someone who had no idea what I was talking about or who I needed to speak to within the company. Even when I eventually did get through to the right person, it was difficult to get their attention without sounding like a cold call sales person.

Secondly, people are bombarded with nuisance calls now on a daily basis, to me it shows some respect when sending an email through first (no harm in mentioning the fact that you're avoiding to call them first).

The best route in for me at the moment is Linkedin. Easy to find specific people within an organisation that you know you need to speak to make things happen. Tend to get a better conversion rate through this.

Cheers, Steve.

[Branden_S]

Do both!!  Send a personalized email and then follow up with a phone call.  Phone calls generate a better response than email, and if the phone call is a few days after the email, its not completely a cold call.

[EGOL]

Lots of people send me email messages.

If I am interested in what they send I act on it.   If I am not interested in what they sent I delete it.

If they call after I deleted their message I am really pissed off.  They are interrupting me and wasting my time.

If what they had to say was really important they would have gotten action.  A lack of action should let them know that their message was SPAM.

[EGOL]

Secondly, people are bombarded with nuisance calls now on a daily basis, to me it shows some respect when sending an email through first (no harm in mentioning the fact that you're avoiding to call them first).

If you do that to me I will tell you that if I was interested in your offer I would have acted upon your email message.... and that you calling me as follow up is rude.

Just being honest.

[IndustrySteve]

You're quite right but often if I am interested in what an email had to say, I'll already be on to the next email / work task and the notion of contacting them will be a distant memory.

Sometimes it pays off and when it does, it's an opportunity gained and not missed. I'd rather have 30 people tell me to shove my face in to a moving bus and have one person convert rather than let 31 people stew over an email which they may or may not ever get back to me about.

I can understand your approach though and I guess it really does depend on the type of email. I assume from the question, we're talking more outreach than we are DR/Sales.

[EGOL]

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

[IndustrySteve]

Likewise.