Like most real estate agents, you probably have a preferred method for reaching out to potential customers. It often comes down to a cold call vs. cold email. But which one should you use? To help you decide, we’ve compiled some pros and cons of each approach below.
Advantages of a Cold Call vs. Cold Email
When it comes time to reach out and drum up sales, a call or email is typically the most effective and practical method. You might instinctively lean more toward cold emailing. However, cold calling has several advantages.
Personability
Think about all the birthdays, holidays, and other momentous events you’ve celebrated throughout your life. Did people call you on those days, or did they send you a heartfelt email? Most likely, they called you—it’s a much more personal way to communicate.
The same principle applies to real estate sales calls. A phone call offers a level of personability that an email just can’t attain, creating a more meaningful interaction. You’re letting a potential client know you’re real and relatable.
Quality of Information
When you’re calling, you have more access to the prospect. You can ask follow-up questions and get a response to those questions. You can also gauge responsiveness based on their tone of voice, pauses, and other nonverbal cues.
Cold calling allows you to gather more information in a shorter timeframe than emails or other forms of communication. When people pick up the phone, they don’t want to hear about how great you are—they want to know how you can help them. Sometimes, you don’t need a long-winded sales pitch to get down to business.
Immediate Response
Another advantage to a cold call versus a cold email involves response time. Talking with someone on the phone allows you to get an immediate reply, whereas it could take days for a prospect to reply to your email. If it’s not great timing, you can leave your contact info and ask them to call you back at their earliest convenience.
Cold calling can be challenging for some real estate agents. Don’t worry, though—we have the best cold calling script strategies in real estate to make your call as effective as possible.
Advantages of a Cold Email vs. Cold Call
Cold calling is by no means the number one option for contacting potential new clients. Cold sales emails might be a better solution most of the time. Cold emails offer several benefits over cold calls.
Convenience
When it comes to convenience, cold emailing has the upper hand because you don’t spend as much time working on it. It’s also more convenient for the other person for the following reasons:
- They don’t need to stop what they’re doing to check the message
- They can take their time reading through the email to understand it
- They can reply at their leisure
Scalability
Another advantage of cold emails is their scalability. You can only call one person at a time, but you can email multiple people simultaneously. Not only that, you can choose how many people you message at the same time—numbers aren’t a problem.
Along those lines, cold emails are more time efficient. You can create an automated message and distribute it to hundreds of contacts with the click of a button. It doesn’t waste your time if the recipients ignore their inboxes or decide not to reply.
Cost-effectiveness
Time is money in every industry, including real estate. The more time you spend on cold outreach, the more it’ll cost. That’s why finding the perfect balance between the time spent and the success rate is essential.
Email is free, and it’s easy to send a large number of emails in one go. You can target people who don’t know you, so you’re not wasting time pitching yourself to people who aren’t interested in working with you. Both factors point to cold emails being one of the most cost-effective outreach solutions.
Analytics and Insights
Analytics and insights are vital components of cold emails. With the right email marketing tools, you can easily track your email campaigns and keep tabs on things like:
- How many people opened your message
- Who clicked on the links within the email
- When most people saw the email
- Who replied to the message
You can use these valuable insights to see what you’re doing well and what needs improvement. In-depth analytics reports and data can help you generate leads and, ultimately, increase sales.
Cold Call vs. Cold Email: Factors To Consider
When is it more effective to cold call versus cold email? The answer depends on several factors. Some things to consider as you develop a killer cold outreach strategy include:
- Timing: There’s nothing worse than feeling like someone isn’t listening because they’re too busy with something else. Typically, calling is more effective later in the workday or closer to the weekend. If you plan to send an email, send it 10 minutes before or 10 minutes after the hour.
- Recipient age: Considering your potential customer’s age can help you determine whether to call or email. For example, older generations usually prefer talking to someone on the phone. However, younger generations typically prefer responding to an email.
- Urgency: We’ve already established that cold calls often generate faster response times than cold emails. Take this into account as you decide which will work best for you. You’ll probably want to handle business over the phone if it’s more urgent.
- Familiarity: Does the prospect know who you are? Are they familiar with your brand? A phone call might work better if someone has already heard of you and knows they can trust you.
Cold Call vs. Cold Email: Master Both
Cold call vs. cold email—which one is your best option when it comes to drumming up business? As you can see, the answer depends on many factors. At Local Leader®, we have free digital resources to help boost your brand and learn how effective cold calling is in real estate. Subscribe to our newsletter today!