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NEW RESEARCH INDICATES COLD CALLING IS NOT THE WAY TO GENERATE NEW BUSINESS & INFLUENCE DECISION MAKERS The research, commissioned by the Association of Business-to-Business Agencies (ABBA) and undertaken by BMRB via their online B2B service, aimed to ascertain which channels influenced business decision makers the most. The results proved bad news for one particular traditional channel! At the top of the list as the most influential marketing communication channel affecting business decision makers today are printed brochures: 33% say they have been influenced by them. Second is online advertising with 31% of the vote; third are sales related emails (with 30%) and fourth are trade press advertising with 28%. Given that the tendency is for people to underestimate the impact that promotional material has on their behaviour, these figures show a high level of claimed influence. Only 18% of respondents claim that a sales call has prompted them to consider a product or service in the past six months. Even worse news for the 'sales call' - 82% of those with primary responsibility for purchasing decisions say that they sometimes avoid taking sales calls and 56% claim that sales related phone calls have no influence on their purchasing decisions at all. Steve Dyer, Managing Director of integrated B2B team Clockwork IMC, and committee member of ABBA, says, 'It's no surprise that channels that put the customer in control of the buying process have out performed channels that are perceived to focus purely on selling. In today's time-poor marketplace the customer wants to retain control of the purchasing process. The huge amount of individual consumers and corporate companies that have taken advantage of the telephone and fax preference services indicates that any channel that is perceived to be purely a selling channel will be shunned by purchasing enabled decision makers.'
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