Difference Between Cold-Calling and Telemarketing

by Beverly Bird

Cold-calling is a form of telemarketing. If telemarketing is like the weather, cold-calling is a sunny or cloudy day. You can conduct telemarketing without cold-calling, but if you or your employee make a cold call, it’s telemarketing. The distinction lies in whether the person you’re telephoning has any reasonable expectation of your call, not necessarily at the time you make it, but at any time at all.


Cold-calling involves contacting a potential customer out of the blue to try to sell him your product or service. The contact does not have to be telephonic. If you ring his doorbell without warning, this is cold-calling as well. You’re reaching out to him without any idea whether he’s actually interested in what you’re offering. You might have gotten his name and number from the telephone directory or from a contact list purchased from a marketing company offering such tools.


Telemarketing is not limited to outgoing contact with potential customers or clients. Customers may call you in response to a sign or advertisement they noticed. Telemarketing can also be something of a “fishing expedition.” You might not actively try to sell your product during the call, but instead try to ascertain if the individual you’ve contacted has any interest in it at all. If so, you might turn his name and contact information over to one of your salespeople so he can make secondary contact and pitch your product. Telemarketing includes following up with a client who previously bought from you, and fact-finding efforts, such as if you’re just attempting to ascertain what buyers are looking for in a certain product. It’s any marketing technique that occurs over the telephone.


According to Reference For Business, telemarketing is cost-effective. Selling your product or service by telephone costs about 80 percent less than knocking on doors yourself or sending an employee to do so. Telemarketing also allows you to actively generate potential business, rather than pay a salesperson to stand around your establishment, waiting for customers to show up. Unless you pay him strictly on a commission basis, his presence there costs you whether customers come in or not. If you use fliers, signs and media advertising to reach customers, there’s no personal interaction. You can’t gauge customers’ responses unless they call you and mention your ad, or unless your efforts elicit no response at all.


Cold-calling has given telemarketing a bad reputation. The Federal Trade Commission has developed specific rules to govern the field and to prevent unscrupulous cold-call tactics, such as repetitive calling after the individual has asked you not to contact him anymore. If you cold-call someone, or even if you telephone him to follow up on business you’ve already transacted with him, you might interrupt his meal or his favorite television show. Chances are you’ll annoy him and diminish any chance of an eventual sale. You might also waste time and energy reaching out to someone who has absolutely no interest in your product, especially with cold-calling. If you’re selling childcare services, that name and number in the phone book might belong to an elderly pensioner with no children.

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