To cold call or not to cold call?
With the rise in various B2B prospecting strategies, cold calling has slipped to the wayside for many B2B companies.
But how successful is cold calling, really?
And, should we continue to use it in 2025?
In this article, we’re looking at the cold calling success rates for 2025 to determine if cold calling is still an effective sales strategy.
Scroll for our findings 👇
What is the success rate of cold calling?
The average cold calling success rate is 4.8% (based on an independent study at Cognism). This percentage is a lot lower than other sales techniques, but as a form of outbound lead generation, it’s still effective and should be implemented into your sales strategy.
Depending on the cold calling script you use, you can increase your B2B cold calling success rates up to 10.01%. According to Gong, all you need to do is ask a prospect how they’ve been.
This isn’t an isolated sales call statistic. LinkedIn has found that opening a sales call with “I understand we share a common LinkedIn group,” can increase your chances of securing a meeting by 70%. What’s more, if your opening line includes a reason for calling, your call success rate could increase by 2.1%.
What percentage of cold calls are successful?
Out of 100 cold calls, an SDR can expect at least 2 calls that convert into warm leads, surprising when you realise that 49% of buyers actually prefer to be contacted through a cold call.
With that said, it takes an average of 8 call attempts to reach a prospect and once you have a qualified lead, 20% of them will convert into a sale.
How can you improve your cold calling success rate?
Make ‘don’t give up, follow-up!’ your new sales mantra. It can take at least 5-follow up calls to turn a prospect into a lead.
Does cold calling still work?
Cold calling is still an effective sales technique, especially now that many prospects are following hybrid working models and can be contacted via their mobiles. Done right, cold calling is an efficient way to reach decision-makers and increase your incoming revenue.
Discover the techniques for cold calling that actually work!
🎞️ Watch this video with Morgan J Ingram, Director of Sales Execution and Evolution at Jb Sales Training, and David Bentham, Inside sales Director at Cognism.
Resources for higher cold calling success rates
If these cold calling success rates for 2025 are anything to go by, you’ll want to make cold calling part of your sales process.
To help you achieve the best cold calling success, we’ve included a list of links to other resources you might find valuable:
- When is the best time to cold call?
- How to get past the gatekeeper
- Cold calling examples of what not to say
- How to get over your fear of cold calling
- Cold calling voicemail scripts
- How to find direct phone numbers for sales?
- Cold calling objections and responses
- Common sales objections and responses
- 5 steps for better objection handling
- Company research tools to identify target accounts
- The difference between cold calling and warm calling
- The best cold calling opening lines
- Cold calling script templates
- Creating a sales prospecting list
- Where to buy phone number lists for prospecting
Become a cold calling champion
Thought cold calling was dead? Think again!
57% of C-level executives and VPs say they would rather hear from sales reps via the phone than any other channel.
Become a cold calling champion with the help of our ‘The B2B Cold Calling Handbook,’ and increase your cold calling success rates!
Click 👇 to download your ungated copy.
