The first thing a marketing campaign planning team should consider when going into Virgin Territory to expand their business; is cold calling accepted in this industry? If it is then it pays to make large lists of the most potential prospects and which are best for your company.

Then cluster these accounts and consider the servicing or delivering to that area. Many customers all together make a lot of sense and keep your deliveries or service units efficient in routing. It just makes everything so much better to cluster and think like that from the very beginning of a marketing campaign.

If cold calling is acceptable in your industry, then by all means pick up that phone and start dialing and attempt to get a Yes or No from the decision maker. It saves both your company’s sales team time from calling rather than wasting a visit and the companies you are trying to sell to from having their time wasted as well.

By doing this you can get to people who make decisions that your other marketing may not have. For instance advertising on the radio on the way to work, well that may be heard by their employees but not the boss who is listening to his favorite CDs or already on his cell phone on the way into the office.

Cold Calling may seem like a horrible job, but it is also the most efficient and makes the most sense from a business standpoint. Keep it simple, get to the decision maker, open the door to a sales call, or written proposal by fax, drop off or mail. Please consider all this in 2006.