Like many professionals, I face a deluge of sales messages every day. It’s easy to tune out emails, display ads, and LinkedIn messages. But a phone call? Love it or hate it, it captures my attention.

I set out to discover if B2B telemarketing is dead in 2025, or if it’s due for a comeback. I talked to sales experts and dug into data to find out whether cold calling still has a place in the modern sales strategy.

Follow along as I share what I found and the expert tips I uncovered on how to turn conversations into conversions with a phone call.

Table of Contents

• What is B2B telemarketing?
• Is telemarketing dead?
• Benefits of B2B Telemarketing
• B2B Telemarketing Types
• Tips for B2B Telemarketing [+ Experts and Data]

What is B2B telemarketing?

B2B telemarketing is an outbound sales tactic in which one company attempts to build a relationship and sell its products or services over the phone to another. It’s better known as cold calling, “cold” because the seller is initiating contact with the buyer instead of the other way around.

Is telemarketing dead?

To answer my question, I turned to HubSpot’s State of Sales report to see what sales reps say about telemarketing as a lead gen and sales tactic.

First, I saw data that confirmed what I already knew: 71% of consumers want to start with self-service tools to do their own research rather than speak to a human.

However, this finding doesn’t mean that a lead won’t start their buying journey with research before talking to the sales team later on.

Just 19% of sales pros say that telemarketing is their best source of high-quality leads. That lags behind referrals, social media, and email marketing but shows that phone calls still work well for some companies and industries as a first point of contact.

I also found this surprising statistic. When HubSpot asked over 1,400 sales professionals about their most effective sales tactic, they reported 1) in-person meetings and 2) phone calls.

This tells me that high-dollar deals aren’t done over email or chat alone. Personal conversations — in-person, phone, or video — are key channels for conversion.

Leslie Venetz, founder of the Sales-Led GTM Agency, is bullish on phone-based outreach.

“Inbound gets fewer results than it ever has before. The same is true with PLG — it’s a very, very crowded market, and our buyers are frazzled, distracted, and overwhelmed. This is why I think we are seeing a resurgence in cold calling. Because so many folks are overly reliant on email right now, I believe cold calling will be a primary channel for revenue generation in 2025,” Venetz says.

Based on everything I’ve learned, I believe B2B telemarketing still deserves a place in most company’s sales strategies. It still needs an effective inbound marketing, social media, and email strategy to be effective, so your prospect has some brand awareness.

When you pick up the phone, a well-timed cold call can bridge the gap from awareness to interest.

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Benefits of B2B Telemarketing

What can this 150-year-old channel, the phone call, give us that email and social can’t?

Personalized Channel for High-Value Buyers

Buying enterprise software or multi-million dollar equipment isn’t like buying a pair of socks off Amazon. The average B2B software purchase takes three to six months and involves four to six decision-makers.

For that reason, 57% of C-level executives and VPs still prefer to speak to a sales rep on the phone to ask questions and fully understand the product or service they would be buying.

“While Gen Z does not like the phone, it‘s important for them to remember that most of the decision-makers they’re calling on are still in that older millennial+ age bracket,” says Venetz. “Especially if we look at senior level executives, the data repeatedly shows us that they prefer to be reached with a phone call.”

The most important factor B2B buyers look for, more than support and integration potential, is the trustworthiness of the organization and sales team, according to Gartner. To showcase your value and build trust, you need to build rapport and a relationship — you need conversations.

High Conversion Rate

According to Cognism’s State of Cold Calling, the average cold call connect rate is 16.6%, and the average success rate is 4.82%.

Compare that to the average conversion rate of 0.80% for B2B display ads, and that number starts to look pretty good. It’s also more than double the cold calling success rate from 2022 — a good indicator that cold calling is gaining traction again.

Let’s say that an outbound lead specialist makes 100 calls a day and actually speaks with 55 of them. That translates to 275 prospect convesations a week, not to mention voicemails to many more and about 13 qualified leads or appointments for your sales team each week.

B2B Telemarketing Types

The goals of B2B telemarketing can vary depending on your company’s size, industry, and sales organization.

A sales rep for a small company might manage telemarketing from first contact through lead nurturing and closing. At a larger company, dedicated sales development representatives often focus exclusively on outbound calls with the goal of handing qualified leads off.

1. Lead Generation

A lead generation call is when a sales development representative calls a prospect to qualify them as a lead. In a lead gen call, the caller should gather more information about a prospect, like job title, needs, and budget, and confirm their interest in learning more.

2. Appointment-Setting Call

An appointment-setting call has a very specific goal: booking a next step, like a demo, tour, or sales call.

3. Lead Nurturing Call

A lead nurturing call, also called a sales call, is when a sales team contacts a lead after they have expressed interest in the company’s offerings. Often, a lead fills out a form or a demo request online — but a lead nurturing call would be a critical first point of personal contact.

4. Follow-Up Call

Just like it sounds, a follow-up call is when a sales pro calls a prospect again after making an initial cold call or leaving a voicemail.

Tips for B2B Telemarketing [+ Experts and Data]

If you’re convinced that B2B telemarketing can help you generate leads, reach high-value buyers, and stand out from the crowd, it’s time to create a killer B2B telemarketing strategy. Here’s how.

1. Prioritize Data Accuracy

A clean database is the key to success in any telemarketing strategy. If your contacts and phone numbers are incorrect, you won’t get very far.

Consider multiple data sources and data enrichment for robust contact details. A powerful CRM is a must to keep all your leads and prospects in one place.

[Video: HubSpot CRM Tutorial for Beginners]

I also recommend creating a culture where both lead developers and sales reps take responsibility for maintaining contact data and notes in the CRM. Accurate contact details and notes set calls up for success.

2. Use signal-based selling

Once you have clean and accurate prospect data, you can supercharge your chance of success with signal-based selling. That means prioritizing your telemarketing outreach based on data and prospect activity.

“Signal-based selling isn’t strictly a new way of selling. It’s just a new term for a more advanced approach to figuring out how to reach the right person at the right time with the right message,” says Venetz.

One example of a signal is someone opening an email you sent, downloading a white paper, or filling out a form.

A trigger like this could alert a sales rep or appointment setter that it’s time to pick up the phonel. With AI, sales intelligence platforms can analyze multiple signals and assess which prospects are most likely ready to buy based on that analysis. Lead scoring, for example, is a helpful tool for a sales team to prioritize who to cold call.

3. Research your prospects.

There’s a rule of three in B2B prospecting. The 3X3 rule means you should spend three minutes finding three pieces of information about your prospect before you call.

That could be personal details about your contact from LinkedIn, a mutual contact, or company news from their website. With this quick information-finding, you can personalize your outreach and connect with a prospect to earn the right to their time.

4. Create a cold call script.

Every telemarketing call should start with a script.

It’s important to map out what you want to say before you call so you don’t forget your pitch or lose focus. The average cold call length, according to Cognism is 83 seconds — that means you have a very short window to get your message across. Every word counts. An effective cold call script can more than double your success rate.

The Opening Statement

“Your opening line needs to hook the prospect in the first 10 seconds, or the call is over before it starts,” warns Venetz. “Think, what can I say now that earns me the right to 30 more seconds of their attention or an additional 60 seconds of their attention?”

Getting a sales rep to pick up the phone is one small victory, but then what? 11% of unsuccessful cold calls end with the recipient simply hanging up.

To avoid this, revenue platform Gong recommends stating your full name and company and stating the reason for your call (no bait and switch!). If you have a mutual connection, this is a good time to drop it as well.

• Example: Hi [First Name], This is [Full Name] from [Company]. How’ve you been? The reason for my call is …
• Example: Hi [First Name], This is [Full Name] from [Company]. We both know [Mutual Contact], and she suggested we connect about [Relevant Area].

What the data says: Asking “How’ve you been?” in the opening line performs 6.6X higher than scripts without it. Stating the reason you’re calling also has a 2.1X higher success rate.

The Impact Statement

If you haven’t been hung up on yet, you’ve earned an additional twenty to thirty seconds of your prospect’s time to hook them into a discussion.

It’s okay to acknowledge the interruption at this stage, but don’t wait for permission before getting into the topic at hand. Here, you want to mention a pain point they are likely facing or a discussion point that you know is relevant because of your industry and marketing persona research.

It’s important to show that you know something about their company, but don’t make too many assumptions.

• Example: I know we haven’t spoken before, but I saw [company news/LinkedIn post/other], and it seems like [pain point] is a challenge. Is this something your team is focused on?
• Example: I saw you speak about [Topic] on this [Webinar/Event] last week. I speak to a lot of business owners who are struggling with this. Could I ask you a few questions about how you handle this at [Company]?

What the data says: Asking, “Did I catch you at a bad time?” drops your chance of booking a meeting by 40%.

“After the impact statement is when you are going to sense that you‘ve got it right and that they want to continue the call. It’s not about bulldozing people. It’s just about moving that permission to continue the call to a little bit later. Once you ask that question, you get their buy-in, then you’ve earned the right to start building more rapport, which is when you transition into questions,” said Venetz.

Open-Ended Discovery Questions

As an interviewer, there’s nothing I love more than open-ended questions. They’re a great starting point to get a prospect talking. Here are a few examples that you could ask on a cold call:

• What are your top business priorities right now?
• How would you describe the challenges you’re currently facing in [business area]?
• What approaches have you tried in the past to address [specific issue]
• How are changes in your competitive landscape impacting your business?
• If time and money were not factors, what changes would you make to your current system?
• Who else is typically involved in decisions related to [relevant area]?

The Pitch

Last, you need a succinct value proposition statement, the classic “pitch.”

• At [company], we help customers like [relevant existing customers] solve [pain point] by [solution]. Would you be interested in receiving more information about how we do that?

If they say yes, you can then proceed to ask for a meeting. Don’t leave the ball in the prospect’s court — book a time before ending the call!

A cold calling script is an essential tool for lead developers and sales pros, but remember that it’s a conversation. Don’t stick to it too religiously that you sound like a robot, not a person.

“A great script is a guide, not a crutch,” advises Venetz. “Reps need the flexibility to personalize and adapt.”

5. Prepare for objections.

Objections are a reality all telemarketers deal with. The most common objections are that the prospect doesn’t think it’s a good fit, doesn’t have the budget, or simply isn’t interested.

Source

Write out your most common objections and a script for how to handle each of them. Acknowledging the objection, responding with empathy, and humor are all good tactics to disarm anger, uncover their true objection, and keep them talking.

Practice role-playing your objections with your sales team, and don’t be afraid of rejection. Learn from your mistakes — I improve the most when I learn it.

6. Always follow up.

Finally, if you’ve qualified the lead and booked the next step (Hooray!), follow up with an email, text, or a calendar invite if applicable to ensure multiple points of contact with them. Let them know that you appreciated their time — remember: this is the start of a relationship.

Add any call notes to your CRM to remind yourself of details like pain points, budget, or their spouse’s name. That way, you set the next conversation up for success.

Conversions Start with Conversations

While phone calls may not be the first choice of channel for most people in 2025, the evidence I found showed that it’s still an important sales tactic. B2B buying is complex, and decision-makers need conversations to determine fit and, more importantly, build trust.

The best telemarketers don’t just pitch; they listen, ask the right questions, and uncover pain points. Telemarketing — or cold calling — can help you stand out from the digital noise and connect with a conversation.