Key Takeaways
- Cold calling is very much alive: in 2025 the average cold-calling success rate is about 2.3%, but top B2B teams push 6-10%+ by modernizing their approach and using it as part of a broader outbound engine.
- Phone, email, and text should be treated as a single integrated motion: multi-channel cadences (calls + email + social + SMS) can lift conversion rates by 25-30% compared to single-channel outreach.
- Despite the texting boom, 56% of customers still prefer phone calls when communicating with companies, and 82% of buyers accept meetings with sellers who proactively reach out, keeping cold calling central for high-value B2B deals.
- Texting is now the fastest-response channel, with around 70% of people saying it is the quickest way to reach them and roughly three-quarters reporting they read every text; the smart move is to use SMS to support and amplify your calling, not replace it.
- Most B2B organizations underuse SMS for sales; only about one-fifth of B2B orgs text, which means early adopters that blend compliant texting with well-run calling can stand out in crowded inboxes and feeds.
- Persistence still pays: data shows a significant share of opportunities materialize on the 4th–5th call attempt, yet many SDRs quit after one or two touches, leaving pipeline on the table.
- Bottom line: do not abandon the phone in a texting age; instead, rebuild your cold calling program around data, personalization, texting, and modern tools (or partners like SalesHive) so your reps have more live conversations with the right people.
Cold calling didn’t die—it evolved
It’s easy to assume the phone is obsolete when buyers live in email, Slack, LinkedIn, and texts. But in B2B, “digital-first” doesn’t mean “no calls”; it means prospects expect relevance, speed, and a reason to engage. Even with an average dial-to-meeting success rate of 2.3% in 2025, cold calling still creates pipeline when it’s targeted, measured, and connected to the rest of your outbound motion.
The real proof isn’t just in dial stats—it’s in buyer openness. Research shows 82% of buyers accept meetings with sellers who proactively reach out, as long as the outreach is valuable and specific. In other words, buyers aren’t anti-phone; they’re anti-interruption with no payoff.
Where teams get stuck is treating cold calling like a stand-alone tactic instead of one part of a modern sequence. When we design outreach programs at SalesHive—combining calling, email, LinkedIn, and compliant SMS—we’re not betting on one channel. We’re building a repeatable system that increases live conversations, reduces ghosting, and helps sellers earn meetings with the right accounts.
The modern B2B buyer is omnichannel, not anti-phone
B2B buying isn’t linear anymore; it’s a web of touches across devices, platforms, and stakeholders. McKinsey’s B2B research shows buyers use about 10 channels across the buying journey, with activity split across in-person interactions, remote interactions (including phone), and self-serve digital. That reality is exactly why a call can still work—because “remote” is still a major lane in how buyers evaluate vendors.
Just as important, many buyers still prefer voice when the stakes are higher. Data summarized from Salesforce research indicates 56% of customers prefer phone calls when communicating with companies, ranking behind only email and in-person. If you sell complex solutions, multi-year contracts, or anything that requires nuance, voice remains one of the fastest ways to build clarity and trust.
The takeaway for any outbound sales agency or in-house team is straightforward: don’t optimize for what’s trendy—optimize for how prospects actually make decisions. That means using digital channels to create familiarity and context, then using calls to move from “maybe” to a real conversation where you can qualify, multi-thread, and advance the deal.
Use SMS as the assist, not the star player
Texting changed expectations around speed and responsiveness. Around 70% of people say texting is the fastest way to reach them, and 74% say they read every text they receive. That’s why SMS can be so effective for confirmations, quick nudges, and “did you see my note?” follow-ups—especially after an email open, an event scan, or a prior conversation.
What’s surprising is how underused SMS still is in B2B. Only about 21% of B2B organizations reportedly use text messaging in their communication mix, which creates real whitespace for teams that do it well and do it compliantly. HubSpot’s 2025 research also reflects the convergence: 68% of sales pros work at organizations that leverage cold calling, and among heavy callers, 54% pair calls with SMS inside their cadences.
The highest-performing cold calling services treat channels as roles in one play, not separate plays competing for budget. The table below is a simple framework we use to align calls, email, and text without turning your outbound into noise.
| Channel | Best use in B2B outbound |
|---|---|
| Phone | Discovery, qualification, objection handling, multi-threading, and securing the meeting live |
| Context, proof points, personalization at scale, and a written artifact to forward internally | |
| SMS | Fast follow-up, confirmation, “quick question” nudges, and no-friction scheduling (when appropriate) |
| Warming touches, credibility, light engagement, and reinforcing recognition before/after calls |
Build a call-first cadence that buyers can actually tolerate
Modern outbound is less about hero dials and more about disciplined sequencing. A single call attempt rarely tells you anything; timing, internal meetings, travel, and inbox overload are constant. That’s why persistence matters: in a structured multi-touch cadence, the 4th and 5th calls produced a combined 25% of sales opportunities in one study—meaning “later attempts” aren’t extra, they’re often where the wins live.
A practical starting point is a 2–3 week sequence that blends 4–6 call attempts, 4–6 emails, and 1–3 carefully timed texts. The key is designing around buyer workflows: calls during likely availability windows, emails that carry the narrative, and texts used sparingly to confirm or re-surface a warm thread—never as a spammy substitute for real qualification.
To make this operational (whether you run an in-house SDR pod or use an outsourced sales team), you need a cadence that’s simple enough to execute and instrument. Here’s a sample structure that keeps calling central while using email and SMS to increase recognition and reduce drop-off.
| Timing | Primary touch |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | Call + short voicemail (if no answer) + tailored email recap |
| Day 3 | Call + LinkedIn view/connect (light touch, no pitch wall) |
| Day 6 | Email with a single relevant proof point + call attempt |
| Day 9 | Call + SMS nudge (only if appropriate based on engagement/consent) |
| Day 13 | Call attempt + “breakup” style email with a clear next step |
Text gets you the response, but the call is where you earn the conversation.
What high-performing cold calling looks like now
The biggest shift we’ve seen is that modern cold calling is 80% targeting and 20% talk track. If your list is wrong—bad personas, outdated data, no trigger event—your script won’t save you. The fastest way to improve connect-to-meeting rate is tightening your ICP, validating numbers, and micro-segmenting so each call has a real reason to exist.
Once targeting is solid, your messaging must be channel-specific. A good call opener is short, curiosity-driven, and permission-based; a good voicemail is 10–20 seconds with one hook; a good text is even shorter with one clear question. Treating calls, voicemails, and SMS as copy-paste variants is one of the quickest ways to sound generic and get ignored.
AI also matters—but in the right layer of the stack. Use AI to summarize accounts, flag trigger signals, and coach from call recordings so reps spend less time researching and more time having live conversations. The goal is to sound more human, not more automated, which is especially important for cold calling companies and SDR agencies that operate at scale.
Common mistakes that quietly break your outbound engine
One common failure mode is trying to replace calls entirely with email or SMS—especially in high-value B2B. Asynchronous channels are great for sharing information, but they’re poor at nuance, discovery, and multi-stakeholder alignment. If you’re selling complex solutions, you still need live conversation to qualify and shape the opportunity, or deals will stall in long message threads.
Another costly mistake is blasting unsolicited cold texts as the first touch. Random messages from unknown numbers feel intrusive, can create compliance exposure, and can damage brand trust before you ever earn the right to talk. A better approach is to lead with email, LinkedIn, or a call, and reserve texting for engaged prospects, inbound follow-up, event leads, or situations where you have clear consent and a legitimate reason to use SMS.
Finally, many teams lose pipeline by quitting after one or two attempts or by running outreach outside their CRM and engagement tools. When reps dial off-platform or text from personal phones, you lose visibility, reporting, handoff quality, and the ability to optimize sequences. If you’re serious about b2b cold calling services, centralize calling and SMS so every touch is logged, measurable, and coachable.
Measure what matters: conversations, meetings, and pipeline
In a texting age, success can’t be judged by vanity metrics like email opens or text delivery receipts. What matters is progression: connect rate (live conversations per dial), conversation-to-meeting rate, meeting show rate, and meeting-to-opportunity conversion. Those are the numbers that tell you whether your cold callers are creating real pipeline—or just activity.
A practical optimization move is to audit the last 90 days of outreach and segment results by channel combination: call-only, email-only, call + email, and call + email + SMS. You’ll usually find that calls are doing more work than teams realize, while a small number of well-timed texts improve reply speed and reduce no-shows. Once you can see which sequences create meetings, you can standardize and scale the winners.
This is also where sales outsourcing can be a strategic advantage, not a shortcut. The best b2b sales agency partners don’t just “make dials”; they run a full outbound operating system with list building services, QA, coaching, deliverability, and reporting. Whether you hire SDRs internally or work with a sales development agency, the objective is the same: more qualified conversations with the right accounts, measured end-to-end.
What to do next: modernize your calling program without rebuilding from scratch
Start by making texting a controlled capability, not an improvisation. Create simple rules for when SMS is allowed, what “good” looks like, and how it fits into your cadence—so your team isn’t sending risky, off-brand messages. Then redesign one core sequence into a call-first, text-supported model and A/B test it against your current flow to prove impact with data.
Next, invest where the leverage is highest: data quality, segmentation, and coaching. Better lists often improve outcomes faster than rewriting scripts, and coaching from recordings helps reps tighten openers, ask better questions, and close cleanly for next steps. This is where AI can help with preparation and analytics, while skilled humans handle tone, trust, and real-time discovery.
If you don’t want to build the entire engine in-house, partnering with a cold calling agency can be the cleanest path to scale. At SalesHive, we’ve been operating in this reality since 2016—combining targeted calling, cold email, LinkedIn outreach, and compliant business texting inside one coordinated outbound system. The goal isn’t “more touches”; it’s a predictable meeting-creation motion that supports your AEs, protects your brand, and turns omnichannel buyer behavior into pipeline.
Sources
- Cognism – Cold Calling Success Rates 2025
- RAIN Group – Top Performance in Sales Prospecting
- Thinkific – B2B Sales Statistics (Salesforce data and cadence findings)
- McKinsey – Five fundamental truths: how B2B winners keep growing
- Text Request – State of Business Texting Report (2025)
- GlobeNewswire – Text Request Releases State of Business Texting Report
- MessageDesk – Text Messaging Statistics & Facts
- HubSpot – 2025 State of Cold Calling
- SalesHive – Cold Calling Guide
📊 Key Statistics
Expert Insights
Treat Text as the Assist, Not the Star Player
In B2B, the phone is still where complex, high-value conversations actually happen; text is the fastest way to get a response, but it is terrible at handling nuance. Use SMS to confirm interest, share quick details, and lock in meeting times, then shift to a live call for discovery and qualification.
Design Cadences Around Buyer Workflows, Not Rep Convenience
Your prospects are juggling email, Slack, Teams, and their phones all day. Build cadences that hit them where they already are: email and LinkedIn to warm up, calls to drive live conversation, and text to nudge or confirm. Time touches around their likely availability and decision windows instead of when the SDR happens to be free.
Modern Cold Calling Is 80% Targeting and 20% Talk Track
If your list is weak, no script on earth will save you. Invest in ICP definition, data quality, and segmentation so your callers and texters are speaking to the right personas at accounts with real trigger events; this alone often doubles connect-to-meeting rates long before you tweak openers.
Instrument Every Channel and Optimize for Conversations, Not Just Replies
Look beyond superficial metrics like email opens or text delivery to see which combo of touches actually leads to live conversations and qualified meetings. Track connect rate, conversation rate, and meeting rate across call-only, text-only, and mixed sequences, then standardize around the patterns that reliably produce pipeline.
Use AI to Prepare and Coach, Not to Sound Like a Robot
AI is great at summarizing accounts, suggesting talk tracks, and analyzing call recordings for coachable moments. Use it to shave research time and tighten messaging, then let skilled SDRs run natural conversations and send human-sounding texts instead of generic AI sludge.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Trying to replace calls entirely with SMS or email in complex B2B deals
High-ticket, multi-stakeholder decisions rarely get made based on asynchronous messages alone; you end up with shallow engagement, ghosted threads, and deals that stall.
Instead: Use email and text to open doors and keep momentum, but anchor your process around scheduled discovery calls and demos where your reps can actually shape the deal.
Blasting unsolicited cold texts as the very first touch
Random texts from unknown numbers feel intrusive and spammy, can violate local regulations, and damage your brand before the conversation even starts.
Instead: Reserve SMS for leads that have engaged elsewhere (form fills, email replies, event scans) or where you have clear consent; for true cold outreach, lead with email, social, or a call and introduce text later.
Quitting after one or two call attempts
Data shows a big chunk of sales opportunities come on later attempts, yet many SDRs abandon prospects before they ever reach that window, wasting list-building spend and reducing pipeline coverage.
Instead: Standardize a multi-touch call cadence (at least 4-5 attempts over a few weeks) combined with voicemail and email, and coach your team to stay consistent instead of cherry-picking easy connects.
Using the same generic script for calls, voicemails, and texts
Each channel has different constraints; what sounds fine on a 30-second call opener reads like a wall of noise in SMS and gets ignored.
Instead: Design channel-specific micro-scripts: clean, curiosity-driven openers for calls, 10-20 second voicemails with a single hook, and ultra-short texts with one clear next step.
Running calls and texting outside your CRM and sales engagement tools
When reps are texting from personal phones or dialing off-platform, you lose visibility into touch patterns, cannot measure performance, and create risk around compliance and handoffs.
Instead: Centralize calling and SMS inside your CRM or engagement platform (or an outsourced provider's platform) so every touch is logged, reportable, and connected to your cadence logic.
Action Items
Audit your current prospecting mix by channel and outcome
Pull 90 days of data segmented by channel combinations (call-only, email-only, call + email + SMS, etc.) and compare conversation and meeting rates to see where cold calling is already pulling weight and where texting could help plug gaps.
Define clear rules for when and how your team can use SMS in outbound
Create a short playbook that covers consent expectations, approved templates, tone guidelines, and where texts fit inside cadences so SDRs are not improvising in legally risky or off-brand ways.
Redesign at least one core outbound cadence around a call-first, text-supported model
Take your main ICP sequence and explicitly layer in 4-6 call attempts with voicemails, 4-6 emails, and 1-3 carefully timed texts for reminders or quick checks, then A/B test it against your current flow.
Invest in data quality and micro-segmentation for your calling lists
Tighten your ICP, refresh contact data, and bucket accounts by trigger events or use case so callers can open with relevant context and texts can reference something specific that matters to that segment.
Implement call and text coaching based on recordings and transcripts
Use your dialer or outsourced partner's platform to review calls weekly, focusing each session on one skill (openers, discovery, closing for meetings) and include the associated SMS copy in that review to keep messaging aligned.
Decide what to own in-house versus outsource
If your team is small or focused on closing, consider outsourcing the heavy lifting of cold calling, email personalization, list building, and SMS orchestration to a specialist like SalesHive so your AEs can live in discovery and demos.
Partner with SalesHive
SalesHive’s services cover the entire front end of pipeline creation: list building and data validation, AI-powered email personalization through its eMod engine, cold calling and voicemail, compliant business texting, and appointment setting. Instead of asking your internal team to master dialer admin, scripting, coaching, and deliverability, you get a fully managed SDR function on flexible, month-to-month terms with risk-free onboarding and no annual contracts. For revenue leaders who know the phone still matters but do not want to build a calling machine from scratch, SalesHive offers a proven, tech-enabled way to blend cold calls and digital channels into a single predictable meeting-creation system.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
If buyers prefer digital channels, is cold calling still worth the effort for B2B?
Yes, as long as you treat it as part of an omnichannel motion instead of a lone wolf tactic. McKinsey's B2B Pulse shows buyers now use about ten channels and still split their time across in-person, remote (including phone), and self-serve interactions. mckinsey.com Combined with research showing 82% of buyers accept meetings with proactive sellers, cold calling remains one of the only ways to quickly create net-new conversations in high-value B2B deals when integrated with email, social, and SMS.
Where does texting actually fit in a B2B outbound process?
Think of text as the glue between other touches. It is ideal for rapid follow-up on inbound leads, confirming meeting times, sending quick reminders, or nudging warm prospects who have gone quiet. Combined with calling, it helps you reach busy decision makers in the channel they check the most during the day, without replacing the live conversations you still need to qualify and advance complex opportunities.
How many cold call attempts should my SDRs make before giving up on a prospect?
Most teams stop too early. Studies of structured cadences show that the 4th and 5th calls alone can generate about a quarter of total opportunities, and other research highlights that many customers say no several times before they say yes. thinkific.com A good starting point is three to five call attempts per prospect over two to three weeks, supported by email and possibly text, with a clear exit criterion once you have either a definitive no or no engagement across channels.
Is it acceptable to send a text as the first touch to a cold B2B prospect?
In most cases, that is a bad idea both from a relationship and a compliance perspective. Many regions require some form of prior relationship or consent before business texting, and cold texts from unknown numbers feel more invasive than emails or even calls. Lead with email, social, or a call, and reserve SMS for prospects who have engaged, opted in, or where you have a clear, legitimate business reason to text (for example, they gave a mobile number in a form and requested a callback).
How should we measure the success of cold calling in a texting age?
Go beyond dials and meetings booked. Track connect rate (live conversations per dial), conversation-to-meeting rate, meeting-to-opportunity rate, and the impact of calls on multi-channel sequences that also include email and SMS. Compare sequences with and without texts to see where texting genuinely improves show rates and speed to conversation, and coach your team accordingly. When you do this, you can justify investment in calling even if the raw success rate per dial looks small.
What skills should modern SDRs prioritize to be effective on the phone today?
Research and personalization, resilience, and active listening matter more than ever. HubSpot's 2025 report found that over half of heavy cold callers cited research/personalization and resilience as key, and many teams are pairing that with AI-assisted prep and call analytics. blog.hubspot.com Your training should emphasize short, value-focused openers, natural conversation (not strict script reading), and the ability to pivot between channels mid-thread, for instance suggesting a quick text recap or follow-up email when the call ends.
How can small sales teams compete with larger orgs in cold calling and texting?
Smaller teams can compete by being more focused and more disciplined. Tighten your ICP, build smaller but higher-intent lists, and run crisp, multi-channel cadences that combine calls, email, and SMS instead of spraying thousands of low-quality leads. You can also partner with a B2B lead generation agency like SalesHive to handle cold calling, list building, and email personalization at scale while your internal sellers stay focused on closing.
Does AI change how we should think about cold calling in a digital era?
AI mainly changes the prep and coaching layers, not the human core of the call. Use AI to research accounts, generate personalized email copy, suggest call openers, and analyze recordings for patterns and coachable moments. Many sales teams are already doing this; HubSpot's 2025 research shows a growing share of cold callers using AI tools extensively or occasionally to support calling. blog.hubspot.com What AI does not replace is the SDR's ability to build trust quickly, read tone, and adapt in real time on a live call.
