For everyone involved, cold outreach may be tedious and uncomfortable. Most folks on both sides of most cold calls aren’t overjoyed to be receiving them.

Receiving an unsolicited call from a company you’ve never heard of trying to sell you a product you probably don’t need is annoying, and cold calling someone only to have them berate you — venting weeks of pent-up frustration after their favorite contestant on The Voice was voted off or something else that shouldn’t make them that angry but does — is an actual recurring nightmare of mine.

Yes, cold outreach isn’t ideal, but if you’re only trying to reach out to cold prospects, you’re in a bit of a bind. In an ideal world, you’d only deal with qualified leads, but that’s not always the case. The spectrum of prospect interest, though, isn’t quite binary. Warm prospects are a type of prospect that falls somewhere between chilly and qualified.

We’ll receive a more detailed description of that notion, an example to assist you in actively distinguishing them from other types of leads and prospects, and some guidance on whether or not you should pursue them.

As an example, consider the following three prospects: Timmy, Tommy, and Tina. You’re a sales representative for Inbound Dog Chow, a dog chow distributor that serves kennels, shelters, and pet stores, and Timmy is a cold prospect, Tommy is a qualified lead, Tina is a warm prospect.

What are Cold prospects?

A cold prospect is someone who fits one of your target buyer personas but is unfamiliar with your company. Cold phoning, cold emailing, advertising and networking are all common ways to contact them.

Timmy, the unsuspecting newcomer, has never heard of Inbound Dog Chow. He’s a high-ranking official at an animal sanctuary, but he’s made no indication that he’s interested in working for you.

You obtained his contact information from an online site that scans LinkedIn profiles for dog care professionals. If you call him, it will be completely unexpected and unlikely to work out.

Lead Expertise

Tommy, the qualifying lead, has been identified as having a higher chance of becoming a customer than the others. Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs) are the two categories of qualified leads (SQLs).

An MQL is a person who has been identified as a possible customer based on the websites they’ve visited, the files they’ve downloaded, and their other interactions with the company’s material. An SQL is an MQL that has been thoroughly vetted, investigated, and judged ready to communicate with your sales team by your marketing department.

Tommy is the owner and main decision-maker of a small pet store that has visited the Inbound Dog Chow pricing page multiple times in the last month. He reads the company blog religiously, and he’s proven that he has the resources and power to place large wholesale dog food orders.

He began his career as an MQL and has now advanced to SQL. If you contact him, he will most likely be responsive, intrigued, and open to making a purchase.

What are Warm Prospects?

A warm prospect falls somewhere in the middle of those two scenarios. They’ve heard of your firm and expressed some interest, but they haven’t invested or done enough research to be called a qualified lead.

Tina, the hot prospect, started following Inbound Dog Chow on Twitter recently. She assists with the operation of a medium-sized kennel, although it’s unclear whether she’s in charge of purchasing dog food for the establishment. In exchange for her contact information, she also downloaded an eBook about dog grooming from a blog post.

She recognizes you, but making a sale from her may not seem feasible or worthwhile – the decision is still up in the air. She is aware of Tommy’s sales potential in a way that Timmy is not, but she lacks the clear, quantitative, data-driven urgency that Tommy possesses.

Should I pursuit Warm Prospects?

The short answer is, Yes.

Reaching out to warm prospects is unquestionably easier and more practical than undertaking extensive cold outreach initiatives if you have a large pool of them. They’ve shown interest in and knowledge of your company, so they’re inherently more likely to listen to you if you contact them.

See if you can pique their interest further. A warm lead is someone who has already provided you with their contact information. Take advantage of it in whatever way you can, and it doesn’t have to be aggressive. Even something as easy as sending them an email with a related content offer can increase their interest in your organization.

You may help steer them through your sales funnel by developing their interest, giving your marketing staff the insight and information they need to evaluate if they’re a qualified lead.

Warm leads aren’t always sure things, but they’re usually worth your attention. And chasing them is more productive, higher-converting, and less stressful for your sales staff than sifting through an endless list of cold leads.

Not every lead is cold, and not every lead is qualified. That’s something to keep in mind when deciding how you’ll reach out to prospects and communicate with them. Warm prospects require a different approach than cold prospects who have never heard of your company or leads that have been regarded as extremely viable.

Conclusion

You might be able to attract numerous warm prospects depending on how you plan and perform your sales and marketing activities. It’s critical to take action once you’ve amassed a big base of that type of potential consumer. Warm opportunities are still worth following up on and pursuing, even if there’s no assurance they’ll pan out.