Does Cold Calling Work for Ghostwriting?

Contacting people who don’t know you to ask if they might be interested in your ghostwriting services is not a new marketing tactic, and it is still used today because it works.

More than 100 years ago, Alfred Fuller, who later founded the Fuller Brush Company in 1906, began selling household cleaning brushes door-to-door. He knocked on the doors of people in Somerville, Massachusetts, to ask if they needed tools for cleaning around the house.

Had they asked him to drop by? No.

But did they need what he was selling? A certain percentage did, and he began making serious money on Day One of his venture.

Fuller’s success likely spawned the modern variations of cold calling, which involve reaching out to people who have not indicated an interest — yet — in what you have to offer.

From door-to-door sales, the industry shifted to direct mail, then to telephone calls, to emails, and more recently to social media. Cold texting is the latest iteration.

Why Cold Calling Works

The challenge with selling book ghostwriting services is that your target market is not obvious. They don’t fit into a well-defined demographic or psychographic group.

Many people have long contemplated writing a book. They may have been considering it or collecting stories to feature when they get around to putting pen to paper. Some have been told by others, “You have to write a book.”

Yet figuring out exactly how to do that is often a mystery because they often keep those plans to themselves.

As we know, the publishing industry is complex. Where to start, who to reach out to, and what to share are all unknowns for the vast majority of adults.

Cold calling is designed to uncover who amongst the population of adults has an interest in writing a book.

Average Response Rates

Statistics compiled by Salesforce suggest that the response rate from cold calling is around 2%. Of course, that percentage varies greatly depending on the skill of the caller and the script they use.

That means that for every 100 calls you make, you may find one or two interested prospects. Then, of those interested folks, you may get one client out of 10, 20, or even 50 conversations.

Compared to other marketing tactics, that conversion rate may sound low. It’s actually not.

Direct mail marketing has an average 9% response rate.

Social media advertising response rates are all over the map but appear to consistently be in the sub-1% range, or fewer than one conversion for every 100 ads shown.

Cold Calling Advantages

The reason that cold calling can be an effective marketing tool has to do with the immediacy of the information you gather simply by reaching out to someone you don’t know.

Cold calling, in all its forms, offers several advantages for ghostwriters looking to build their client base:

Immediate feedback. However you choose to attempt to connect with a potential client, that phone conversation or online message helps you gauge in real time whether the person on the other side of the conversation is at all interested in writing a book. If they are, you can immediately begin to share information and receive responses to help you better address any questions or objections they may have.

Efficiency. In a matter of minutes, you can determine if the person you are communicating with has the interest, funds, and time to hire you. This is especially true on the phone, but you can usually assess this equally well through other forms of communication. It just may take a few back-and-forth messages to reach the same realization.

Direct access to prospects. Cold calling helps avoid gatekeepers that can get in the way of connecting with prospects. This is true if you’re messaging through LinkedIn or picking up the phone. In fact, many executives answer their own phone and are more reachable than you might expect, especially after hours.

Timely market research. Every conversation is another data point that can help you better understand objections and pain points. In our Fuller Brush example, Alfred Fuller was actually knocking on doors on behalf of an employer and taking careful notes regarding brushes customers wished the company sold, or complaints with previous products. He used all of that feedback to launch his own company. You can use feedback to adjust your approach or sales pitch.

The most successful ghostwriters use cold calling as a means of establishing connections and starting long-term relationships, rather than trying to seal the deal in that first interaction.

Dare to be Different

Cold calling is both underutilized and underappreciated and you can set yourself apart by at least trying it.

Most ghostwriters, emphasis on the “writer,” rely more on content marketing than other marketing methods. They’re very comfortable blogging, posting on social media, and being interviewed on podcasts, for example, because these tactics leverage their writing skills.

The downside of these writing-based approaches is that they are designed to prompt prospects to seek you out. They’re more reactive.

Cold calling helps you establish a rapport immediately and begin building trust from the start. Since trust is at the heart of every successful ghostwriting relationship, this is a big plus.

Not to mention the fact that since so few other ghostwriters are using cold outreach techniques, such as phone calls and emails, you have little competition. While everyone else is posting on their blog, attending networking events, and exploring podcast guest opportunities, you’re having direct conversations with prospects.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t do all of those other things — I certainly do — only that you’ll find many of your ghostwriter colleagues are doing all the same types of things.

I suspect the main reason ghostwriters are resistant to cold calling is that they think it requires you to be hard-sell or obnoxious. But you don’t have to be. Done well, cold calling helps start conversations and make connections with people who may have been considering writing a book or hiring a ghostwriter.

This tactic could be an untapped goldmine.