Cold calling is an important way to grow your blood donor base. Whether you are opening up a brand new location, looking to add blood donors to a current location, or just hoping to increase your blood donor base in the community, cold calling is a useful way to create new relationships with members of the community.
Here are a few key questions to ask yourself when determining if cold calling is right for your center:
- Are you calling all of the blood donors in your donor base? All donors are important. That said, a donor who has lapsed is much easier to recruit than a new donor who has not made a relationship with the center. Try asking donors who have stopped donating if they would return!
- Have you expanded your service area into a new location? If you have expanded your service area with a new fixed site, or even with mobile drives, it’s important to get word out to potential donors in that new community. Try cold calling to donors close to your locations to see if people would be interested in helping save lives with you!
- Is your current donor base large enough to support your needs with other marketing avenues? Before deciding on cold calling, look into your marketing strategy to determine if there are other channels which are not being utilized to engage your current donor base. Perhaps using social media, direct mail, or other advertising channels would connect you with donors who are already committed to your vision, but are not available in your current channels.
Cold calling donors is a very useful recruitment technique, but it is best used only in certain situations. If you are interested in finding out whether cold calling is right for you, ask yourself these questions!