Data: Cold Email Outperforms Cold Calling in Health SaaS
A sales leader at a healthcare SaaS company shared data comparing outreach methods, finding that 44,000 cold emails generated 71,000 in Annual Recurring Revenue from seven deals. In contrast, cold calling produced poor results, with only one deal closed for 2,400 in ARR. The results suggest that email is more effective for building trust with skeptical healthcare buyers.
The sales cycle for healthcare IT can be notoriously long, with an average of 125 days to close a deal. Some sales cycles for new healthcare systems can even extend for years, involving multiple budget approvals and sign-offs from legal and compliance departments. Buying decisions in healthcare are rarely made by one person. A purchasing committee often includes five or more stakeholders from IT, finance, clinical, and executive teams, each with different priorities and concerns. This complexity has only increased, with 58% of B2B professionals reporting that sales cycles have gotten longer in the past year. Email allows prospects to engage on their own schedule and easily forward information to other decision-makers, a key advantage in complex buying cycles. While cold calling can create immediate conversation, it's labor-intensive and can be perceived as intrusive by busy healthcare professionals who prefer to do their own research first. Trust is a critical factor in healthcare purchasing decisions, more so than in many other industries. Building this trust requires demonstrating a deep understanding of a provider's unique challenges, and a less aggressive, value-focused email can serve as a better first step than an unsolicited call. Displacing an incumbent vendor is a significant hurdle in healthcare IT, as organizations are often reluctant to change and face high switching costs. A challenger must build credibility over time, often through sharing case studies and peer-validated results, which is a natural fit for a structured email nurture sequence. Despite the success of email in this instance, many sales leaders advocate for a multi-channel approach. Combining email outreach with strategic calls can increase engagement by nearly five times compared to relying on a single channel. The preference for digital engagement by healthcare providers has grown significantly since the pandemic. As providers become saturated with digital requests, sales professionals must differentiate themselves by providing tangible value and compelling insights in every interaction to earn a second conversation.
