Phone-based prospecting is experiencing a resurgence. Here’s how to utilise it effectively

Pulp, Suede, The Manic Street Preachers, The Lightning Seeds and even Mis-Teeq are all reuniting for live performances. TFI Friday is back on our TVs and Number 10 has welcomed back Gordon Brown. Even Tony Blair is back on the front pages with views and opinions.

Whilst the death knell for the telephone as a channel for new business was sounded in the 90s and again in the Noughties with the introduction of answerphones and the Telephone Preference Service, it has defied all predictions and, despite the AI revolution, remains a key tool. In 2026, the telephone is making a significant resurgence. Why? It is certainly not in the traditional “smile and dial” sense.

Many channels that diverted from phone-based human interactions and dominated agency business development over the last decade have become crowded:

• Email response rates have fallen
• LinkedIn outreach is heavily automated and often ignored
• Paid lead generation has become more expensive
• AI has dramatically increased the volume of generic outbound messaging

As a result, a thoughtful phone call stands out because it’s one of the few channels where a real conversation can take place.

Decision-makers are overwhelmed by digital outreach

Senior marketers, founders, and procurement leaders can receive dozens of cold emails every day and many report that they simply don’t read most of them.

A well-researched call can cut through that noise because it demands attention in a way an email doesn’t. It also allows for fact finding, qualification and relationship building. Yes, the timing could be interrupting someone’s day, but a professional business developer will be able to schedule another call for a better time if required. An email gets deleted.

AI is making human interaction more valuable

The irony is that AI-generated outreach is helping telemarketing.

When prospects suspect that emails and LinkedIn messages are automated (which tends to be quite obvious), genuine human conversations become more credible and memorable.

For agencies, this is especially important because that call is the start of a relationship. Clients buy people and trust as much as they buy services.

Complex services still require discussion

Creative, branding, strategy, digital transformation, and marketing engagements are rarely impulse purchases.

Any new agency is a risk and the buyer often needs:

• Education
• Reassurance
• Challenges to their thinking
• Exploration of needs

Phone conversations are effective for uncovering those opportunities.

Agencies need meetings, not leads

Most agencies don’t actually need thousands of leads. They need:

• Meaningful conversations
• Qualified prospects to build a pipeline with short and long-term opportunities
• Qualified meetings with prospects that could offer ongoing work, projects and activity

A skilled business-development caller will always produce better-quality meetings than a large-volume, automated email campaign.

The most effective new business approaches will include targeted email and LinkedIn engagement, but timing and qualification will only ever happen during a phone call. The telephone is also an absolute imperative for nurturing prospects.

What won’t work

Old-school telemarketing is ineffective:

• Reading scripts
• Uber high-volume cold calling
• Generic pitches
• Appointment setting without qualification

Prospects are quick to detect low-value outreach. Genuine conversations, a genuine interest in their challenges and requirements and a human approach are critical. An experienced caller should be able to bring a point of view rather than simply asking for a meeting. A meeting going into the diary should feel like a natural conclusion to the call. If it doesn’t, but the conversation has been a chance to qualify that prospect as a potentially high-value lead for the future, a very strong, reliable and predictable pipeline can be developed.

The challenges

Of course, in 2026, phone-based outreach has challenges. It is not as simple as calling an office and asking for a name. Flexible working and the move of prospects to mobile numbers from landlines is key. Real investment needs to be made into data. The likes of Lusha, ZoomInfo, Apollo and Cognism are not cheap, but are necessary investments to provide the required contact information. Highly personalised and targeted emails to arrange that all-important initial conversation should be utilised.

AI screening is also in play with Apple’s new IOS update. However, if the reason for calling is short and relevant, we tend to find the calls get answered. If the prospect sees the approach as interesting and of value, they will often add the number to their contact lists, so any follow up call is not screened.

There are additional sensitivities that need to be considered. Prospects often have a single mobile number for business and personal use. This might mean you call them in a non-work situation such as holiday or the school run. Any professional business developer will check the prospect is working and happy to have a B2B conversation. It sounds obvious, but how many scripted sales calls have you received where as soon as you answer, you receive a 45 second rambling introduction? This bulldozer approach simply won’t work. It never did!

Looking into autumn

We expect the value of phone-based business development to increase further over the coming months because:

• Email and AI-generated outbound volume will continue rising, creating noise. Neither approach will be able to counter the holiday period and generate timely call-backs based on annual leave
• Trust and human connection will continue to become stronger differentiators
• Many companies will be reviewing agency relationships and budgets before 2027 planning cycles

The agencies seeing the best results aren’t treating telemarketing as a volume game. They’re using it as a relationship-building and intelligence-gathering channel, supported by strong positioning and targeted account selection. That’s a very different discipline from the telemarketing most people think of when they hear the term.