Telemarketing

Telemarketing campaigns help companies reach a group of targeted prospects to communicate a message, gather feedback, and determine the next step for the relationship. Telemarketing can be an important part of any B2B marketing strategy.  Use telemarketing to:

• Generate leads
• Qualify prospects who have downloaded information from your website or attended a webinar
• Follow up on a direct mail or email offer
• Conduct market research

For B2B companies, telemarketing is most effective when paired with other types of campaigns. Businesses don’t typically purchase based on a single phone call, but telemarketing can effectively handle specific roles in the marketing and sales process. It often works well when combined with Internet marketing, direct mail, trade shows & events, and traditional media.

Telemarketing Value

In many companies, sales reps make hundreds or thousands of cold calls every month to set appointments and generate leads. But busy reps usually prefer to work on closing their existing pipeline. Prospecting often slips on the priority list; as a result, the sales pipeline isn’t always filled with new prospects.

If cold calling is an effective way to introduce your company to new prospects, don’t ignore it. Instead of forcing a Sales team to devote time to prospecting, many companies use an in-house or outsourced telemarketing group to make the calls, identify the decision-makers and qualify leads for the Field Sales group.

When telemarketers handle prospecting, salespeople can spend 100% of their time selling and closing. It’s a high-value change:  You can produce more revenue in the same amount of time; your reps earn more commission, and because they’re doing what they love, they’re more satisfied with their jobs.

With Growth Panel, you can determine how to use telemarketing to improve your marketing and sales results.  Even the simple process of moving cold calling from Sales to a telemarketing lead generation team could improve your top line by anywhere from 5-20%.

Telemarketing Tools in Growth Panel

• Evaluate Telemarketing Opportunities:  Determine how to use telemarketing in your marketing mix to meet business goals.
• Conduct an Outsourcing Analysis:  Decide whether to build the operation in-house or outsource it.
• Create a Telemarketing Campaign Plan:  Project call volume; determine requirements for reporting, headcount, and infrastructure and technology; create the script and the training template.
• Hire, Train and Manage Performance:  Create the training program, define the profile for reps, and establish controls for improving execution.
• Create Budget and Track and Evaluate Results:  Establish the budget and measurement plan for your telemarketing campaign and evaluate the results.
  
  

You might benefit from telemarketing if:

• Your sales reps aren’t generating sufficient leads
• Current marketing campaigns aren’t reaching all of your target market
• Your sales reps aren’t spending enough time on the back end of the sales process, i.e., closing the deal
• You’re not measuring the value of your existing telemarketing campaigns
• Leads coming from other media require further qualification