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Is Telemarketing still taboo?
In the world of integrated marketing plans and performance driven marketing, is the practice of telemarketing making a comeback? More importantly is it making a greater contribution than eMarketing or direct marketing?
In the B2C environment the use of predictive dialling devices and recorded messages have given call centres and telemarketing companies a bad reputation. This has helped the growth of the telephone preference service www.tpsonline.org.uk/tps/ which is free and is the official central opt out register on which individuals can record their preference not to receive unsolicited sales or marketing calls.
Meanwhile in the B2B world, telemarketing is making a resurgence as an essential tool in the modern marketing mix. Telemarketing as one essential element in an integrated marketing campaign can really help drive up the return on investment for selected activities. Targeted messaging, lead generation, appointment setting and even event registrations are all tasks that can be accomplished via a well planned and executed telemarketing campaign.
So my ‘Top 8 Tips’ for planning and running a successful telemarketing campaign are…
- Database – Ensure your data is accurate, the licence is up to date and the target market is a match for the message
- Data Protection – Be sure you know that you actually own the data or where the data was originally sourced. Check local data laws to ensure you comply, or pay the price
- Briefing – Every marketing campaign should start with a brief that then creates the overall plan. As the agents are conveying your message, make sure they are fully briefed on every aspect of the campaign and the history of the business
- Training – The more information the agent has the better they will perform, especially if the programme relates to a product promotion or offer
- References – Provide Cheat Sheets, Emails, Case Studies or even real life examples to help the agent deal with any situation that may arise during a conversation
- Conversation – This leads nicely on to: don’t use a script. Encourage your agents to have a conversation. They will be more successful and receive less resistance if it does not feel like a sales call
- Closed Loop Reporting – Success can only be judged if the leads go through this sales led process, this is where most campaigns fall over and the reputation for telemarketing not delivering is created and communicated by a weak link in the overall company chain
- Testing – Before launching the campaign, test every backend processes and response mechanism, because once the campaign is live there is no going back and you may lose all your responses and dent your company’s reputation
Companies such as Astute or Tangible Results can help advise businesses of any size how telemarketing can help increase responses for their marketing campaigns. Remember, a successful telemarketing campaign is dependent on the quality of the target data.
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Great post Andy. B2B Telemarketing is indeed seeing a resurgence as marketers realise that voice contact remains a critical element in B2B selling, it’s been complemented by the rise of other channles rather than replaced by them.
If anyone is interested in further reading, feel free to download (for free – regsitration required) our “Top Ten Tips” white paper in the knowledge bank of our website:
http://www.ttmc.co.uk/knowledge_bank
Great article. Telemarketing has unfortunately got a bad name but we usually find this is where people have done this in house quite unsuccessfully for one reason or another, perhaps ignoring TPS, using poor quality data, not preparing beforehand on how this fits with their marketing mix etc.
Perhaps another thing to mention is using telemarketing alongside other direct marketing or email marketing and also using to gather information too by way of market research on an ongoing basis.
Thanks for the article
Interesting post Andy – I would have to say that I think there is still a stigma attached with telemarketing (or ‘cold calling’).
This may be due to B2C calling – as it can be intrusive.
But saying that, telemarketing does seem to be alive and well, certainly with economic conditions many companies are looking for proactive marketing at the moment.
Are you finding telemarketing enquiries increasing also?
Great article and a great read.
Telemarketing has indeed been looked down upon by many for many people think that telemarketers are just plain intrusive.
Nevertheless, I still think that telemarketing is a great way to bring more opportunities to a business that needs them.
B2B Telemarketing is an essential tool that allows companies to build relationships with their target audience on a 1 to 1 basis, which is really impossible in the B2C world.
I can see well executed B2B telemarketing campaigns adding value to the marketing mix of high value product a long time, but not low value commodity goods as companies find more cost effective routes to market to their customer base with changes in technologies.
Nice article Andy, key is obviiously to have a good telemarketing strategy and to find a good B2B Telemarketing Company.
We’ve written our own guide on top 10 tips for outsourcing telemarketing.
Have a look, and we’d welcome your comments.
I enjoyed your post and agree with the information provided.
I’ve found that outbound telemarketing campaigns can be very effective but the data and message is crucial to success as you point out also. Many companies don’t realize the importance of list testing when renting outside data.
Also the process used for quality assurance is important especially when the contact results in a sale. Clients need to embrace this themselves or use a completely different outsource to monitor compliance and quality.
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