Telemarketing Survives the Digital Age

We all know the reputation of sale by telephone. We have at some point, received unsolicited calls at home and at work from telemarketers that offer products and services. More surprisingly, even with the existence of laws and guidelines for mitigating these telemarketing calls, telemarketing is still regarded as one of the most effective ways to market and promote products.

With the advent of new technologies and approaches supporting the emergence of digital marketing, it is fascinating how telemarketing - the oldest form of marketing used by companies around the world, managed to survive in the midst of the increasing growth of e-commerce and the hype of modern technological advances.

Even with the increased number of digital gadgets, social networking sites and Internet marketing tools, companies still rely on the good old telephone to interact with customers and technological developments have greatly increased the power of telemarketing to maximize profits.

Call centers have been using high-tech communications and computer systems to improve sales and marketing services to clients. Telecommunications companies have created and mass-produced modern solutions to meet the dynamic demands of call centers worldwide.

One of the most popular and widely used in the industry is the system of automatic and predictive dialing. Auto Dialer will automatically dial phone numbers, and there are different numbers of technologies such as audio broadcasting that is able to dial hundreds of thousands of calls simultaneously. Predictive dialer can intelligently predict when the representative is available to talk. Numbers are dialed at the right pace, and phone calls are routed to the agent only when a live person answered.

Modern technology has enabled marketing methods to evolve with the advancement of digital marketing techniques, and we can anticipate that sales and advertising channels such as telemarketing will continue to meet the challenges of the industry.

The Role of Telemarketing in Appointment Setting

Running a business requires time, people to help you run it and their time too. Tough business competition nowadays means a hard time working alone. Running a business would require a lot of needs. Needs that unfortunately, requires much of your time and more often than not, the lack of a competent staff would hinder your functions.

Wikipedia defines telemarketing as “a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call.” It's apparent in the definition that appointment setting plays an important part in business functions and in telemarketing as well.

Appointment setting has been the key element in obtaining new businesses because it enables salespeople to present products and services in meaningful face-to-face encounters. It increases the probability of closing sales considerably when sales representatives meet prospects personally than discussing product specifics over the telephone. SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) have also benefited from appointment setting services due to the lack of resources to launch elaborate marketing endeavors. Pre-arranged meetings have been instrumental for start-up enterprises in reaching prospects from several types of industries such as medical, financial, manufacturing, real estate and other service oriented institutions.
Expediency is the name of the game. The sooner a connection is established between telemarketer and prospect is, the better. The needs of the prospect will be immediately identified and it could work in a lot of ways – either a sale is secured, a lead is generated or an appointment is set. There's still math involved here, the more calls made, the more chances of getting successful appointments.

Remember that lead generation cannot be done randomly, otherwise its purpose has already been defeated. Without the full support of a dedicated team, doing this can be nearly impossible. For this reason, many companies choose to outsource lead generation to a trusted lead generation services provider that knows what kinds of leads are best and which ones will convert better.

It's important to know and understand that telemarketing is not the be-all end-all of sales strategies. Instead, it's just one method of performing the sales process. Just like other tried and tested sales method, success in closing a sale over the phone is dependent on finding qualified prospects to call.

Lead Generation with Effective Call Centers

Lead generation is one aspect of call center services that is entrusted with the task of carrying a business forward. It is only through the help of qualified leads that a business firm can walk ahead and get a larger share of the market. But it’s not always easy to get the leads. There are restrictions on the telemarketing calls that you can make. There is the perennial problem of the outbound call center agent failing to talk to the customers because they are not interested in purchasing. However, the primary problem for call center companies is that the generated leads do not always turn into sales. There is some leakage in the way things happen between the marketing team and the sales team. The list of leads handed over by the BPO agent doesn’t churn out sales and then the blame comes on the call center. Let’s check out how things can improve here.

The list prepared by the sales lead generation team has to contain qualified leads. There is a difference between getting everyone onboard and getting only a selected group of people onboard. When the call center companies get everyone onboard, the problem of having too many to deal with vexes the call centers. Persuasive telemarketing may get these prospective consumers to consent to purchase but there is every chance that they make back out when the sales team calls to seal the deal. As a result of their denial, the conversion rate goes down to about 1%. That is a lose-lose situation. The call center services have already spent a lot of effort in generating those leads and without the right conversion percentage, their expenditures are not validated.

From the perspective of the business firm that has hired the call center, it’s a loss, too. Call center companies charge the business firms on the basis of how many leads they get. When they receive leads that do not convert into sales, they are paying for nothing. If the conversion rate is very poor, they have doubts on the performance abilities of the call center services. The BPO units have to guard against that. They must provide only qualified leads to the clients. It does make sense to follow up on leads and check their availability before handing them over to the clients. Cold calling is something that the agents don't prefer, so following up removes that from the equation.

You can evaluate the lead generation performance of the call center companies by looking at the conversion rate. If you find that the conversion rate is as high as 40-50%, it automatically translates that the call center services have done a wonderful job. Also, the call center agents must be distinguished on the basis of their ability in marketing and sales. Some BPO agents may be good in clinching the sale while others may be good in influencing people and getting more leads. Utilize the resources that you have on hand to make the best of your sales lead generation campaign.

BUILD YOUR BUSINESS THROUGH TELEMARKETING

All size business owners have one main objective – business continuity. Time and again, companies have been constantly looking for ways to generate more income, and it is common knowledge that revenue growth has to start with building a sustainable sales pipeline, increasing lead conversion and strengthening the company's sales force. These are determining factors that organizations need to address to achieve success in any form of marketing.

The factors mentioned above can be achieved through a variety of different marketing vehicles, one of which is telemarketing. This method of direct marketing remains to be one of the most effective ways to expand a business' client base. Many of today's companies still rely on the old-fashioned telephone marketing and selling even though Business-to-Business (B2B) marketing has been continuously evolving.

Why?

Telemarketing allows businesses to:

1. Reach out to prospects on a personal level which can't be done with other marketing channels such as direct mail.
2. Choose and implement the best phone selling/marketing approach.
3. Conduct detailed and strategic targeting according to specific criteria such as industry, company size, employee size etc.
4. Reduce operational costs.
5. Measure the outcome of the campaign easier.

Telemarketing also provides companies opportunities to identify key information about the prospects such as existing contracts, buying habits and product/service opinions which can be used to segment data for future calling campaigns. In addition, telephone contact can be advantageous for shaping a company's brand especially for start-up companies that are in the early stages of acquiring a compelling market presence.

There are more benefits from telemarketing that are often left to fall between the cracks, and a lot of companies give up easily and fail to realize how effective this method can be just because one telemarketing firm did not deliver the expected result. It is important for organizations to be smart and persistent. Rewards can be reaped only with wise decision-making and intelligent business planning.

Telemarketing Etiquette: Where Have All the Manners Gone?

So many things have already been told and written about guidelines and tips on telemarketing etiquette. Books have been published on how to become an effective telemarketer. BPO companies that offer sales and marketing services have devised extensive training programs to help telemarketers, seasoned or not, perform well and overcome the challenges of telephone selling. All for one very important reason: unsolicited calls or sales calls are viewed upon as intrusive and offensive. But which of these rules really work? Is there really a surefire way to look at telemarketing differently as opposed to just being a nuisance?

We all know that as human beings, the amount of patience we have for marketing calls is not a lot. If you are a housekeeper, you are obviously all too busy doing household chores along with looking after your children so you don't have time for this type of phone calls. If you belong in the working class, your focus is to get your job done as quickly as possible so as to give room for other work-related tasks that you may have before the day is over, and attending to a marketing call is the least of your concerns. For the individual who are making these calls, chances of being hung up on are always to be expected. Not only sales calls are considered annoying, but on average a person gets at least five unwanted calls per day and for most people who repeatedly receive these calls in the course of their day, it is infuriating.

An intelligent salesperson knows that he/she is not only trying to win the prospective customer's attention or make a sale but is also establishing a harmonious business to customer relationship on behalf of the company he/she is calling for.

If you are a telemarketer, awareness of a prospect's feelings is too important and must not be neglected. Individuals who are in this type of job may reason that quotas and other technicalities of their work add to the pressure and the so-called telemarketing etiquette goes out the window. That should not be the case. Keep in mind that while you may possess excellent selling skills, it is essential to always be able to actively listen to your prospect.

Manners are just as important as closing a sale. It is true that sales must be earned however, a badly acquired one is not a sale at all. The company you represent may lose customers just as quickly as you have signed them up all because of terrible marketing practices. Finding legitimate business opportunities is far more fulfilling than acting like marketplace gestapos, and maintaining good behavior in a crowded environment of telephone selling should not be lost.