Is Telemarketing still Relevant?
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 the Igneous Marketing ‘Top 8 Tips’ for planning and running a successful telemarketing campaign are…
1. Database – Ensure your data is accurate, the licence is up to date and the target market is a match for the message
2. 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
3. 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
4. Training – The more information the agent has the better they will perform, especially if the programme relates to a product promotion or offer
5. 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
6. 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
7. 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
8. 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
I don't have enough idea and information about this notion because I am using bulk email in transmitting messages and news online and thanks to a reliable bulk email servers I can make it properly.
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ReplyDeleteGreat tips.
ReplyDeleteAs a recipient of dozens of telemarketing calls every week, point six – conversation – particularly resonated. Nothing switches me off quicker than someone clearly reading a script verbatim.
Worse still is if the script instructs the caller to ask what my plans for the weekend are and get me to say “yes” to something three times in the belief that – like some kind of witchcraft – I’ll then say “yes” when they offer their wares :o)
Of course, as you note, telemarketing does have its place in B2B provided it is well executed rather than the verbal equivalent of spam. Sadly though, the telemarketing cowboys have made life an uphill struggle even for those demonstrating best practice as most recipients are immediately on their guard.
I say this not just from personal experience but also based on the results of a recent survey amongst 450 buyers of B2B services within SMEs.
“Imagine a prospective supplier wants to engage with you” they were told. “How effective”, the question continued, “would different communication channels be in engaging you?”
The results suggest that – amongst the SME audience at least - telemarketing should be used very selectively, if at all.
Almost all SMEs (82 per cent) report that this is not an effective route to engage with them. Importantly, a significant number has a strong aversion with almost one half (45 per cent) reporting it to be completely ineffective.
If you’re interested in how other channels fared, the survey results and a summary analysis can be found here - SME marketing channels research
You mention that telemarketing can help increase ROI. I’m sure there’s no single answer, but do you have a “rule of thumb” as to what kind of response a well executed campaign could bring, e.g. 1 sale for every 20 calls?
Thanks again for the post - @andydalg
Andy - I've seen some pretty convincing ROI in certain verticals - e.g. insurance brokers where £20k investment in telemarketing brought £750k annual recurring for 5 years. Less so in other industries, but it's down to the business commissioning the telemarketing to get the most out of it - not the telemarketers per se. Clean data, warmed-up prospects, funnel management, re-cleansed data - and partnering with the telemarketer to optimise the calls. And on average, I'd say for 80 calls a day they should be talking to 8 to 10 decision-makers, converting one of them to an appointment. This might help:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.integritybc.co.uk/definitive-guide-to-telemarketing