Telemarketing has fallen out of fashion. Many people see telesales as invasive, expensive and ‘flogging a dead horse’.
However, it can still be a highly cost-effective sales channel, when undertaken in the right way: and it really doesn’t need to be invasive at all.
Telemarketing works best when it is part of a well-thought out marketing process. Ideally it needs to be a two-way street with between telemarketer and prospect.
The most important factor to your success is: targeting the right people!
The right people are more likely to be interested in what you have to say – the wrong people will waste your time & resources.
Telemarketing is resource intensive, so doing your research to qualify your prospects before you call, will increase your effectiveness and efficiency.
What do you need to succeed?
For your telemarketing campaign to be successful:
- Define what success looks like before you start
- Have your communication process planned in advancethat is, how you will be communicating with the prospect, in what order, and with which content. A flow-chart is very useful way of illustrating the process clearly
- Good software to hold your database and to manage individual contacts (usually a CRM system, or even just a spreadsheet)
- A ‘customer avatar’, i.e. a profile of the ‘ideal customer’ for you, and what attributes they have. For a business-to-business offering, this is likely to include: sector/profession, role at company (e.g. partner, MD, Director), job title, years of experience, education level
- A plan to identify prospects and populate your database with up-to-date contact information
Your planned communications need to include many things. This includes tele-scripts, website and landing pages and pre- and post- emails/letters written/comms ready-to-go.
Your follow-up communication is critical. You should also ensure that you have an up-to-date LinkedIn/social media profile (where appropriate).
Your data-driven database
Once you have defined your ideal customers/prospects attributes, the next step is to find some of them… and find their contact details.
Knowing who you’re calling, what you want to know from them, and why they’ll be interested in what you have to say is crucial to your success.
You do this by conducting effective desk research from sources such as (but not limited to):
- LinkedIn & social media
- Company websites
- Business cards from networking meetings or other sources
- Asking for referrals from your existing clients and networks
- Calling the company to ask for the details of the right person
Setting up a database for your campaign is the best way to get this right.
Accurate, relevant data is the foundation of your telemarketing campaign.
You can conduct research through many sources, including social media and LinkedIn
Try to gather as much information as possible, to help you qualify your prospect before you call them.
Try to capture or find out as many of these as possible at the ‘desk research’ stage:
- Name
- Job Title and/or role
- Mobile number
- Landline and/or direct-dial
- Company name
It’s also important to consider:
- Industry
- Contact name & title
- Company size
- Ownership type
The clearer your knowledge of the business and individual you’re calling, the more targeted your telemarketing campaign will be. This will result in more successfully converted leads.
Following up
Outbound telemarketing should always be part of an integrated campaign.
It can come before or after a wide range of other communication types, such as:
- LinkedIn connections
- Direct mail
- (and don’t forget to use it to follow-up inbound web-enquiries, but I hope that’s obvious!)
If your client can associate a voice to the information they’ve been sent, it greatly increases your chance of making a sale.
Use your company’s marketing collateral to support you.
For example, refer prospects to interesting blogs on your website, send them interesting articles or photographic/videoed evidence of your work.
You could also provide them with testimonials from other clients.
Remember – the six touches of marketing, which is, typically a prospect needs to ‘see or hear’ your brand/collateral at least six times before a sale is made.
So, don’t just rely on the telephone to convert – use all of your arsenal of materials.
Your phone call can follow up on an email sent to your prospect
Drawing your prospect in
Your company’s new product / service is fantastic – but your prospect will lose interest if you don’t speak to them quickly … and in the right way.
Your telemarketing campaign needs to be as personalised as possible to maximise success.
A script is a great way to achieve this. If your script is flexible and can be adapted to the circumstances of whoever you’re talking to, then you have a great chance of success.
Your script should include:
- Friendly greeting
- Clarification of who you’re speaking to
- Reference to what you’re following up on
- Questions about their company
- Why you can help them
- Setup a follow-up meeting / call
A well-worked, flexible script enhances your telemarketing campaign.
If you review your script as you go along, you make it as effective as possible.
Be conscious of the responses you get to different questions, so you can work out what is working and what isn’t.
By…
- Having a friendly voice – smile when you call! (Yes, it really makes a difference)
- Listen to the prospect! Respond to what they say – don’t just plough on with a script regardless – this is a dialogue and you’re creating a relationship
- Being well informed on the subject
- Get the timing right (research and seasonality can help identify this)
- Explaining what you can do to help your prospect – be benefit-led (do not focus on features)
… you increase your chances of success.
To increase your chances of success, make sure you have a friendly voice and smile when you call!
Update consistently
For your telemarketing campaign to be successful, you need to update your database consistently as you go along.
It’s important that you update your progress, so you know which calls generated potential leads – and what you need to do next – and when (have diary prompts!)
Make sure you:
- Check and update database details for the prospect
- Listen to what their company needs (concentrate on the benefits)
- Record any additional information, so that you can personalise future responses
- Diarise the next action
- Now…close your sale or book that appointment
Make sure you update this onto your database as you go along (don’t rely on your memory). You also need to keep your database in a shared area, so all your team can view It – ideally use a CRM in the ‘cloud’.
Remember, if at first you don’t succeed – call and communicate again!