- November 26, 2021
- by Last expert
- Blogs, Voice Support
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what is telemarketing
Telemarketing usually brings bad memories. Who wants to get those infuriating and inconvenient calls trying to sell their products and services anyway!
However, telemarketing presumes to be a handy tool for businesses who have limited budgets for promotions. When used with the right marketing strategies, telemarketing is very effective in highlighting the right notes for your marketing campaigns.
There are two types of telemarketing. Inbound and outbound.
Inbound telemarketing is taking queries or order calls gathered through advertising, direct mail or any other marketing channel. Outbound telemarketing through cold calling, directly targets the customer to sell products or services.
what is the importance of telemarketing
Telemarketing can be an independent tactic or a combination tactic with other marketing strategies which helps organizations to achieve their sales target.
It can be used for pitching products and services to customers, lead generation, advertising campaigns, B2B sales and event promotions.
Following are some uses of telemarketing:
Selling
A staggering 60% of marketing managers of Fortune top 500 companies testify that telemarketing is very effective when it comes to reaching out to customers and closing sales.
Companies use telemarketing to sell their products or services and reach out to the untapped new markets and customers.
Companies also has to make sure their existing customers are satisfied and telemarketing can ensure that existing customers can get the attention they need and their queries are addressed.
Generating Leads
Creating leads and a new customer base becomes easier with telemarketing.
An organization can reach out to potential customers and compile the lists of new prospects with telemarketing.
These new prospects lists can then be passed to the sales teams who can reach these customers to generate sales. They also identify the nature and requirements of the prospective customer and relay this information to the sales force.
Telemarketing is also important even after closing the sales because the follow up calls can increase the other sales opportunities by 20%.
Conducting Surveys And Compiling Information
Telemarketing is very important when it comes to analyzing the success rates of any marketing and sale campaign.
Telemarketers can gather reviews from customers and rate levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction and produce them to the marketing team for analysis.
As per studies, 17% of the average day for a salesman is spent in entering customer’s data. This data after compiling can then be used to target the prospective clients for the next marketing campaign and also help in reconnecting with inactive clients and winning them back.
Enhancing Customer Experience
Connecting with and converting the inactive clients is more cost-effective than acquiring new clients. Studies show that it costs five times more to gain a new client than to retain the past one.
Telemarketing is one of the most sought after methods to ensure customer satisfaction.The empathy shown to the future and existing customers really count and a telemarketer can ensure that.
Advantages Of Telemarketing In Today’s Digital Era
You can keep your marketing budget low if you opt for telemarketing since it can boost your sales more compared to other marketing strategies.
Telemarketing enables you to strike a personal connection with your consumers in understanding their requirements. Furthermore, it offers more benefits that drive your business towards success.
Deploy Marketing Automation
The right telemarketers can track customer’s behavioural trends and engagement levels of the prospects and earn an in-depth understanding of how to better meet their needs.
Market automation lets them nurture prospects and all their interests during a personal contact hence, ensures that the call is no longer cold but in fact, quite timely and appropriate.
A telemarketing campaign powered by marketing automation technology can bring in more inquiries and qualified leads than ever before.
Strengthen Quality Leads
The primary objective of any business is to generate quality leads.This can be easily achieved through telemarketing.
It is the fastest way of securing new customers which allows the companies to communicate with potential customers who cannot be reached by the company. Lead generation is about searching for the right customers that companies tried and failed to find.
Saves Extra Costs
Telemarketing is a great way to promote your business cost effectively over other marketing strategies. You can outsource the marketing process to your trusted BPO partner who can do the legwork for you and give you an advantage over your competitors.
This allows the company to control its budget while leveraging its marketing activities to the peak.
Friendly And Accessible
Telemarketers are important when it comes to engaging the customers. In order to do this, they have to be professional and friendly at the same time.
That makes the customer listen to you before they decide to take your offer. This helps you to tap out maximum potential from the art of telemarketing.
Warm Calling
Cold calling can be very aggressive and might draw negative reactions from your customers.
With digitally-powered marketing automation programs, telemarketers can now indulge in warm calling to follow up with the customers when a query or complaint is raised.
This will compel your customer to listen to you and might lead to a prospective generation of sales.
Prompt Feedback
Conducting the surveys and collecting the customers feedback is one of the crucial benefits of telemarketing which in turn can measure the success of your campaign.
A healthy bond is created between the company and the customer when they reach out to the customers for their valuable opinions.Direct communication is always better to fetch customers right emotions.
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How to create a telemarketing campaign
Have a Plan
Knowing the objectives before you start any of your marketing campaigns is very important. It is true for telemarketing campaigns as well.
If your objective is to collect email addresses, you can get it from the first point of contact itself (from whoever answers the phone). If it’s to talk to a decision maker, then you are going to need a way of convincing the first point of contact to put you through. So having a clear objective can make the difference in approach too.
Have a Script
Once the object is set, create a script that suits your approach to achieve that object.
For example, if you want a few specific e-mail addresses—the script might be:
“Hi, my name’s Sally. I’m calling from logo design company XYZ. I’d like to send your marketing manager an introductory e-mail about our services. Could you tell me the name and e-mail address please?”
Your script is your guide. It tells you how to conduct the first part of the call. It may not be perfect. But be flexible and work on the script if needed. Try to vary the wordings from script naturally from call to call to find which is a more appealing way of presenting yourself to the customers. In case you are stuck, the script is there with you as a reminder.
Speak Slowly and Clearly
It is quite normal to be nervous when you make your first cold call. But if your nervousness is reflected on the other end, it may have a negative impact. You may go out of the lines with the script if you are afraid.
Dropping your arms to your sides when you get through can create pressure on the diaphragm and help you slow down. With a more natural speed, you’ll sound more sincere. Sincerity works well in conducting business. And it feels good, too. Also make sure you dont over rehearse the script and sound like a robot.
Be Prepared to Have a Conversation
Being prepared for a conversation can help you in telemarketing because 99 out of 100 who are interested may have questions for you. Telemarketing is not a “make a call, get an answer, hang up” proposition, it would be a much faster form of marketing than it actually is.
Be Prepared to be Told “No” or “No, Thank you”
Sometimes customers behave rudely. Do not take it personally and don’t let it upset you. Sometimes a no is really a no. Think about a shoe that doesn’t fit your foot ! You won’t say yes to that all the time, do you? Let it go and move on to the next.
Handling the Gatekeeper
Company receptionists are often taught to avoid putting calls through to managers or directors. They’re also often taught to refuse to give out information over the phone.
If you find yourself stuck at the gatekeeper (that first point of contact) and have tried a few times, then you can try to get around them. Here are two strategies for this:
Call before the company is officially open or half an hour after it officially closes. Many receptionists only keep the official working hours of the company, but many managers and staff work earlier and later than these hours.
Ask for somebody who’s lower down in the corporate food chain. One strategy that worked really well was calling a company and asking to speak to somebody on their helpdesk. Helpdesk staff aren’t trained to keep gates closed, and they’re often only too happy to be helpful – it’s in their job description after all.
Always End a Call Politely
Always thank the person, whether you get what you want or not at the end of a call for his time. Remember , You will be remembered if you are not polite! You’re only as good as your last call, and first impressions last. Make sure you are polite throughout the entire call too because most of the time you don’t get the chance to thank them.
Always Take Action on Your Calls
If you are promising to send a document – send it. Ideally, send it right there and then. Never leave it longer than the end of the working day—the sundown rule. If you waste somebody’s time or leave them dangling, waiting for undelivered promises, they won’t be likely to buy your services in the future. And they can tell others about you.
Practice Makes Perfect
It may take some time from your first call to be comfortable with telemarketing. Remember that the worst thing that can happen is that someone will say “no”, which leaves you no worse off than you were before you made the call.
Obey the Law
Most countries have no laws governing telemarketing to businesses. However, before you start telemarketing, check with your legal representative to ensure that’s the case where you live.
You need to be particularly careful if your clients are small home-based businesses; telemarketing to consumers (which is how this could be interpreted) is governed by strict rules in many parts of the world. Ignoring this can burn a telemarketer—there may be legal repercussions.
Things to avoid in telemarketing
Below is our guide to 8 common telemarketing mistakes and advice on how to avoid them.
1. Dont begin the conversation with ‘How are you”?.It feels unnatural and forced so it’s best left unsaid.
2. Do not pitch to the wrong person. Imagine the scenario; you have got on well, you have concluded your pitch and they like the sound of your proposition. So you go in for the kill only to hear the nightmare response, “Oh it’s not my decision. You need to speak to my colleague, but they’ve just taken on a similar service.” Do not waste time! Identify the decision maker as quickly and as politely as possible.
3. Pestering. At Perfect Pitch, we work on a metric that it takes 3-4 calls to speak with the contact. Constantly phoning someone will only create annoyance. However, we’ve that it is a much more effective strategy to try to find out from their colleague when it is best to phone them, and to diligently spread the calls apart over a reasonable period of time.
4. Not listening. Nothing annoys a prospect more than feeling like the person on the other end of the phone isn’t listening. By not listening closely you might miss a golden nugget of information and above all, it’s rude.
5. Being rude. Politeness is key with telemarketing. By minding your manners with gatekeepers, you might be able to build a rapport with them, and eventually get them to put you through to your prospect. One key tip is to NEVER eat whilst on a call. The sound is amplified and it is immeasurably impolite and unprofessional.
6. Using closed questions. You want to build momentum on the call which will make your prospect more inclined to open up. Instead of asking questions which have a yes or no answer, try those which begin with how, why or when.
7. Being underprepared. If you’re calling with the aim to book a meeting, make sure you have your diary to hand. Having to scramble around for it whilst on the call will only delay the conversation and could put off the prospect.
Equally, if you have a name of the person and the company you are calling, it is advisable to check out their website and see if the contact is on LinkedIn. Opening a question with, “I’ve had a look on your website and I think we can help with…” is much more impressive than, “erm, so what do you do?”
8. Over-talking and talking too fast. The prospect should talk for at least 75% of the call. This is your opportunity to find out as much as you can about what they need. Wait for your moment to strike, keep it concise and speak clearly and at a moderate speed.
Tools used in telemarketing
Telemarketing Equipment
The essential equipment required for telemarketing includes:
Headset
Computer
Internet connection
It might not seem like much, but you don’t need much to telemarket today. With auto-dialer systems like the Dolphin Dialer, everything can be done through a computer.
Phone Call Lists
If you have a good call list, then telemarketing will be cost-efficient and help connect your business with a vast group of prospective customers across geography and time zones. If your call list is outdated, contains irrelevant information, or targets the wrong audience, telemarketing is phone SPAM and frustrating for everyone involved.
If you want to learn how to optimize the use of your list and optimize your agents’ time, we have some simple and effective tips to help improve the effectiveness of your telemarketing list.
DNC List Scrubber
While you can pay a fee to have a company scrub the list for you, you can also get a free DNC scrubber to do the scrubbing for you. A DNC scrubbing software allows someone to upload a telemarketing list + the do not call list, then it scrubs the telemarketing list against the do not call list they’ve uploaded, to show them which numbers should not be called.
A telemarketing tool like this would come in handy because not only is scrubbing your list a must for legal reasons, but it is something you will need to do repetitively.
Telemarketing Scripts
Whether you create one or use a script generator, both methods need real-life testing. Do not just assume that your scripts will be successful. You need to understand what cold calling scripts are successful before you create your own.
Telemarketing CRM
CRM’s are non negotiable. Without it, your data on your customers and leads will be unorganized, your sales pipeline will be unknown, and your sales progress will be hard to identify. A CRM for telemarketing is capable of solving all of those problems plus more! With new advances in technology, you can find products that offer many solutions combined into one software. Most cloud-based telemarketing software have built-in CRM, like the Dolphin Dialer, mentioned above.
Telemarketing Software
Telemarketing software consists of automation that covers the repetitive tasks that salespeople have to do daily. The goal of this type of software is to minimize tedious tasks like emailing campaigns, chat boxes, scheduling, etc., so the salesperson has more time to focus on selling. Written below are some of the most valuable telemarketing softwares with automation.
Auto Dialers for Telemarketing
Auto dialers for telemarketing serve to increase efficiency in telemarketing by automatically dialing the group of numbers and passing live calls to agents. Dialers are designed to know who to call and at what rate, so telemarketers can maximize their time and get the most use out of their list.
VoIP Telemarketing Software
VoIP telemarketing software is a technology that uses a method of delivering voice communications and multimedia sessions over internet protocol networks. It works as both an inbound and outbound telemarketing software. The best kind of VoIP software will include the following:
Automated Voicemail Drops
Spreadsheet Uploading Ability
Ability to Check The Status of The Lead (EX: Warm, Hot, Cold)
Compile List Based On the Lead Status to Call
Create Email Templates
Assign Leads to Agents Etc.
Pre-Recorded Voicemails
Another crucial time saver are voicemail drops. You don’t need to wait for the beep to recite your message over and over again because you can send them the voicemail you already created. With just a click of a button, you can send pre-recorded voicemails, so when no one picks up you simply send them your message. This allows you to contact more people in less time.
The only downside is if your message isn’t perfect, you could lose the potential customer. It’s best to perfect your voicemail now so you only have to do it once. Check out some tips on how to leave a professional voicemail so you can ensure more sales from your voicemails.
Email Automation
The last handy-dandy telemarketer software is email automation!
Emails, although they can be short and sweet, still take up your time. Just like with voicemails, emails take up a lot of your time. With email templates already created, an email automation tool could simply send the right email to the right person at the right time! That means you don’t have to reserve time in the day to respond to inquiries or send follow-up emails. I wonder what you could do with all that extra time?
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