Telemarketing

 

When it comes to a successful marketing campaign, it’s never a bad idea to refocus your efforts back to the basics. Even though it might not be the most popular or well-recepted, one marketing technique that can always prove effective is telemarketing. Instead of using telemarketing campaigns as a way to achieve sales, it is better used as a way to build awareness of your business, while also obtaining valuable information on potential customers that can be used together with other marketing strategies to better target leads.

 

In this post we will discuss a set of tips that will allow your business to easily conduct a telemarketing campaign.

 

  1. Always Plan Ahead

 

 

With any marketing strategy, it’s always important to plan ahead and outline what your goals and objectives will be. A good idea is to start by answering a series of questions:

  • What kinds of people do you wish to contact?
  • Is the area you’re targeting somewhere that could benefit from your services?
  • What kind of information do you wish to collect?
  • Are these calls just to spread awareness of your business? Or collect information? Or potentially turn the call into a telesale?
  • What kind of opening questions and hooking lines will you be using?
  • How will you keep their attention and interest?

 

To help with answering these questions, it can be helpful to do some research on the demographics of your current customer base, and the reasons they ultimately decided to become customers.

 

  1.   Outline Your Plan

 

Once you have your plan it’s always a good idea to create a brief outline or script to help make sure that your call will go as planned. Beyond this, it can be especially useful if you want other employees to work on your telemarketing campaign too. You don’t have to stick exactly to the outline/script but it can be helpful to start a call and make sure you stay on topic.

 

  1.   Understand the Target Audience

 

As mentioned, understanding the specific kinds of people and area that you wish to contact is essential for an efficient telemarketing campaign. If you know the right kinds of people and businesses to target with your calls then you can focus your time and energy on only reaching out to people and businesses that have the highest potential of gladly receiving your call.

 

Along with this, it is also important to know who you can and can’t call. Some places have laws regarding consumers that you are not legally able to call.

 

  1.   Be Polite and Sincere

 

Believe or not, the tone of your voice will have a lot to do with how someone receives your call. It is always important to remain extremely polite, while trying to make it seem like you are calling for their needs instead of your own.

 

Also, if you manage to stay calm and speak slowly, you will come off as more sincere. Sincerity will always make you sound more genuine and professional.

 

  1.   Be Ready to Answer Questions and Get “No” as an Answer

 

Even if you use a script as a basic outline for what you plan on saying, you should always be prepared to answer any questions someone might have. If they are asking questions then it means they are showing some interest, and it also provides you the opportunity to address any concerns they have with your offers.  

 

Additionally, be ready to receive “No” as an answer. It is very important to be able to handle getting turned down, especially because some people will be a lot ruder than simply saying “No, Thank You.” Don’t take it personally though, not everyone will be welcoming to receiving your call, but it doesn’t mean you did anything personally wrong. Just make sure to stay confident and persevere.

 

  1.   The Gatekeeper

 

The “Gatekeeper” refers to receptionists that are trained to not direct telemarketing calls to their superiors. Therefore, if you are attempting to get in contact with somebody at a business that is higher up, you need to learn techniques in handling the gatekeeper and attempting to achieve contact with their managers.

Some techniques include:

 

  • Sounding Confident
  • Ask to speak with the manager for a very specific reason
  • Calling Earlier or Later in the work day
  • Speaking to someone lower on the decision making line and going through them to reach the manager

Learning how to successfully deal with gatekeepers will allow you to speak with more business managers and keep your telemarketing campaign running smoothly.

 

  1.   Take Action

 

If you tell someone that you will be sending them material or more information that they requested, make sure to take action and send it as soon as possible. This will prove to them you stay true to your word, value their time, and you are competent.

  1. Follow up

 

This is arguably the most important aspect of a successful telemarketing campaign.    

 

Most of the time, someone won’t say yes or ask for service from your first contact with them. This is why it is essential to continuously and consistently follow up with people over time to see if they have changed their minds. Always make sure to make these follow-ups non-intrusive and polite though.

 

To help with this, it is a good idea to maintain a system that can organize and manage all of the contact information you will need to follow-up with people. This is why CRM systems oftentimes go hand-in-hand with telemarketing campaigns. (See post about CRM)

 

Overall, telemarketing can be a helpful tool in your marketing campaign, as long as it is used in sync with your other marketing techniques. If you follow these tips, with a little persistence and practice you will be able to produce an effective telemarketing strategy to add to your overall marketing campaign.