Outbound telemarketing is a key aspect of most business-to-business marketing. Done well it is a cost-effective, measurable and scalable activity; done badly it is one of the surest ways of alienating your prospects and ruining your brand.
Unfortunately, too many companies do it badly. They sit a junior member of staff down with a directory, a telephone and some mumbled advice about smiling and dialling, then wonder in a fortnight why they have no sales leads and a junior vacancy to fill.
If you want to do your telemarketing well, the first step is to appreciate that it will require time and effort.
The next is to recognise that it is a form of direct marketing, and so you need to focus on the basics of that discipline: saying the right thing to the right person at the right time and in the right way.
1. The message
It is essential that you brief your telemarketers on the product or service you want them to sell. Just giving them a script is rarely enough.
Jon Bunn, marketing manager at PWC argues: “I’ve never bought from any of the dozens of telemarketers who call me every week. Most of them are clearly reading from a script, and so sound completely uninterested and uninformed.”
To get the necessary level of knowledge, staff should be given briefings lasting at least half a day.
2. The audience
It is possible to waste a vast amount of time trying to sell something to the wrong person. As Julia Green, sales director at online publisher 50Connect puts it: “Before you pick up the phone make sure you are targeting the right person or department. No one likes being badgered with sales calls that don’t have anything to do with them.”
People change jobs frequently, so bear in mind that a list that is only one year old will contain a lot of redundant data. It is also important to check all data against the CTPS to ensure that there is no one included who has asked to be removed from telemarketers’ lists.
3. The medium
Finding a good telemarketer is no easy task. It is important to spend enough time on it, and to think carefully about the specific requirements of your campaign.
B2B marketing generally calls for a very different skillset to consumer marketing, as Simon Webb, MD of agency Integrated Telemarketing, puts it: “When you’re operating with a finite prospect market you need to hire people who are responsive to what prospects are saying. Forcing people into appointments wastes your reps time and damages your brand.”
4. The delivery
Every telemarketer has an individual style but there are some fundamental rules. Successful telemarketers work hard to get gatekeepers – such as receptionists and secretaries – on their side. They prepare a concise, engaging opening statement. They sound confident, even when they might not feel it. They are always polite.
‘Smile and dial’ might be a cliché, but Alison Matthias, MD of Skyblue Prospects believes that it is essential: “There is an exercise you can do to prove this. Get the group to close their eyes. Ask someone to count to 10 while thinking of a happy time in his life and then to do it again while thinking of a sad time. Without any visual clues and just from listening to numbers, 80 per cent will be able to tell which time was happy and which was sad.”
5. Timing
The best time for making calls varies greatly by campaign. Many argue that Friday afternoons are a bad time to call people, but others point out that it can be a good time to catch prospects in a receptive mood. Given that it will take several attempts to get through to a buyer, telemarketers usually try at many different times of the day, and above else, they keep persevering.
6. Motivating staff
Outbound telemarketing is a tough job that requires a thick skin and an ability to persevere in the face of initially poor results. It also calls for management that can motivate staff.
However, too often motivation in telemarketing is about short term incentives or ‘team building’ trips to the local. Your employees will be far more motivated if they are given clear, realistic targets, and then rewarded for reaching them, or supported through training when they fall short of them.
7. Getting external help
None of this is easy and so it is unsurprising that many companies prefer to bring in external specialists. There are many agencies offering these services and the quality varies dramatically between them. To avoid making an expensive mistake it is vital to provide a clear brief, take up references, and run a pilot project.
Costs vary depending on the level of results required and the complexity of the process, but as a rough indication, LVT Telemarketing runs lead generation campaigns for Honeywell, Ford and Vauxhall, amongst others. MD Rahul Bandari says the set up can cost £500, the database another £250, and then the actual campaign costs around £250 per day.
Supplemental: Telephone faux pas
What not to do, by Bob Dearsley, chair of ITMG
- Don’t get caught using a script. Use a framework or flow chart to prompt the memory, If there is a script make sure you have memorised it before you start.
- Don’t hire somebody and just expect it to happen. Training and support is vital in the early stages.
- Don’t assume that one approach fits ll. The more senior your target, the more creative you’ll need to be in getting hold of them
- Don’t let the agency keep all the data. If you’re using an agency to build a database, make sure the information comes back to you or they might sell it to someone else.
- Don’t assume telemarketing works on its own. The best marketing campaigns are integrated – telemarketing with direct mail, PR, advertising and events.
