Author: graphdeveloper

Before looking at new markets, think about how you can get the most out of your existing customers – it’s usually more economical and quicker than finding new customers.

Perhaps you could sell more to your existing customers, or look at better ways to retain key customers.

Focus on the market

Take steps to find your most profitable customers:

• Analyse the different needs of different groups of customers.
• Focus on a market niche where you can be the best.
• Aim to put most of your efforts into the 20 per cent of customers who provide 80 per cent of profits.

Don’t forget the follow-up
Monitoring, evaluation and review are key to success:

• Approach a third party for feedback about your strategy – they may be able to spot any gaps or weaknesses that you can’t see.
• Put your marketing strategy into effect with a marketing plan that sets out the aims, actions, dates, costs, resources and effective selling programmes.
• Measure the effectiveness of what you do and be prepared to change things that aren’t working.

Pitfalls to avoid

Watch out for these common mistakes:

• Making assumptions about what customers want.
• Ignoring the competition.
• Trying to compete on price alone.
• Relying on too few customers.
• Trying to grow too quickly.
• Becoming complacent about what you offer and failing to innovate.

Be sure to follow up all of your marketing and promotional strategies with a marketing plan. This sets out clear objectives and lists the actions you will take to achieve them.

Direct marketing allows you to generate a specific response from targeted groups of customers. It’s a particularly useful tool for small businesses because it allows you to:

• focus limited resources where they are most likely to produce results
• measure the success of campaigns accurately by analysing responses
• test your marketing – you can target a representative sample of your target audience and see what delivers the best response rates before developing a full campaign

A direct marketing campaign can help you to achieve the following key objectives:

• increasing sales to existing customers
• building customer loyalty
• re-establishing lapsed customer relationships
• generating new business

There are many different approaches to direct marketing. These include mailshots and telemarketing, email marketing, SMS marketing and social media. The method most appropriate for your business will depend on who you are targeting, the message you want get across and response you want to generate.

The results of direct marketing aren’t guaranteed. A poorly planned or targeted campaign can be a waste of money. A badly designed mailshot, for example, could simply end up in the bin. And worse still, it may irritate recipients and damage your business’ reputation as a result.

It may not be popular but outbound telemarketing is one of the most effective strategies for growing a business. The good news is that this doesn’t have to be hard, and it doesn’t have to involve bullying potential clients into submission, either. Building an effective telemarketing strategy for business growth is all about learning to tap into the value that you bring your clients and potential clients.

Have a Plan

Before you begin telemarketing, make certain that you know what your objective is for the exercise. If it’s collecting e-mail addresses, you may well—for smaller and medium-sized companies—be able to obtain these from the first point of contact (whoever answers the phone). If it’s to talk to a decision maker, you’re going to need a way of convincing the first point of contact (and possibly the second if they have a secretary or Personal Assistant, PA) to put you through.

Have a Script

Once you have your objective in mind, you can create a small script or scripts that will help you achieve your objective. 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 to how you will conduct the first part of your call. It doesn’t have to be followed perfectly, and you will find that you’ll naturally vary the wording slightly from call to call – it’s just there to remind you of what you want to say, in case you get stuck.

Speak Slowly and Clearly

It’s normal to be a little nervous when you first start cold calling; unfortunately, that nervousness can often cause you to blurt out your script rather than relay it in a way the person on the other end of the line can understand.

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.

Be Prepared to Have a Conversation

The person on the other end may have questions for you. You should be prepared to talk through any issues or concerns they have. If telemarketing were simply a “make a call, get an answer, hang up” proposition, it would be a much faster form of marketing than it actually is, and we wouldn’t need to write much more about it here.

Be Prepared to be Told “No” or “No, Thank you”

Truthfully, sometimes the response will be even ruder. Don’t let it upset you. If you feel confident, you can try—politely—to argue your case, but sometimes a “no” really is a “no”. Imagine the shoe on the other foot, too—you don’t say “yes” all the time, do you? Let it go, thank the person for taking the time and try again another day. Telemarketing requires a lot of persistence to produce good results.

Always End a Call Politely

Whether you get what you wanted or not, always thank the person on the other end for his or her time. It may take many calls to get what you want, and you’ll be remembered, and not in the way you want to be, if you’re not polite. You’re only as good as your last call, and first impressions last. Of course—it almost goes without saying—you should be polite throughout the entire call, too.

Always Take Action on Your Calls

If you say you’re going to send some marketing material – 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 can take a little while to get comfortable with telemarketing; don’t give up if the first call isn’t perfect. 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, i.e., fines, etc. Always get legal advice on this subject before moving forward with your telemarketing efforts.

Telemarketing can have immense impact on any business. It is that area of marketing which provides access to the widest market without having to spend a fortune. Telemarketing services can be started as an internal process of the company or they can be outsourced to the numerous telemarketing companies that are available

There are many pros and cons to hiring telemarketing services to boost your business’ sales. Not many business owners have large amounts of time to sit on the phone and start dialing up prospective leads. This is where telemarketing services come in. Telemarketing services have employees who will literally spend hours on the phone for you, drumming up leads or attempting to sell the service that your company provides.

If you already generate enough leads but need someone to handle a large amount of inbound calls, telemarketing services can help in this arena as well. We’ve all seen those late night infomercials that hawk everything from rug shampoos to diet pills. The number that you dial to order the product is usually not directed to that particular company itself but rather a call center service that handles inbound calls. Depending on how many calls you anticipate coming in, the fees charged by these telemarketing services may be well worth the expenditure. These particular telemarketers work out of what is typically known as a call center and may work for multiple companies at one time.

There are also outbound telemarketing services that will call people who may have an interest in your product or service. Many work off of telemarketing lists of potential clients that you may have to provide. Since hiring a telemarketing service allows potentially hundreds of calls to be made a day, even if only a small fraction of these prospects become actual clients, you may still see a substantial increase in the amount of sales profits that your company makes.

There are also negative aspects of hiring telemarketing services that you should consider. Not too many people enjoy getting telemarketing calls, particularly at dinner time or after a hard day at work. Many people just want to come home and relax or they have their after work chores to handle like getting dinner ready, checking their kid’s homework, etc. The last thing they may want is to pick up a ringing phone only to have a telemarketing service try to sell them something. There are services now available that allow calls to be prescreened to prevent telemarketing services from being able to complete the call. Many people have also placed their name on the national, “do not call” list. This is another hindrance to telemarketing services trying to do their jobs.

The internet has also contributed to the decline of successful telemarketing services. Instead of having to pay what could be exorbitant fees to telemarketers, many businesses have created websites and employ search engine optimization techniques to help them generate leads. This can be a cost effective way to boost sales because the website hosting fees can be much less than the fees required to pay a telemarketing service.

If you’re selling complex and expensive products or services, the telephone is a key marketing tool – with an emphasis on the word “marketing”. It’s not just for sales people anymore. Here’s what telemarketing can do for you:

Generate leads: Telemarketing along with direct mail and e-mail marketing is currently the best 1-2-3 combo for generating and maintaining awareness among business-to-business prospects.

Find hot opportunities: It’s the best way to find out what opportunities exist right now inside your prospects and clients companies. Telemarketing experts say they are almost always able to find active opportunities that the company didn’t know about — no matter how big or well-known the company is.

Communicate one-to-one: Telemarketing allows you to put a voice to your marketing and sales efforts long before the prospect is ready to meet with a sales person. It’s easy to customize the message and to adapt to special needs of the specific prospect.

Qualify prospects: Telemarketers can follow-up on inquiries from your website and other marketing activities and determine fairly quickly just how qualified the prospect is and whether or not – and when – this company is likely to become a customer.

Engage at the top:  Many experts agree that telemarketing is the best way to get through to and start a dialogue with top executives.

Increase sales team effectiveness: Telemarketers can take a load off your sales people. A Gardner study called Inside Sales: Selling More at Lower Cost found that adding a teleprospector to support a direct sales person can increase that sales person’s closing revenue by from 50% to 150%.

Advance the sale: Telemarketers are often able to identify hesitation in a prospect. By handling questions or objections that might not otherwise be voiced, telemarketers can eliminate friction and move the prospect along sales cycle.

Promote other marketing activities: Telemarketing can increase webinar participation, trade show attendance, white paper downloads and many other useful methods of interacting with your prospects.

Build and clean your database: With each call, a telemarketer can add to and confirm information in your marketing database. This is critical to reducing waste and expanding your reach within a given company.
It’s not uncommon to find companies assigning telemarketing duties – particularly cold calling – to the field sales team. This may seem to make sense; after all, sales people must be good on the phones, right? But in reality it’s a bad idea. Sales people get paid to close and that means they have little patience for finding and developing prospects who may or may not become an opportunity a year or two from now. That’s the job of marketing.

Once you’ve made the decision to try a formal telemarketing program, you’ll have to choose an implementation strategy. Some companies prefer to handle telemarketing with an internal staff. Others outsource it to one of many telemarketing services. Either approach can be successful, and the decision more often than not depends on the culture of your company.

Most of the fastest growing B2B companies do not rely solely on just one sales lead generation method. They have a complete arsenal of sales lead generation tools at their fingertips, that they can use at ay given time.

Here are my eight proven B2B sales leads generation techniques gleaned from helping over 170 B2B companies reach their sales prospects:

1. Sales lead generation using relationship marketing   Relationship Marketing is the approach underlying all of the “sales-lead-generation-success” methods. Relationship marketing simply refers to cultivating a personal, sales-winning relationship with your prospects. It’s about developing longer-term relationships with customers rather than individual transactions.

During my 20+ years of experience in B2B sales lead generation, I’ve discovered the key to picking up sales others leave on the table is to keep in touch with your prospects via a series of ongoing communications and offers throughout your prospective customers’ consideration processes.

2. Sales lead generation through complementary partner referrals  By joining forces with complementary partners, you can instantly multiply your sales lead generation pool and make it easier for companies to engage in doing business with you. Out of all the sales lead generation programs available to you, complementary partner referral programs can generate the highest qualified B2B sales leads.

3.  Sale lead generation using search engine optimization and Internet marketing strategiesBusiness buyers are more sophisticated and getting harder to reach than ever. Studies show that about 90% of business buyers start with research on the Internet, therefore it’s critical to have a well-tuned sales lead generation program that includes search engine optimization (SEO)/Internet marketing strategies to attract prospects at the beginning of their buying cycle.

4. Sales lead generation via telemarketing Even though many people despise the thought of telemarketing, when executed properly it is a very effective sales lead generation tool. Telemarketing is a personal marketing and sales lead generation technique that offers a cost-effective, efficient alternative to field selling. However, it can be significantly more expensive than direct mail or email.  By including telemarketing in your B2B sales lead generation marketing plan, you can reach up to thirty decision-makers a day at a cost of $15 to $20 per contact.

In contrast, with field sales you can reach only four or five decision-makers a day at an average cost of $392 or more per contact.

Direct mail may cost as little as a dollar, and email is often much less. However, if you consistently prospect and nurture leads via phone, you will consistently generate qualified sales leads.

5.   Sales lead generation with email publications By creating your own email newsletter, you could send out industry news and tips to suspects in your market. Since you will be on your prospects’ minds more often than your competition, eventually, your sales leads will turn into actual sales.

If you subscribe to my e-newsletter, Sales Lead Report, you will see an example of an email publication that keeps my name and business in front of over 8,000 people every month.

6.   Sales Lead Generation With Direct Mail There is an entire industry of people like Dan Kennedy, Bob Bly, and Bill Glazer who are dedicated to business-to-business selling through direct marketing. Sales letters can be an excellent sales lead generation method. But, most sales and business professionals do not know how to use this lead generation technique effectively and efficiently.

The complaint is a common one among B2B companies that depend on direct mail and direct response marketing as their only sales lead generation program: “I’m sick of spending a fortune to send out thousands of full-color catalogs and direct-mail pieces only to get a measly 1% response rate. How can I cut costs and find a more practical way to get my target market to respond to my direct mail or catalogs?”My clients have found that the best place to start revamping their direct response marketing is by determining who their best customers are, then trying to target their database marketing efforts at companies and individuals who are similar in nature.

7.  Sales Lead Generation Using Print Advertising When done correctly, print advertising can be a highly effective sales lead generation activity. When using print advertising as your B2B sales leads generation method, you must remember to focus your advertising’s message on the benefits and applications of your products or services. Then let the layout and design of your ads enhance your company’s image. And, don’t forget to only use publications that deliver messages directly to your targeted audience.

8. Sales Lead generation via Event Marketing Whether you do it live, through the telephone (teleseminars) or via the Web (webinars), seminars and workshops are a great sales lead generation tool. People who attend your seminar have an interest in the information you are presenting and a need for your product or service.

The goal: Connect with customers in a meaningful way By using these eight proven B2B sales leads generation methods gleaned from helping over 170 B2B companies reach their prospects, you will capture more sales-ready opportunities for your salespeople to turn into new business, meaning greater sales revenue and profits for your company.

The following five reasons could be why your telemarketing foray did not produce the fruits you were looking for:

1. You had the wrong person (or company) in the role

It is important to separate the role of cold caller from the person, or company, doing the job. The role itself is incredibly important, but it could be you had the wrong person in that role, or you outsourced it to the wrong company. Many MSPs I have spoken with admit it is challenging to find the right person, and have cycled through their fair share of recruits trying to fill the role. But, because they value the outcomes telemarketing plays in helping to drive leads into their sales funnel, they persevere, and never consider abandoning the role. Rather, they continue their search for the next candidate, or outsourced telemarketing firm, if the incumbent isn’t cutting it.

2. You didn’t provide them with any sort of sales mentorship or training program

What sort of training program did you provide when they first came onboard? Did you review your ideal target profile? Your company’s vision, mission, and value prop statements? Did you show them how to properly prepare for their calls? Did you provide call scripts or training around how to handle objections? Did you role-play in mock-call sessions to help them practice their techniques and build confidence? Did you teach them how to sleuth and research to find their own leads? Did you provide any sort of sales mentorship to help guide and show them the ropes, working to help make them feel part of the team?

3. You didn’t make regular check-ins a priority

As with any role, regular one-on-ones are vital. How is anyone supposed to develop in their role if they don’t receive ongoing feedback, training, and support? Scheduling weekly one-on-ones is key if you want your telemarketing employee to flourish. These meetings are critical to review questions or challenges your cold caller may be having, and to provide feedback, advice, and additional training on how to improve. They shouldn’t be pushed aside and treated as something you’ll get around to at some point. Rather, they should be treated as a high priority, no matter how busy you may be.

4. You hired them to cold call, but have them doing everything

Take an honest look at the tasks and activities you had your telemarketer doing. Were they given ample time to research and complete their calls? Or were other tasks dumped on them because no one else had time to complete them?

5. You didn’t compensate them correctly

I have seen many types of compensation plans implemented by various MSPs, so I know this point could be controversial. But if you fell into the camp of offering a commission-only pay structure, that might be where your issue lies. Offering a commission-only pay scheme can be demotivating and unfair to the person doing the job, especially because you are putting 100% of the sales process—from prospecting to closing—on their inexperienced shoulders. If they don’t get the appointment booked at the outset, no lead can be given to the sales exec, meaning no new contract is being signed. So when building your compensation plan for your telemarketing role, you want to structure it in a way where they are motivated to do the job well, which works to help maximize productivity and efficiency in your organization.

So if you have previously tried incorporating the telemarketing motion into your MSP and didn’t get the returns you were hoping for, do one better than poor ol’ Wylie Coyote and take some time for internal reflection. Try and see where you can make improvements in your process and consider giving it another go.

For big businesses, the unknown is something to be taken seriously. Although a leap of faith in business deals and investments can be good every once in a while, it does create risks that can ruin a business’ potentials when it occurs. To avoid that, a wise entrepreneur would exert all effort to reduce the unknown and retrieve information critical to a company’s survival. And what better way to go about this task than going for telemarketing? It’s one of the most powerful tools that a marketing campaign can ever use. It can deliver excellent marketing leads that can be converted to a sale or a closed deal for a client firm.

Telemarketing, as a tool for business, unexpectedly excels in solving this type of concern. It’s unexpected, in terms of it being a very old marketing technique and the question of it still being applicable for the modern times. But that shouldn’t be the case. In terms of effectiveness, professional telemarketing services have been the best in the field. Telemarketers are known to deliver results in such a way that companies would not help but appreciate its efficiency. There are also no doubts about its power to turn the tide for a struggling business enterprise. How many cases have been cited where a company was able to maximize their business potentials with the help of marketing leads produced by telemarketers?

Marketing leads are a necessity for the growth of any business. No matter what industry they belong to, there is always a need to use marketing strategies to improve market share, as well as better the chances of entering a new market. All these can be done if the right kind of marketing leads are used by the firm. To ensure quality, it really pays to hire professional telemarketing firms that provide lead generation services. They have the knowledge, the experience, and the skill in judging whether a prospect will be profitable or not for their client. Lead generation is a task that only professional telemarketers can do.

Since there is business to business lead generation, it only stands to mention appointment setting services. What good are marketing leads, no matter how qualified these are, if no sale or closed deal would take place? This requires the skills of telemarketers with experience in appointment setting. This is the next stage in the marketing process, perhaps the most important. It’s because being able to make the sales pitch depends entirely on the willingness of a prospect to meet or listen to the firm. If the prospect says no, then it’s considered a lost opportunity. Appointment setting services of professional telemarketing firms ensure that firms get the most number of qualified appointments for their clients.

How one company can survive the business environment depends entirely on his ability to make a profit. No matter what industry they belong toFeature Articles, being able to reach prospects is best done with the help of professional telemarketing firms. It’s a sure-fire way to success and an investment worth making.

There are many companies who successfully manage their telemarketing campaigns in-house and, on the surface, this might appear a very cost effective option that uses spare capacity. You could be forgiven for thinking that anyone who can communicate over the phone is capable of being a telemarketer. And surely, someone from within your organisation should be better able to represent you than someone from an outside organisation ……right? As with most things, it isn’t quite that simple…

1. Specialist Skills

The ability to hold a conversation on the phone does not make for a qualified, competent telemarketer or telesales professional. It takes a particular set of skills and natural aptitude to sustain high volume calling at the standard required to produce good quality outcomes, particularly in the B2B lead generation environment. An agency will take great pains to recruit the right individuals, putting a pool of callers at the disposal of the client, to be assigned according to the needs of each campaign – including multilingual agents for overseas campaigns.

Some skills can be taught but others are inherent to an individual’s personality, including self-confidence and the tenacity to stay focused and maintain performance, despite repeated rejection. There is nothing easy or attractive about cold calling and even hardened salespeople shy away from it, especially those accustomed to warm, sales qualified leads. The strong persuasive skills required for demand generation, are very different attributes to those needed for a research task or survey, and agencies recruit and match skills accordingly.

Here at The Telemarketing Company, our agents undergo industry standard training – Institute of Sales Management for our persuasive team and Market Research Society/Interviewer Quality Control Scheme for our CATI market researchers) – to equip them with baseline skills – solution selling, rapport building, listening skills – in line with their specialism’s. This is then supplemented by campaign specific training on the client’s brand and proposition, the competitive landscape, product benefits, and customer pain points.

This level of training puts tools at the disposal of agency staff that are not available to the average individual in a typical office environment.

2. Proactive Account Management

Whilst telemarketing can be a catch all phrase, it encompasses many different activity types including lead generation, appointment setting, transactional telesales, inbound call handling and, in some cases, pre and post sales telephone research. An experienced account manager with broad and deep knowledge of these areas will apply best practice from previous campaigns, whilst working to understand what needs to be done differently, as no two campaigns are the same.

They will:

• Assign agents with the right skills and experience for your campaign profile.
• Work on a detailed brief capturing your proposition, USPs, key messages and desired outcomes using a framework such as BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) to understand the key criteria that define value for you.
• Implement an early stage campaign review capturing client and agent feedback so that barriers and pain points not covered by the brief are addressed from the start.
• Listen to call recordings to understand which agents and approaches are most effective so that best practice is shared across the team.
• Identify pockets of data and sectors that are getting more traction than others, so that resource can be targeted where it brings most return.
• Establish an ongoing feedback loop using reporting tools, regular reviews and regular communication with agents and client to optimise campaign performance.
• The level of expert account management ensures that each campaign has the best chance of delivering strong ROI.

3. Structured, Systematic Approach

An account manager within an agency also has the benefit of detailed insight into campaign performance provided by a bespoke calling platform:

Productivity
The calling platform increases the fluidity of the calls and allows agents to track pipeline, capture notes and feedback. Productivity levels in this environment are naturally higher (15-20 calls out per hour) than in-house where the individual may be grappling with a standard CRM, or potentially calling from and manually updating a list in excel.

Reporting and Metrics
This type of platform also provides a wealth of reporting and metrics giving the account manager increased visibility, enabling them to optimise campaign performance at both the agent and campaign level.

Data Management
The platform, and the reporting it supports, facilitates data management –a natural cornerstone of any successful calling campaign. It will highlight where data quality is poor and which pots of data are feeding the pipeline and results. Rather than burning through data for quick wins, agents can nurture the pipeline, schedule call backs, send literature to follow up and develop opportunities for both the short and long term.

Call Recordings
Call recordings add a further layer of visibility and transparency, providing the perfect tool to monitor ongoing performance, giving clients clear insight into how their proposition is presented and received, enabling them to provide feedback to optimise results.

These increased layers of visibility and the consistent, structured approach coupled with bespoke platforms and systems provide a much better foundation for success than a typical office infrastructure.

4. Resource Management

Agency callers are in a results-driven, competitive setting, where everyone is 100% focused on the same, or similar tasks. It is harder to focus when juggling a mix of reactive and proactive tasks, and easier to be distracted in a less controlled environment. Individuals making calls in an office environment where no one else is calling, may also feel self-conscious, especially if they lack training.

Finances permitting, it is possible to recreate a call centre environment in-house, taking the same approach in terms of staff recruitment, training and ongoing coaching, as well as IT infrastructure. Yet, even with the required investment, it may still be difficult to match the capability and flexibility of an outsourced resource.

A larger pool of agents shared across multiple campaigns allows the agency to move callers around to ramp a campaign up or down as required to maintain a consistent flow of leads, or respond to peaks and troughs when managing inbound leads.
If you are looking to expand overseas, an agency can not only provide multilingual agents but can support out of hours calling, which is part and parcel of the environment but may be less acceptable in a normal office set up.
Agency resource can also be applied at very specific times of day according to the target sector profile. Calling into schools, for example, is often more successful later in the afternoon, as you have a better chance of reaching decision makers. An in-house team may not be as flexible with their time or their ability to target calls.
A large team of trained, seasoned callers provides a broader skill set and broader spread of experience to deal with different levels of decision maker, different functions, sectors and outcome types, as well as market stage. If traction is gained in a particular segment, agency resource can be shifted easily to where it will bring the best return, without a significant training overhead.
Aside from the flexibility of resource, an in-house team requires significant management time, not just to ensure campaigns run effectively but also to deal with personnel issues – holiday, sickness, turnover, as well as training and development. With an outsourced solution, the agency will manage all these aspects, without any impact on in-house management time and resource.

5. Brand Reputation

A structured framework, which supports a consistent approach, allows you to control how your brand is presented. A thorough brief, close supervision and ongoing monitoring through call recordings and detailed reports, ensures the message conveyed reflects your brand values and guarantees correct positioning of your propositions.

An in-house employee may already be familiar with your brand and could be perceived as being in a better position to answer technical or probing questions about products or services, but an agency with a strong brief can be very effective in presenting a client’s proposition. Agents are given very specific training on the propositions they present, with a clear process for escalating questions, or scheduling follow ups with sales or in-house teams where required. They typically follow a solution selling approach, asking open questions and capturing feedback and insight, but with a clear understanding of the extent of their remit.

A managed, measured approach based on a solid, thorough brief with a consistent message, continually monitored for quality and consistency will safeguard your brand reputation. A less structured and supervised environment and approach may be less effective.

6. Return on Investment

Whether handled in-house or through an agency, telemarketing can be one of the more expensive marketing channels. However, done well, it can produce a very strong ROI, particularly in the B2B sector where outcomes often have higher values.

In this respect, a controlled, measured approach is critical to secure the quality of output you need. Investing resource without a means to monitor the effort can be a false economy, producing an inconsistent flow of poor quality leads, which sap sales time and divert resource from real opportunities.

Once you have a sizeable team, ensuring they are fully utilised and minimising downtime is essential to ensure a return on that investment, but this can be a challenge as requirements fluctuate. An agency with a large pool of callers, managing multiple clients, can move resource around and re-deploy callers should requirements fluctuate at short notice.

Conclusion

Many businesses have, over time, built very successful in-house telemarketing teams producing a steady flow of high quality opportunities for their sales team, but this will have inevitably brought with it challenges and low points. What’s more, it is rarely the easiest or most cost effective option. Beyond the obvious financial investment, there are many important considerations including management overhead and time, hidden costs such as call charges, IT infrastructure, and of course higher personnel counts and costs.

Outsourcing may not make sense for every organisation but it certainly has advantages, high up on that list must be the productivity levels that can be achieved by dedicated agency teams, and tried and tested campaign management on purpose built technology platforms. And, if you are new to telemarketing or telesales – perhaps exploring a new approach or dealing with a short term requirement – an outsource option allows you to evaluate different models and approaches, in particular ‘build or buy’, to determine what’s right for you and your business.

Outsourcing key services can be seen as a risky move when it comes to large businesses. A large enterprise has a lot to lose including market share, established revenue streams and hard-won brand loyalty. Handing any aspect of the business to an external agency with the risk of comprising quality or service, is a tough choice.

So why outsource?

Ironically, as the size and success of a business grows, it is increasingly limited in its ability to try new approaches, evolve and adapt to fend off younger, challenger organisations nibbling away at its market share.

By outsourcing selected functions, an enterprise can have the best of both worlds, maintaining established revenue streams and approaches, whilst simultaneously testing and benchmarking new strategies through a flexible outsourced resource.

Let’s look at the benefits of outsourcing a telemarketing/sales function:

Agility

Recent events have shown us that the ability to adapt and pivot is critical for a business to survive and thrive.

Larger businesses are often less agile, with resources fully utilised or constrained by legacy systems and processes. This lack of flexibility can limit their capacity to test and refine strategies, react to market changes and stay competitive, particularly in fast-moving, technology sectors, or when faced by more nimble challenger firms. An outsourced agency, integrated with internal teams but with fewer constraints, can extend the agility of any large enterprise.

Compliance

Many large businesses are active in regulated sectors where they need to be 100% compliant to industry standards and codes of practice, which can often change with minimal notice. To avoid financial penalties and reputational damage, large firms must be able to react quickly and remain compliant with current regulations.

A telemarketing/sales agency with the right industry credentials can support those needs, for example communicating policy shifts to customers in a timely manner, handling inbound queries around a new procedure or by running a comprehensive TCF (Treating Customers Fairly) compliance programme.

Proof of concept

With multiple stakeholders involved, the decision-making process within a large enterprise can be complex and any significant change must be supported by a robust business case.

If internal resources are constrained, an outsource agency can deliver a solid proof of concept to make the case for a change of direction or major investment. Systematic testing of different approaches means an enterprise can test and optimise externally and then adopt the most proven approach in-house, safe in the knowledge that the decision is based on reliable data.

Insight

A feed of accurate and actionable insight is essential to inform any business strategy and to drive growth.

A specialist agency has configurable systems that provide full visibility and deep insight to feed strategy. An outsourced telesales team for example will apply a structured and systematic approach whereby agents track pipeline, capture conversation notes and Voice of Customer (VoC) feedback within a dedicated calling platform. They will also have frameworks that provide transparency and share insight such as real-time reporting, call recordings, and data management tools.

Scalability

If an opportunity presents itself, a larger, less agile enterprise may not be able to react quickly and ramp up resources to maximise returns. Recruiting and on boarding new staff with the right skills can be time consuming and labour intense.

Outsourcing to a specialist agency, allows a larger business to quickly extend their team and scale programmes as soon as opportunities are identified. Using an external agency also avoids commitment to long-term investment where needs are short-term, may fluctuate or in the early stages of a programme when it is more liable to fail.

Specialist skills

A lack of skills is a significant barrier to enterprises who need to evolve and grow their strategic capabilities. Finding and recruiting individuals with the right skills can be problematic, however, particularly in the current climate.

An outsourced solution can provide ready access to domain or industry-specific skills such as language skills or Inside Sales expertise that are often hard to find and retain. Having the right skills in place can also protect brand reputation, by maintaining standards, ensuring compliance and high quality sales and service.

Management bandwidth

A programme in its infancy tends to absorb greater management overhead than one that has reached steady state. Large strategic projects involving a sizeable resource often divert senior management away from the core priorities of the business, particularly during set up phase.

In these instances, an outsource partner can extend that bandwidth with experienced managers and proactively drive programmes whilst still providing full transparency to the in-house team through dedicated reporting, data and analytics.

Strategic partnership

These are just some of the benefits available through an outsource solution that can potentially deliver a strategic advantage to large enterprises.

A specialist outsource agency working as an enterprise partner, integrated with the in-house team, can add value with expertise and experience developed across multiple sectors, programmes and propositions. A trusted partner, they bring new ideas and fresh thinking, help test preconceptions and challenge assumptions and, with specialist skills, insight and agility, help large businesses overcome barriers to growth and maintain their competitive edge.