A Positive Perception of Telemarketing

Carisa Sanders Marketing is about to inspire you to think differently about telemarketing. The all-too-common association of an irrelevant, cold-call being employed at dinnertime has been overused and is as common to a professional telemarketing business as silly putty is in being used by professional architects. It is not a reality.

Why telemarketing

What is the reality? How about this: Telemarketing is one of the most effective marketing tools. You can expect between a 5% and 10% response rate. This rate is higher than that of direct mail, door-to-door fliers, advertising, and e-mail marketing.

Telemarketing affords a business the chance to communicate directly with the customers. This is extremely valuable! You can assess exactly what the customers find pleasing about your products/services and what can be improved upon. When can you get that kind of immediate opportunity with mailings and other forms of marketing? Telemarketing links you directly with the cornerstone of your business - the customers.

So why did telemarketing attract negative associations in the past? It was not "telemarketing" that was bothering the people, but it was the "people" exercising the use of telemarketing. Think about it.

How to use telemarketing

There is one, broad reason why telemarketing has not received good results for companies in the past - the lack of relevance. Businesses have to pay attention to "whom" they are calling and "what" they are calling them about. Telemarketing is best effective when it is used as a "strategic" marketing tool. A business needs to do a little bit of homework so a high amount of calls can generate sales. Pre-identified, target markets composed of particular clients receiving calls in relation to relevant opportunities will result in well-received calls and a high sales rate.

Having the right person making the call is also an integral piece of the project. Telemarketers need to be well-trained and well-informed in relating to people, and specifically, in relation to the products/services being addressed to the consumers. A finely devised script is important, but it is more important for the telemarketer to know how to relate to consumers "off script." This is achieved through experience and excellent training.

The business and telemarketing service need to establish long and short-term goals. The business needs to relate their expectations to the telemarketing service and the latter needs to provide feedback in order for goals to be modified or augmented. Having one objective per campaign usually works. The objective can be broken down into smaller "victories."