Telemarketing's Place in the New World Order

While there is no underestimating the power of web marketing, any sensible marketing approach will still consider telemarketing as a proven method of generating immediate feedback and immediate leads, particularly in a B-2-B market.

Over the years the telemarketing profession has taken it's share of hits and in many circles the telemarketer is regarded with the same disdain as, well, other professions that not well regarded. Yet the secret is that successful companies large and small continue to invest their marketing and sales dollars into telemarketing programs for one good reason - they bring results when executed intelligently and with respect for the customer.

I'm prompted to write this blog after seeing a friend fail miserably with a telemarketing campaign. A small business owner, he hired a local call-from-home 'telemarketer' to try to sell his service to local dentists. The methodology was for the telemarketer, who had no particular experience with dentists, call a list of dentist offices to offer to sell the service. The script was a basic hello, this is who I am, do you want to buy my service, offer. As one might predict, the telemarketer spoke mainly to office assistants who had neither authority to buy nor understanding of the need for the service to the dentist office. Since the telemarketer had little to send for supporting collateral, the calls were often short with little value added to either the dentist or the telemarketer. After a short week or two, the program was ended with the saying, "Telemarketing doesn't work!"

But telemarketing does work. Two examples of using the telephone for sensible marketing and business building are shown below.

Bill Gluth has operated Creating Words that Sell and related businesses successfully for a number of years. Always an innovator, Bill is current on the latest in web and social media marketing as well as old world strategies of print and telemarketing. Just over a year ago, Bill implemented a very simple telemarketing program to generate attendees to his business seminars in the local Phoenix area. Using a simple script and a free white paper that would help a small business owner build sales, he was able to hire a telemarketer to call small business owners and offer the free white paper. While on the call, if the telemarketer detected a need, there was an offer for a follow through appointment to discuss any potential for a further relationship. By keeping the offer simple and free, small business owners with a need responded immediately. For those business owners who only accepted the white paper, Bill's brand was built and seeds were sown for later business. For those business owners who were open to a follow through call, Bill was able to add them to his pipeline of qualified leads. With only one telemarketer working, there was no need for expensive and time-consuming CRM systems, just something simple such as FreeCRM. Through telemarketing, Bill was able to garner immediate feedback on the calling list, the response of the target, and pick up other market information that would have been difficult to learn through web or direct mail methods. Further, ROI on the investment was clear, as measured in terms of businesses contacted, appointments set, and business booked.

On the other end of the spectrum of business size, Televerde is one of the nation's premier providers of phone based market intelligence and customer acquisition solutions. Using the latest backend technology for CRM, quality control and other data management, Televerde continues to build an ever expanding base of Fortune 100 clients precisely because it provides that same result that Bill Gluth's simple method provides, ROI. Televerde has the resources and know-how to strategically blanket a given market in several continents, provide instant feedback from the field, and adapt to changes relatively quickly. Yes, it's prospect interaction relies on integrated electronic marketing including websites, online demos and email. But the power of the business is based in its proven use of the telephone for B-2-B marketing. It the business is thriving because Fortune 100 businesses realize a clear ROI.

Two extremes of B-2-B marketing, very small local businesses and international Fortune 100 companies, yet both see results with telemarketing when used sensibly.