What Is Telemarketing?

Telemarketing is a very common form of marketing companies use to connect with potential

customers of their products or services. Historically, telemarketing consisted of companies

making telephone calls to existing or potential customers. With new technology, telemarketing

has expanded to include video conferencing calls as well, although those are typically conducted

with existing customers. Telemarketing is often used to try to sell a product or service, but it can

also take the form of surveys or information gathering. For instance, political campaigns use

telemarketing heavily prior to elections to inquire about voting preferences

 How to Conduct a Telemarketing Campaign

First of all, if you don’t already have a list of names then you need to decide who you’re going to

call. It may sound obvious, but not everyone intuitively knows who their ideal target audience is.

There will usually only be a limited amount of data to work with so you need to think carefully

about, for example, how many employees should the companies you’re targeting have or what

should their turnover be? Also, what areas geographically are you willing to travel to? If you

don’t fancy travelling up and down the ‘north-south divide’ then you’ll need to make sure you

only focus on companies in your local area. These are just a few considerations but there are

many other examples of what you’ll need to think about before you buy a list to work from.

Secondly you need to decide on what your proposition is going to be. Of course you know what

it is you do for a living, but a prospect conversation should always be focused on how you can

help them to solve a problem that they genuinely have. Otherwise you’ll just be one of the many

cold calls they receive every day that has no actual relevance to them. For example, are there any

new rules and regulations that have come out that are relevant to your prospects which you may

have specialist knowledge of? Have you done any research or work in a particular area that has

given you an insight into a subject that your potential clients may find interesting? Is there

something that you can offer right at this very moment which will make your prospects sit up

and take notice when they hear about it for the first time? If you can find a good reason for the

busy person that you’re targeting to see you right at this very moment, it will really accelerate the

success of your campaign.

Now that you’ve decided what you’re going to talk about, you need to decide exactly how to say

it. Someone who works from a script often sounds wooden if the content is poorly delivered. It’s

important though to have a clear structure of what you’re going to say in order to make the most

of the short time you’re allotted when you finally get through to a decision maker. The important

initial considerations for a call structure are:

 How are you going to get past any potential gatekeepers?

 What are you going to say to the decision makers when they lend you their ear?

It’s vital that what you say gets the message across quickly and in a manner that keeps the other

person engaged, without them feeling that they’re been pressurized or bombarded with questions.

The fourth consideration, now that you’ve decided what to say, is who is going to say it?

Whether you’re going to make the calls yourself or you’re going to pay someone else to make

them for you, the delivery has to be professional and enthusiastic. It’s important that cold caller

sounds important enough both to be put through by a gatekeeper and also to be taken seriously

by the decision maker. A telemarketer should always sound confident but respectful and they

should always ask for the appointment!

The next thing that needs to be decided is how you are going to deal with people who ask for

information to be sent out to them. Very often, many people ask for information to be sent to

them purely as a polite way of getting a cold caller off the line. Therefore you’ll need to qualify

if that’s the case or if they’re really interested and just want to see something in writing to help
them make a decision. If it’s the latter and you’re happy to send something out, you’ll need to

think about format and content of what you intend to send. In truth, it’s usually the former

Although all of the above can take time to put into place, it’s vital that momentum is built and

maintained in the run up to starting a campaign. For example, data goes out of date very quickly

so it’s important that once the decision is made to go ahead, a deadline should be set to start

making calls and everything should then be focused on this point of time.

Finally, whether you’re managing someone else making the calls or if you’re going to be brave

and get on the phone yourself, you’ll need to know how to measure the results of the campaign.

Appointments are often the primary goal. However, in some cases it’s about an immediate sale,

attendance at an event or a quotation.

Whatever the goal is, knowing if and when to make changes if things don’t start happening as

quickly as you’d like can only be by monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). Simple

KPI’s, such as how many calls per hour are being made and the percentage of decision maker

conversations, compared to calls made are invaluable ratios to understand. These, along with

many others, help to build an overall picture of what’s happening during the campaign and will

point you to where changes may need to be made as it rolls on.

So in summary, the essential questions that need to be answered in order to plan a telemarketing

campaign are:

 Who are you targeting?

 What’s your proposition?

 How are you going to describe it?

 Who’s going to say it?

 What information will you send out?

 When do you intend to start?

 Which metrics will be useful to you?

Remember, a well-planned and thought out campaign will be a successful one.