Can B2B telemarketing services help your company attract new clients?
Should telemarketing be part of your lead generation process?
We all know a little about telemarketing – at least from being on the receiving end of sales and prospecting calls. But however we react personally to telemarketing, it can often be a very effective method for generating business. So how can you use it in your business and is it really that effective?
Three Ways to Use B2B Telemarketing
1. Cold Calling with B2B Telemarketing
In most cases this is what people will think of when you mention telemarketing to them – someone cold calling to try and sell a product or service. Media properties with advertising opportunities, utilities and telecommunications companies all use cold calling as part of their direct marketing campaigns.
If you choose to use telemarketing to do cold calling then you should consider a few points:
- First off, what is the outcome that you want to achieve? You need to have a clear purpose in mind – are you hoping for a sale on the phone, or to arrange a meeting, or perhaps to simply make introductions before sending further information? Whatever the purpose, your telephone script should be set up with that clearly in mind.
- Don’t mess around – be straight to the point and straight with your prospects.
- Is your product or service something that people could or would buy over the phone – or is a personal meeting necessary? Make sure you’re being realistic – there’s not point in trying to force your telemarketers to close sales if experience shows you that this isn’t going to happen.
2. Follow Up with Telemarketing Services
Perhaps one of the areas where telemarketing is most useful is when following up a direct mail campaign or other contact (like a meeting at an exhibition or seminar). Individual direct marketing exercises often fail because they are a ‘one hit wonder’ – you are depending on catching the right person, at the right time, in the right mood and delivering just the right service.
This is a big ask.
Using telemarketing to follow up on these kinds of direct marketing activities gives you a second bite at the cherry and can massively improve your response rates. The downside is that it adds an additional layer of cost.
3. Appointment Setting with B2B Telemarketing
As a final, very specific example, telemarketing can also be used very effectively as a method of appointment setting. Appointment setting serves a few purposes. Obviously it helps set up appointments for your sales team to follow up on; but it also helps separate likely prospects from unlikely ones (saving time) and can even be used to gather additional information to be used in the sales process.
Like teaming telemarketing with direct mail, teaming appointment setting with sales calls can have a huge impact on the effectiveness of the overall campaign.
However you choose to use telemarketing services, the rules remain the same:
- Get a great database to start with
- Never try to bend the truth
- Be professional and polite
- Play the numbers game
- Do your follow up
Follow those simple rules and business 2 business telemarketing can be truly effective.
What Next?
- We Do It For You: If you’d like help putting B2B telemarketing to use in your business, click here for more info about the lead generation services we provide.
- Do It Yourself: For more lead generation ideas Download our free report
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