BSA Marketing has a long history and a great deal of knowledge about both effective telemarketing and email marketing. Our experience tells us that there can be a great fit between the two although this is often overlooked – particularly by B2B marketers! Most often, when B2B companies commission a telemarketing project to target new potential customers thet have one objective – leads! All too often, the telemarketers buy in to this objective and again focus on securing ‘NOW’ opportunities. Although it is difficult (and potentially dangerous!) to quote statistics, history tells us that a typical B2B telemarketing project to a reasonable niche market can generate sales leads from around 5-10% of contacts made. This may be OK but also bear in mind that if the initial list is properly targeted, then no more than 20-25% of contacts should be with companies where they just don’t buy (or have potential to buy) the product/service in question. So, we have 5-10% with current opportunity and 20-25% with no opportunity – but what of the other 65-75%? I think the basic problem is one of standpoint. Most telemarketing is conducted on the basis of
“We are looking for people who are interested in us now”
If the answer received is NO, then the telemarketer moves on to the next contact.
I think telemarketing is conducted on the basis of:
“We are looking for people we are interested in”
Once you have found someone you are interested in (i.e. they buy or have potential to buy what you are selling) only then do you ask the question whether they are interested in you now.
In this way, you can still pick up on the short term opportunities.
However, it is inevitable that most will answer NO, they aren’t interested in you now – even though you have already confirmed you are interested in them. These are the 65-75% that often get thrown away in the search for ‘NOW’ leads. They offer real business potential, just not at the moment.
The question is then what do you do with them? They are still valuable contacts so you don’t want to ignore them, on the other hand it would be inappropriate and not cost effective to continue to use telemarketing to communicate. What you need is a means to gently keep in touch and not let them forget you – roll on email marketing! If you have a consistent programme of email newsletters etc, you simply add your new target contacts to your email list and they will receive high quality communications that build your profile with them, and re-enforce the value that you could add to their business, Increasing the likelihood that they will contact you when they have a requirement. The relationship between telemarketing and email:
- Use telemarketing to identify and qualify your target market. If the prime objective is to build your email list, it will succeed and you are likely to get one or two leads as a bonus
- Use the contacts identified during the telemarketing to build a high quality email list, and use this list to develop a targeted communication program via email.
Take this approach, and you can significantly increase the return on your telemarketing investment, still generate short term opportunities and build a qualified database of YOUR target market which is a key marketing asset and a valuable part of an effective and sustainable marketing strategy.
