Telemarketing when used strategically is a very powerful tool for developing a close connection with your potential customers, gain valuable insight into who they are and what they expect from a trusted brand. When applied correctly using inbound and outbound calls it helps businesses provide an efficient customer support experience and drive sales numbers through the roof.
This article is not about sales cold calls but a step-by-step guide on how you can implement telemarketing either as an integrated part of your overall marketing strategy or a standalone tool to increase sales numbers.
Let’s dive into it.
Telemarketing definition – To an untrained eye telemarketing is just a mere direct-to-the-client marketing strategy used by sales teams from telemarketing call centers to make telesales. However, it is an exceptionally powerful tool used by successful businesses of all sizes to close more deals, maintain excellent customer experience, and get direct feedback from their target buyers than they would have otherwise.
Here are effective telemarketing call center strategies:
Telemarketing Services As A Lead Generation Tool
Businesses of all sizes that want to increase their revenue can add telemarketing campaigns to their lead generation strategy. When the marketing team generates leads, these are mostly unqualified leads, the telemarketing call center in turn reaches out to them via a phone call to ascertain their needs, qualify, and close the deal.
In some cases, you have a database of cold leads generated from workshops, social events, industry conferences, and references, an outbound telemarketing campaign can play a big role in setting appointments with these prospects so a senior sales executive can close the deal.
Active Your Inactive Customers Using Outbound Telemarketing
Every business has a record of inactive clients most of which quietly defected to a competitor for many reasons (eg: poor customer experience). Outbound calls to those clients can be an effective strategy to reactivate and retain them. Apart from the most desired outcome which is the selling of products or services to those inactive clients, telemarketing can be used as a research tool to understand why those customers left in the first place and fix it.
Upsell or Cross-Sell Your Product/Services Using Outbound Calls
Inhouse sales teams are like firefighters they handle mostly the immediate needs of the clients. Yet, there is a percentage of your clients who will be willing to buy more of your products/services if they understood you offered them. An outbound telemarketing proposal pitched as a routine customer care call will identify those upsell or cross-sell opportunities and close them.
A New Product/Services Launch Can Use Telemarketing Outsourcing or Telesales
OK, you are starting or relaunching a new product line and you decide to notify your existing clients or new prospects via a mass email. Well, some of the emails can end up in the spam folder or worse get no response at all. However, using outbound telemarketing as we saw in upselling or cross-sell is a proactive strategy to present and sell your new product/service to your target audience directly or at least make an appointment to demo the product.
Telemarketers Use Online Demos For Selling Of Products
At times unsolicited phone calls from inexperienced sales agents can put off a prospect from doing business with your company. An online demonstration of your product/services is a low-risk commitment that most potential customers are willing to accept at first contact. Highly skilled telemarketers use this as a foot in the door to make a deal.
Telemarketing Use Inbound Calls As a Research and Customer Support Tool
Telemarketers handle every aspect of your inbound calls (pre & post-sales) from customers. Calls are recorded for training purposes of your team and optimization of customer service experience.
Telemarketing outsourcing To A Telemarketing Call Center For Competitive Analysis
Understanding how you are doing against the competition is fundamental to your growth. Outsourcing this responsibility will help you get actionable intelligence to differentiate your business.
Now you understand how telemarketing can help you increase your sales numbers, go ahead and implement them in your business.
Interesting Related Article: “What is telemarketing? Definition and examples“