Telemarketing does not have the best reputation among a marketer’s tools; and many people think that telemarketing is the same as telesales, but it’s not.
Telesales has been around for decades, used as a prime selling tool, contacting a customer directly and attempting to offer some services or products. Telemarketing is a more overarching term, used the describe the process of using direct communication to engage with the customer base, learn more about them and in turn allow them to learn more about you. It involves research, feedback and gaining of information meant to improve customer knowledge and generate sales.
Both have outgoing cold calling in common, but telemarketing is more complex, can have a range of approaches and objectives, while telesales has one simple function: closing a deal. Both are different, and they each have their individual advantages.
Most B2B companies, using telemarketing services, expect instant results - meeting the prospect and signing a contract. However, telemarketing is not direct sales. Essentially, telemarketing is about getting to know your market and about brand awareness.
The biggest mistake that telesales people make, is to call just about any number on any list, hoping to achieve something, instead of carefully targeting individuals who are most likely to make purchases. Another requirement is not to be aggressive, not rushing your speaker, paying attention to every word he or she says.
The job of a telemarketer is now all the more difficult, as any campaign must fulfill two important conditions in order for companies to get results. The campaign has to be professional and highly targeted, otherwise the risk of damaging your business reputation and wasting resources is very high.
As a telemarketer, I worked with many clients. Some of them were skeptical about the service, others were confident and let us do what we know best. I believe the best approach is a degree of freedom to the hired telemarketing consultant. Objectives and KPIs are ultimately what matters.
Every telemarketer has its own habits. We don’t follow a specific script, word-by-word, instead, we learn about the client, company and services, because no conversation will go exactly as planned. A professional telemarketer is able to hold a dialogue with your prospect, not a monologue.
As with most things in life, good telemarketing needs extensive experience. Once the techniques have been learned from books, only constant practice will bring improvement. And good listening skills and flexibility are what bring success to a telemarketing campaign.
This is a guest post written by Cosmin Sinzianu, one of NNC Services’ experienced telemarketing specialists.
