B2B Telemarketing Blog

Telemarketing Lead Generation: when is telemarketing the best lead generation tactic?

2009-07-06T14:09:00.004+01:00

If you're thinking of running a lead generation campaign, telemarketing is still an effective B2B marketing tactic to consider.

Obviously it's not the only lead generation tactic and, if you read the marketing press, you'd think that everyone had dropped telemarketing lead generation in favour of "social media" or "twitter". But, when it comes to ROI, telemarketing is still a solid direct marketing tactic for lead generation.

So, when is it best to use telemarketing for lead generation?

Here are 3 situations which make telemarketing an ideal tactic for lead generation:

1) In early stage markets - if you're selling new technology, or are in an early stage market, then you can guarantee that your prospects are not looking for you. That's not to say they're not looking for solutions to their particular problem, it's just that they don't yet know your product or service exists.

In these circumstances, you need to educate the market. A telemarketing lead generation campaign is ideal for this situation as it is all about starting a dialogue.

2) Against established competitors - unlike above, here there's an established market with existing "players". Very often these competitors are the "usual suspects" that prospects turn to when they are looking for RFP's or solutions.

In this situation, you need to break in and get their attention otherwise they'll simply continue with the people they know. Again, using telemarketing as a means of opening a dialogue is ideal.

You should note that each of the above examples needs a slightly different approach and objective. A campaign to build awareness for your business against incumbent competitors will be different to one where you are educating the market.

3) Targeting a "wish-list" - a third way to consider whether telemarketing is a suitable lead generation tactic is when you have a highly targeted "wish-list" of companies. Typically this implies a small list of businesses, less than 200 companies for example.

Why is this a good fit with telemarketing?

Well, if you know that your proposition is ideal for a very small target market (perhaps based on a number of firmographics such as turnover, ownership, etc) then you need to make sure that you maximise every possible opportunity available.

Essentially, you can't afford to sit back and wait for them to come to you.

In all three examples there's a common theme: control. Telemarketing is all about pushing out into the market and taking control of the lead generation process.

As I said at the beginning of this post, telemarketing is not fashionable at this time. Read the press and you'd believe that marketing today is only about "permission-based", "online" and "social media".

Google may be great, but if you're selling something that your audience is not looking for (yet) then all the adwords budget in the world will not deliver the leads you need.

Likewise, if you want to break into a competitive market with established, better resourced incumbents then you need to engage before the buying process starts.

In the right circumstances, telemarketing still remains an effective lead generation tactic.

Telemarketing & Digital Agencies Acquired

2009-06-24T12:31:00.003+01:00

Interesting news from Brand Republic that Blueview has acquired digital agency Glass and B2B telemarketing firm Logicall.

It's looks like a logical (no pun intended) move for Blueview since they're building an agency offering "multi-channel customer management" solutions.

I'm particularly interested in the news because, if you read any of the B2B marketing press for the past 12 months, you'd be forgiven for thinking that telemarketing was dead and everything was about "digital".

Telemarketing still remains and effective part of the B2B marketing mix and, as Blueview seems to believe, if it's integrated with other marketing channels it becomes even more effective.

I believe this will be a trend that continues.

Whether that means further integration with the industry or an expansion of multi-channel services from traditional telemarketing agencies, we'll have to see. Or maybe even both.

I know from our side we are running more email marketing (digital) campaigns backed up with telemarketing. Throw in micro-sites built specific to campaigns and you can see how the two disciplines are becoming more integrated.

As I said, it's certainly a trend that will continue.

Seth Godin says telemarketing is in trouble

2009-06-08T12:36:00.005+01:00

I've recently finished reading the excellent Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin.

In his book Seth maps out 14 trends that are shaping the business world and suggests that the winners will be the companies which align their business model with what he calls "New Marketing".

Unsurprisingly, since this book is from the guru of permission marketing, Seth says in the executive summary that Old Marketing tactics such as telemarketing and cold calling "are all in trouble"

I didn't exactly spit out my coffee at that point but it did make me sit up :-)

The thing is that Seth's talking about telemarketing as a "mass marketing" media, since he compares it with Network TV and newspapers.

And in that sense, he's absolutely right.

Mass-market telemarketing, which is typically B2C, is dead. As I've posted about previously (see Ethical Telemarketing Companies? Now I know we're in trouble!) unsolicited cold calling to consumers just doesn't work any more.

But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

Telemarketing can still be extremely effective as a marketing tactic and, in certain situations, can deliver far better results than other, often over-hyped, digital marketing tactics.

As long as it's highly targeted and relevant then outbound telemarketing can not only be effective but it can also be well received (I posted about this a year ago Google ads show us the future of cold-calling).

My view is that telemarketing is already shifting to higher value, more complex sales propositions where it can still deliver a strong ROI.

Will telemarketing ever become extinct as a marketing tactic?

I guess that if it no longer delivers a return-on-investment then the answer's yes. Or if legislation comes out to ban it's use in business-to-business.

At the moment, though, if you need to reach senior decision makers and key influencers in business, high-targeted telemarketing can still deliver.

Telephone Sales - that's so 1999!

2009-06-05T09:19:00.007+01:00

Even though I've been in the telesales business for over 20 years (I ran a telesales team back in 1989 for an IT services company), I'm always interested in reading books on the subject. You never know, you just might pick up a real gem of an idea.

Anyway, I was looking Art Sobczak's Telesales Blog and saw a recommended book that's not in my library called Successful Sales Managers Guide to Telephone Sales.

Cool, I thought, let's have a look at this one. But, then, something stopped me dead in my tracks - it was published in 1999!

Now, in some ways, 1999 isn't that long ago. But in the world of telesales it's an eternity.

In a way, the title of the book gives it away - "Telephone Sales".

I was chatting the other day to one of our associates who worked in one of the first telemarketing companies back in the 80's. We were talking about how the game has changed so much in that time.

For a start, there was no voicemail. Not to mention the fact that people were actually happy to chat with you :-) No email. No web.

Today, at some levels within an organisation, you can call all day and not reach anyone. And that's exactly why the tactics that worked in the 80's, and even back in 1999, just don't cut it anymore.

Back in 1999 I was a regional sales manager for a company selling IT solutions for manufacturing (the fact we were selling to manufacturing dates the story for a start!) In those days, you would ask a prospect, "do you have an email address?".

The game has changed.

The description "Telephone Sales" just isn't accurate any more.

Telephone, voicemail and email are all daily tools. Today, we set up as many appointments by email as we do by phone. Social networking sites like LinkedIn and web based research tools have become critical in positioning your approach. Web demos have become the norm for software telesales.

But in a few years time we may be saying... that's so 2009!

Inside Sales Metrics

2009-05-08T10:20:00.004+01:00

I came across an interesting piece on Inside Sales from the Bridge Group based in the US.

They've published a "Periodic Table of Inside Sales Metrics", which is an interesting way of presenting many of the metrics they've researched.

The Bridge Group specialises in consulting on Inside Sales for technology vendors and their president, Trish Bertuzzi, is founder and manager of the Inside Sales Experts group on LinkedIn.

Looking at the metrics they present, there are some interesting ones from a telesales perspective (what we would typically refer to "Inside Sales" as in the UK)

Under lead generation, the average quota for appointments per inside sales rep is 16 per month. Also, the average hours per day on the phone for lead generation is 4 hours.

Now, I know from reading other articles published by The Bridge Group that many of the inside sales people surveyed are also responding to and qualifying inbound leads so this doesn't mean that 4 hours a day, 20 days a week generates 16 appointments from outbound cold calling.

To me, that's not a million miles off our experience in lead generation and appointment setting for technology vendors.

We figure that one of our team (focused purely on outbound lead generation) can generate a qualified appointment every 1 to 1.5 days for a technology proposition.

Based on The Bridge Group's figures their on quota average is 1.4 per day but, as I said, that will be a mixture of inbound and outbound lead sources. Which means I think we're broadly on the same page.

Also, I liked the metric that that average ramp-up time for an inside sales rep was 4.5 months.

If only we had that long :-)

Build or buy: what's the best option for telemarketing data?

2009-04-20T16:58:00.003+01:00

For many companies, data is often an after-thought when planning a telemarketing campaign.

If you think that you can pull out a file that's sat on a PC for a couple of years, dust it down and off we go - think again.

Data is a key element in the success or failure of any telemarketing or telesales campaign. Telemarketing is a high-cost marketing medium, so it's critical that you give yourself the best possible chance by investing in good data.

When it comes to data, the best way to think about it is whether you should "build" or "buy".

"Build" means researching online and creating a bespoke database for specific companies. "Buy" means, well just that - buying (or more accurately renting) data from a list-broker or data provider.

Here's some things to consider:

1) Cost - building bespoke databases costs more than buying your data. However, if it means that you have a highly targeted list then you'll save time (and money) actually contacting the list.

2) Job title - if you need to reach a specific job title or area of responsibility within an organisation, you may not always be able to buy that data. Some data providers will supply contact names at a very granular level within all main functions. However, if you need to reach a very niche job title you may have to research it or try the approach in point 3 below.

3) Buy & Qualify - sometime a good approach is to buy data with an entry point and then use that contact to qualify and find the correct one. This works well where you're hunting for someone with a specific area of responsibility rather than a clearly defined job title. Typically you'd go for a more senior contact within the desired function and get referred to the right person.

4) Trigger Events - if your ideal prospect is best identified by specific circumstances that are happening within their organisation, such as mergers or acquisitions, you can subscribe to lists that will update you every month with new prospects. Other trigger events can include new appointments, people leaving, or new product announcements.

Essentially, the more niche your market the more value you'll get by investing highly targeted lists. If you have a much broader proposition, then it's often more cost-effective to buy more generic data and qualify by phone during the campaign.

Either way, the data you use will have a great impact on the results you get.

Ethical Telemarketing Companies? Now I know we're in trouble!

2009-04-13T08:08:00.003+01:00

I've noticed a few telemarketing companies have started to brand themselves as an "ethical telemarketing company".

As soon as I saw that I just knew that we're in trouble :-)

I mean, how bad has an industry got to get before your main point of differentiation is that you're "ethical".

Maybe I'm old fashioned but I start from the principal that you should be ethical in business full-stop, not just for the purpose of marketing spin.

It's not just telemarketing either. I recently read a report that said many players in the email marketing business have started to position themselves as the "best practice" specialists.

Best practice? Surely applying best practice should be a fundamental principal of any marketing agency?

Of course, what we're seeing here is what happens to any marketing medium that gets abused.

Go on YouTube and search for telemarketing and you'll see hundreds of videos showing recordings of idiot telemarketers being abused by the general public (all good fun). In B2C telemarketing they effectively broke their own market by over-use, to the point that they are now locked out by TPS and "Do Not Call" registers.

Email's going the same way. If the latest advances in anti-SPAM software doesn't kill it then you can bet some legislation is heading our way.

Can you remember when faxes came out? You'd get into the office in the morning and there'd be a mile of fax paper on the floor. That's why we got the FPS.

Direct marketers love cheap a marketing medium.

Getting back to the point about "ethical telemarketing", to me, I think it's just marketing spin.

There are good and bad companies in any industry. Over time, the good ones grow and the bad ones disappear. Telemarketing, as with email marketing, is one of those areas that is in demand and can be set up with very little overhead (just a phone in the case of telemarketing).

There are clear regulations which should be adhered to in different markets (such as the CTPS register in business-to-business) and I would suggest that most (if not all) telemarketing agencies already do that.

Despite all what I've said about abuse of cheap medium, there will still be a place for telemarketing or telesales. It'll be niche, highly targeted, and integrated with a multi-channel approach that links opt-in lists, email and other web services, but there'll still be a need to speak with prospects.

Can you remember "junk mail"? How much mail do you get through the post now? But guess what, there are still plenty of B2B DM agencies pulling good responses with highly targeted and personalised campaigns.

At the end of the day, ethics are more about the people you're dealing with. And the people who are making the calls on behalf of your company.

Personally, in my experience, when someone feels that they need to tell you they're ethical - it usually means that they're not.

Telemarketing or Telesales - what's the difference?

2009-04-06T18:54:00.004+01:00

I must admit, I'm not a purist about this one.

For many people "Telemarketing" and "Telesales" are inter-changeable descriptions for the role of sales lead generation and appointment setting.

I suppose, strictly speaking, you could describe them as:

Telemarketing - conducting marketing research, surveys, data-cleaning and generating marketing leads by telephone.

Telesales - actually closing business over the phone.

These are two extremes with telemarketing being the softer end of the spectrum and telesales being the sharper end (we clearly see ourselves at as the latter)

However, I've found that when most people are talking about "telesales" they're thinking about someone who's making calls to either generate leads or set up sales appointments.

Essentially, telemarketing and telesales are both seen as part of the sales process.

Interestingly, Wikipedia currently describes Telemarketing as follows:

Telemarketing (known as telesales in the UK and Ireland) is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits to prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or Web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call.

I thought the "known as telesales in the UK and Ireland" was interesting.

Certainly, I know a number of US based "telemarketers" who would always consider themselves salespeople, so maybe Wikipedia's got that one right.

Either way, whether it's telemarketing or telesales, it's always about the same thing - opening doors and closing deals.

Why telemarketing professionals don't use scripts

2009-04-05T18:33:00.010+01:00

Script or no script? That is one question that I think divides opinions about telemarketing.

If you've read my blog before then it'll be no surprise that I come down firmly on the "No Script" side (see my post "Stop reading & start listening!" as an example).

But there's still a lot of people out there who will tell you that to be successful with telemarketing you need a "killer script". Just google "telemarketing script" and you'll find plenty of people hawking that holy grail.

There are a number of sales trainers that I agree with on almost every aspect of cold calling and prospecting but when it comes down to scripts I just don't buy it.

The thing is, I've never met a seasoned telemarketing professional who actually uses a script.

If you're working with telemarketers in a traditional call-centre (where they've been dragged off the street, sat down in front of a phone and told to start dialling) then a script is probably necessary. For anyone new to telemarketing in fact, it's probably a good starting point as it gives you an idea of the structure of a call. But that's all it should be, a starting point.

Because, if you've ever received a call from someone reading a telemarketing script - I don't need to tell you why they just don't work.

The reality is that anyone who's been prospecting/telemarketing for any length of time (and all our people have at least 5 years cold-calling experience) will tell you that they don't use a script.

However, that doesn't mean that they don't know what they're going to say.

All telemarketing pros start each call with a plan of what they want to get out of it. They've done their homework before they pick up the phone so they understand exactly what they're calling about.

At Maine Associates, we work through a client briefing process so that our people can understand your business, learn the key messaging and positioning and prepare themselves for the campaign.

They'll typically have notes tagged to their monitor or stuck on the wall in front of them; they'll create a cheat-sheet with key points and messages on it. All this preparation means that when they actually speak with a prospect they know exactly what they want to say.

This frees them up to focus on the real job in hand, which is their call plan.

A telemarketing call is just a conversation. And if you know what you want out of the conversation (your call plan) then you don't need to read a script.

You can boil down any telemarketing call to just three steps: get their attention, tell them why you're calling and then ask them for what you want.

I've read many telemarketing scripts and they really do boil down to these basic steps. Sure, they'll be padded with lots of conditional branching, etc but they all follow a similar format. Most telemarketing companies that prepare a script just pull out a boiler-plate and drop in the company name and a copy of "what they do" pulled from a the client's website.

The other thing about each call being a conversation is that there will be a number of questions back and forth. Questions are essentially about qualification; the telemarketer's asking questions to qualify the prospect and the prospect is asking questions to understand if it's of interest.

Which is why you need to really know your stuff, rather than just read it off a script. No amount of branches in a script with cover every twist and turn of a live conversation.

And here's something that every seasoned telemarketer will tell you. After a while (which could be after a few hours or a few days) gradually a "pitch" evolves.

Now, to be clear, a pitch is not a script.

A pitch is basically an approach, an angle, that the telemarketer has found works for them. Two telemarketers could have a completely different pitch and still get results. That's because a pitch is something that comes from within.

When you know your subject matter, know what you want to get out of the call, and have spoken with a number of prospects, a pitch just starts to come together. You begin to notice the words that hit home and start to find a way around the common objections.

All good telemarketing professionals instinctively know when they've got their pitch.

Now, of course, the script brigade will you you that you write down your pitch and then you've got a script to hand over to someone else. But, for me, that's missing the point (plus I still don't think it would work).

Probably one of the main reasons I don't like scripts is that they take away a persons natural talent. It de-humanises the process (both for the telemarketer and their prospect)

I've found that the reason people insist on telemarketers reading their scripts is because they just don't trust them.

In my experience, marketers are the most guilty of this; they usually think that they can write the script best as they know how to write copy. Guess what, a telemarketing call isn't a prospect listening to someone reading sales copy at them.

Telemarketing is all about people.

Teach your people about your business, your value proposition and what qualifies as a lead and then let them get on with it.

By all means, monitor the results early on to speed up learning and help refine the pitch (we have regular conference calls during the first few weeks of any campaign) but, if you're working with experienced telemarketing professionals, trust that they know what they're doing and will develop their own way of making it work.

In the end, you only use a script if you (or your telemarketing company) don't trust the people making the calls.

And if you don't trust them, do you really want them calling your potential clients or customers?

Is Twitter a B2B marketing channel?

2009-03-31T07:53:00.006+01:00

Maybe it was the blog title "If You're an Over 40 Marketing Professional You Must Wake up and Understand the Importance of Twitter" that caught my attention because I've pretty much managed to avoid the phenomenon of twitter so far.

I must admit, I still think of twitter as an inane stream of pointless "tweets" of a "just got my morning paper" style. Who wants to know that?

Well, 4M people apparently.

So, when Salesforce.com announce that they're integrating twitter, it makes me think again.

I can see it in a service or support function, kind of a micro-blogging user group. And for major brands it must be great.

If you're a consultant, coach, trainer or some "guru" then I guess you could use it to get potential clients to follow you. I see a lot of tele-seminar tweets flying about and, to my mind, it fits well with a personality led business.

Getting your thought leadership positioning into 140 characters may be a challenge for many though.

Like other social media platforms, no doubt an MLM element is in there as I can see it's a great medium for recruiting network marketing agents and affiliates. "Just made another Zillion dollars, you must get in on this".

Twitter has certainly got the media's attention and that, more than anything, could be behind Salesforce.com's integration plans.

But, maybe that's just an over 40's perspective :-)

F1 shows that change is an opportunity for new business

2009-03-29T11:55:00.003+01:00

Anyone who's followed my blog over the years will know that I'm a bit of a F1 fan (see Hooray for the smaller F1 teams back in 2007).

Today we saw a historic moment when Brawn GP, risen from the ashes of Honda, made it a one-two in Australia.

For me, it illustrates perfectly the opportunity for new business in the current economic climate as smaller, more nimble businesses can take advantage of change and outmanoeuvre more established brands.

Whilst Maclaren and Ferrari had their eyes on the championship race last year, Ross Brawn at Honda effectively scrapped their car and started working on building a race winner aimed at the impending rule changes for 2009.

He saw a change in the market and took full advantage of it while his competitors were focused on getting every ounce out of their current model.

Think about these elements in relationship to businesses in the current economic climate:

1) Change - just like the rule changes in F1, there are huge changes happening right now. For many it means a fundamental re-think of their business model. Larger, more established market players find change difficult are always slow to react.

2) Ownership - When Honda pulled out it presented Ross Brawn with an opportunity for a management buy out. No doubt, it wasn't easy, but it enabled a small private company to leverage the R&D might of a world-leading manufacturer.

An interesting article in the Sunday Times today "Picking Over The Scrap" forecasts that "huge numbers of firms and assets will change hands" in the coming months and years. That level of new ownerships will introduce changes that offer a excellent new business opportunities.

3) New Entrants - not only was Brawn GP a new entrant, it pulled in Richard Branson and Virgin into F1. Whilst ING and RBS wind down their sponsorship over the coming seasons, other sponsors will take their place (particularly as F1 looks to reduce its costs). New market entrants bring new opportunities.

So, whether you're a F1 fan or not, buckle yourself in as 2009 looks set to be both a disruptive and entertaining ride.

What's the ideal pilot for an appointment setting campaign?

2009-03-26T07:42:00.003Z

One of the things we always recommend when considering an appointment setting campaign is to run a pilot or proof-of-concept.

This is effectively a time-limited version of the intended campaign which enables us to test the waters.

To fully evaluate the success of a pilot appointment setting campaign it's important that you look at both the number of meetings that are booked as well as the quality of the meetings. To me, until you close that loop you can't effectively evaluate the success of any appointment setting campaign.

We've found that a 3 month period is the best period to make that judgement.

Here's why:

1) The first month of any campaign is about getting traction. For many high-level B2B propositions it's likely that it will take at least two touches to book the appointment. For example, as a minimum most people want something sent over by email and then followed up. All this takes time.

2) By the end of the first month you should start to see appointments being made. I say should because, after all, this is a pilot. Some pitches are just not that easy to nail and it can take us a number of iterations until we get it right. But, for the sake of this point, let's assume that we hit the ground running and book some meetings in Month 1. If they're with a senior decision maker (and, let's face it, who else do you want to see?) then they will certainly be around 3 to 4 weeks away. Which is Month 2, right?

3) So, in Month 2, if all is going to plan, you should have the opportunity to go on a number of sales appointments we've booked. This is your chance to judge the quality of the appointments. Are they with the right person? Are they correctly qualified? Will they progress to a proposal?

4) While you're attending the appointments, guess what, we're still working away to book more meetings for you. So, during Month 2 you should be not only be attending appointments, but you should be see a flow of new meetings. We also use the feedback from your initial appointments to help refine our qualification process.

5) Finally, Month 3 is all about replication of the process. If all is going well, we should be hitting somewhere near the run-rate for the campaign (this helps us determine the scope of any future or ongoing campaigns). If things were a little sticky in Month 1, we should now have a clear view of a working pitch and process. The pipeline of leads should be shaping up and we are usually in a position to predict results of a longer term campaign. Plus, some of the meetings you attended in Month 2 will be showing signs of life (or not) in the form of proposals, demos, 2nd meetings, etc.

For anyone used to B2B sales this process shouldn't come as any surprise.

Opening doors at senior levels isn't easy. It takes persistence and tenacity and, above all, time.

Podcast on Telemarketing & New Business Development

2009-03-21T14:15:00.005Z

I was recently interviewed for a podcast on Telemarketing & New Business Development by Michael Beale.

Michael runs a UK training company and, in the past, I've attended a number of his excellent NLP training courses.

Anyway, as a trainer and consultant, Michael found the interview useful to think through the process of starting a telemarketing campaign, so I thought I'd post a link to the podcast and transcript.

You can either download the podcast here or read the transcript of the interview.

Do you want your telemarketer free-range or battery farmed?

2009-03-19T07:50:00.006Z

I was chatting the other day to one of my team and she was describing a typical call-centre operation as a "battery farm".

Think about it...

There's this large metal shed in the middle of some field (there's always a regional development grant behind these things). Anyway, it's filled with row upon row of people in little cubicles. There they are, clucking away with their scripts, predictive diallers force-feeding them with their next call.

Everything's automated and the "farmer" runs the sorry show from a big office overlooking it all. Casualties are high and anyone who doesn't make the grade is culled and replaced with a brand new chick.

What a sad and depressing thought.

No wonder call-centres have the highest staff churn levels of any industry.

Surely it should outlawed!

Now, on the other hand, think about your "free-range" telemarketer.

Working from the comfort of their own home, free to create their own workspace and decide how they approach each day.

The free-range telemarketer lives a far longer and happier existence. Force-feeding is not for them, they use their natural talents to explore every available opportunity and only dig out the juiciest worms.

Ah, what a life!

I'm thinking of asking Jamie Oliver if he'll support the cause.

Using outbound telemarketing to increase ROI

2009-02-18T15:24:00.008Z

I must admit, most people's view of telemarketing is that it's only ever outbound.

However, strictly speaking, telemarketing comes in two flavours - outbound telemarketing and inbound telemarketing. Before we look at outbound telemarketing, let's quickly cover inbound since that's not what we're dealing with here.

As the name suggests, inbound telemarketing describes calls being received, usually in response to another marketing activity, such as a direct mail campaign or direct response advertisement.

You know, call an 0800 number to get a free catalogue, etc.

Unlike outbound telemarketing, inbound is almost always dealt with by large call centres. This is simply because of the volumes of calls associated with direct response campaigns.

An outbound telemarketing campaign, on the other hand, can be a much smaller direct marketing campaign.

When used alongside other direct marketing tactics, it can add value in a number ways to maximise return-on-investment (ROI) for the overall campaign.

One thing to always consider is whether you use outbound telemarketing as the main campaign tactic, or whether you add outbound telemarketing to support wider campaign objectives.

Here's a couple of examples of how outbound telemarketing can be used effectively within direct marketing campaigns:

Outbound telemarketing as the main campaign approach - a simple standalone outbound telemarketing campaign would involve sourcing a list and calling it. However, by adding additional marketing support to the campaign you can significantly increase it's ROI.

For example, a classic approach is to send a direct mail piece in advance of the outbound telemarketing call. The direct mail piece isn't the the main campaign objective, it's just there to provide a reason for the call, Done correctly, this approach paves the way for a warmer outbound telemarketing call.

Equally, you could plan to send further marketing collateral, by email for example, at the end of the call. As before, this approach is designed to support the outbound telemarketing call and provide a reason to call the prospect back to further qualify their interest.

This style of outbound telemarketing call is the most common approach for appointment setting. The initial letter (or email) is sent to provide a reason for the call and then the collateral sent afterwards supports the campaign objectives by providing another reason to call back.

Without these additional materials, relying only on a cold outbound telemarketing call, you'll convert far fewer leads.

However, used in this way, the overall ROI for the outbound telemarketing campaign can be significantly increased since the additional supporting material costs (for the letter and emails) are far lower that the costs for outbound telemarketing.

Outbound telemarketing to support other marketing campaigns - an alternative approach is to use outbound telemarketing to enhance other marketing efforts, such as email marketing or seminars.

For example, let's say you are running a business-to-business email marketing campaign sending an email to 5000 prospects. Email marketing works best with a call to action that involves a "click-thru" to a website. This could be to register for an event or download a white paper, for example.

Metrics on email marketing campaigns vary depending on how you acquired the email addresses (for example, were they opt-in from your website or did you buy a list) and the strength of the call to action. For our purposes, let's assume you had a 10% open-rate and, from that you had 10% click-thru to download your white-paper.

In this example, you send out 5000 emails, 10% open which is 500, and then a further 10% click through to download your white-paper. This means that you have 50 "leads".

Now, these leads will need following up to further qualify and this is where outbound telemarketing can be an excellent addition to the campaign.

Without adding outbound telemarketing, you might expect that, perhaps, 10% of the prospects who downloaded the white-paper might phone into the office - an inbound call!.

However, that would leave 45 leads that don't do anything.

If, by adding outbound telemarketing, you could convert another 5 out of 45 (not that high a conversion rate) then you've increased your ROI by 100%.

The key thing to note here is that it might only need 2 or 3 days of outbound telemarketing to speak with those 45 leads.

It's all about using different direct marketing tactics, including outbound telemarketing, in an appropriate way to deliver the best ROI for your overall campaign.

When is pay-per-appointment a good fee model for appointment setting?

2009-02-11T10:38:00.026Z

We regularly get asked whether we will work on a "pay-per-appointment", "pay-for-performance" or "pay for results" basis for our appointment setting services.

Whilst we do work on a pay-per-appointment basis for some clients, it's worth exploring the subject further to explain our views on this model for appointment setting.

For many, "pay-for-results" is the holy-grail of marketing. With the popularity of Google's pay-per-click and other pay-per-lead online offerings it sounds like a no-brainer, right?

Well, like most things in life, it's not that straight-forward.

Here are 4 things we consider when deciding whether a pay-per-appointment or pay-for-performance appointment setting campaign is appropriate:

1) Risk - pay-for-results appointment setting is all about a transfer of risk. With most telemarketing companies you simply pay them to make the calls with no guarantees of results. With a pay-per-appointment campaign, we take all the risk since you don't pay us until we deliver results.

We typically evaluate the risk in running pay-for-appointment campaigns based on our understanding of the market and how compelling we believe your proposition is. If we have good market knowledge, previous experience of campaign metrics and believe you have compelling value proposition, we are likely to back a pay-for-performance appointment setting campaign.

Other aspects we consider include supporting collateral and client credibility in the market-place.

For example, if a client has a compelling offer in a sector we understand clearly then running a pay-for-results appointment setting campaign is an attractive proposition for us.

However, if you're a start-up with no track record selling into an unclear space then pay-per-appointment becomes more of a punt.

2) Qualification - another aspect that determines the suitability of pay-for-performance appointment setting is the qualification criteria. I've written previously about this (see my post Just what is a qualified appointment?) but it's worth stating again.

A "qualified" appointment means that the person booking the meeting has to apply their skill and judgement to evaluate the quality of the appointment before agreeing to book it. This involves asking qualifying questions and deciding whether the meeting is worthwhile. Inevitably, it means that your appointment setter needs to actually decide to not book some appointments.

So, in the context of deciding whether an pay-for-results appointment setting campaign is appropriate, the tighter the qualification criteria, the less appropriate this model is.

If we're asked to book appointments with specific decisions makers or key influencers in targeted companies then pay-per-appointment works well.

We refer to these as "creds meetings", ie: it's a meeting to introduce your company, present your credentials or provide an overview of your proposition. This type of meeting is ideal for a pay-per-appointment model. We guarantee the quality of the contact, but there's no guarantee whether these meetings will progress to a firm proposal. Essentially, our clients have to sell at these meetings.

However, if the qualification criteria requires us to establish budgets and time-scales, and only book appointments when specific criteria is met, then a pay-per-appointment deal doesn't make sense. Why? Because in this instance you're asking us to follow a process that runs counter to the deliverables we are paid for.

Delivering highly qualified sales appointments with prospects that are "in the window" takes time and requires a significant investment in lead nurturing over a extensive period of time. I'm talking about real prospecting - sifting out the poor quality opportunities until you find that rare golden nugget.

[Btw, we actually have a better model for this type of appointment setting which combines low monthly fees with a % commission on new business won]

Pay-for-results appointment setting works best where we delivering against clearly defined authority & interest criteria (ie: they’re the right person and are interested in a meeting).

3) Commitment - another thing we consider about pay-per-appointment or pay-for-performance appointment setting is the commitment from clients.

As I've blogged about many times before (see Is telemarketing a short or long-term investment??) much of the value in a telemarketing campaign comes from developing relationships over a number of touches.

Whilst pay-per-appointment setting campaigns can be used to find those "low hanging fruit" we also uncover medium- and long-term leads which can be converted to sales appointments at a later date.

If a client simply wants us to set up a few appointments and then turn off the campaign all that additional work we've done has been wasted. Just because it's a pay-for-results appointment setting campaign it doesn't mean that the dynamics of building a prospect pipeline are any different; we invest heavily at the start of any campaign and expect to capture the value we have created at a later date.

So, after a pilot period has been completed, we would expect a client commitment to continue taking appointments from us over an extended contract period, typically a rolling 6 months.

Pay-for-results appointment setting works best where clients have established sales processes and require a telemarketing partner to deliver a steady flow of sales appointments over time.

4) Cost - finally, on any pay-per-appointment setting campaign we consider the cost for each appointment. To a degree this is dependant on a number of variables, including the perceived risk, qualification criteria and contract duration as outlined in the above three points.

However, there's a simple principal here; if we're picking up the risk of a pay-for-results appointment setting campaign then we expect a superior return for our time.

What that premium is, again, depends on all the factors already outlined above.

Where we clearly understand the market, proposition and can estimate performance metrics from past campaigns we are able to more accurately assess an appropriate price per appointment.

It's worth pointing out here that no two appointment setting campaigns are the same; even a campaign for the same client and same proposition at a different time (and different market conditions) will pull different results.

Also, while we're on the subject of campaign metrics - here's a common problem we encounter:

When we first start speaking with clients about pay-per-appointment campaigns they often start with "oh, we made a few calls the other day and got four appointments" or "it's really easy, we had a guy in the office and he got an appointment every hour".

Now, it's not that I'm saying these people are lying, but it's just that when it comes to estimating metrics I think many people put on very thick rose-tinted glasses :-)

Occasionally you do get an appointment setting gig that's like shooting fish in a barrel. But it's very occasionally.

So, the above 4 points are the key considerations we make when deciding whether to accept a "pay-per-appointment" or "pay-for-results" appointment setting campaign.

If we turn down a pay-per-appointment campaign it's because one or more of these criteria is missing.

More often than not, we encounter companies that are looking for pay-for-performance appointment setting simply because they don't have any budget to invest in marketing. The problem is that they're usually hoping to get lucky and close a deal quick enough to keep paying for more appointments. In my experience, it seldom works out that way.

From our perspective, pay-per-appointment doesn't make sense for these clients because they lack commitment (as in point 3) and often have unrealistic expectations of the cost-per-appointment.

Over the years we've found that a pay-per-appointment model works best with clients who are looking for a long-term partner to deliver a steady flow of qualified appointments on a pay-per-results model.

These clients usually have established sales teams & processes and understand their key performance metrics.

They know that they can convert X % of sales appointments and so a pay-per-appointment model enables them to accurately forecast a cost-per-acquisition for new business.

Just what is a qualified appointment?

2009-02-10T07:44:00.004Z

Back in 2006 I posted a blog on Ecademy called "The Meetings Game": Some truths about B2B Appointment Setting.

I was talking about many of the appointment setting agencies, mainly operating on a pay-per-appointment basis, who are simply "meeting machines". You know, the kind of boiler room operation that squeezes out a supposedly high-level 15 minute meeting just to hit their targets.

If you've ever been sent half-way across the country to find yourself sitting across the desk from someone who's equally confused why you're there - you know what I mean.

My post struck a chord back then and is just as relevant today.

So, the question to ask is - just what is a "qualified" appointment?

Of course, it means something different for each client.

When we start an appointment setting campaign we invest time understanding exactly what "qualified" means to our clients. To answer that question we really need to understand their sales process.

What's that? Sales process? Surely our job is to book the appointments and let them worry about the rest, isn't it?

The reality is that unless your marketing and sales processes are clearly linked (and the initial sales appointment is pretty much the interface) then you are asking for trouble.

Think of it like this:

There are plenty of acronyms used for qualification; in the sales old-school everyone is taught MAN (Money Authority Need) - "you need to find the MAN".

We prefer to use AIM-T, which stands for Authority, Interest, Money, Timescale (think of Aiming at the Target). We use this because it actually follows the appointment qualification process.

That is, before we call someone we've usually pre-qualified (by targeted data sourcing) the authority level; when we engage with the prospect by phone we start the process of developing and qualifying their interest and, particularly in B2B sales, Money and Timescale can be partly qualified by phone but is usually best qualified as part of the sales process.

On this latter point, whilst it is possible to qualify some aspects surrounding Money, usually by asking questions that uncover whether the prospect is likely to be able to build a business case for your product or service (again this can often be filtered through data-sourcing) we believe that gauging budget and timescales is best kept within the sales process.

So, when is comes to qualified appointments, we need to understand (and sometimes educate our clients) about how they are going to qualify opportunities in the sales process to inform our level of qualification when setting appointments.

Let's look at an example: Say you're selling a high-end B2B product or service, such as a consulting offering or software proposition, with a typical long sales cycle. Whilst, it's true, we will occasionally call a hot prospect who's ready "right now", it's usually the case that they have some lower level of interest.

More often their level of interest will be very early stage and this is one of the great things about telemarketing. At that early stage they are aware of a need but they usually haven't acted on it (which means they haven't called in the competition yet).

The question is, at what point is their interest level high enough for us to set an appointment with them?

If our clients have a solid sales process in place then we may book an appointment with a prospect with the right level of authority and is willing to "take the meeting". Taking a prospect from this mild level of interest to closing a deal takes effort and skill but the rewards are that you're often not competing with other vendors (or at least you have the opportunity to influence a RFP and develop a relationship with the prospect).

Alternatively, if a client has less of a established sales process (or perhaps they are just extremely busy) then we take on the process of further qualifying and nurturing the lead until it's ready to book.

To do this we have to invest in clearly understanding our clients' business and proposition.

It can be a fine line and quite subjective, but that's why our people are so experienced at booking qualified appointments.

Is telemarketing a short or long-term investment?

2009-02-06T07:41:00.005Z

I always advocate considering telemarketing as a long-term marketing tactic.

Of course, it's true that telemarketing can deliver immediate results; if you've targeted well and have a killer proposition then you can land a whale on the first day. We all get lucky!

However, the reality is that it takes some time to get a campaign up-and-running and delivering results consistently.

And here's a fact that very few people consider:

Once you've built a qualified database of prospects that have been called, sent info and further qualified (which could be 2 or 3 months into a campaign) your strike-rate improves by at least 100% when compared with the start of your campaign.

That's right, the longer you keep a telemarketing campaign running the more effective it is.

Now, whilst this may be an overlooked aspect of telemarketing campaigns it's hardly rocket-science. Here's why it works this way:

At the start of a campaign you're calling everyone on a list. As you progress you filter the list based on the level of interest each prospect has. At the same time, you remove the bad data (contacts who have moved away, etc) and the people who are just not interested at all. So, after a while, you end up with a much more targeted list of people with at least some level of qualified interest.

Now, one thing that will remain pretty constant is what we call the "pitch rate", also referred to as the # of DMC's (Decision Maker Contacts). That's the number of decision makers you speak to in a given length of time (we measure it per day). Each industry sector, type of business and level of authority will have it's own pitch-rate. It remains constant because you're still calling the same people.

But, if the pitch-rate is constant but you're now calling a more qualified list, your strike rate will go up.

If your list initially has 50% "interested" prospects (ranging from mildly interested to hot-to-meet-you-now interested) and you pitch 20 decision makers a day then only 10 are going to be interested, right? (50% of 20 pitches, stay with me).

Once you've qualified your list, you're still pitching 20 a day but now 100% are interested, making you twice as effective as before.

We advise clients to think of two distinct phases of a campaign.

The initial phase is what we call the "build" phase. This is where we're least efficient as we're filtering and qualifying as we go. It's often best to have a higher level of resourcing (subject to budget) at this stage to get traction faster.

Once we've qualified much of the list, and determined the most appropriate contact frequency for each classification of lead, we're left with a much tighter database of prospects.

This is when we move onto our "maintenance" phase.

The resourcing level for this phase can be half or even a third of the build phase. Some of the leads with lower levels of interest may only require a call every 90 days, backed up with regular email marketing. However, because we're now more effective at this stage, we can produce the same results as we did in the build phase.

In the maintenance phase the ROI is at least double that of the build phase.

To me, when a company stops a telemarketing campaign at the end of the build phase it's a criminal waste of money. All that hard work in qualifying the database is just thrown away and, without nurturing those lower level leads, they'll just go cold (or go to your competitors).

As I said at the start, telemarketing can deliver short-term results but that really is the tip of the iceberg.

If you invest in telemarketing over the long-term you'll start to build a process that delivers a steady flow of new business opportunities with an outstanding ROI.

Recalibrating telemarketing metrics in the recession

2009-01-28T08:48:00.003Z

One of the things we're finding in the current economic climate is the need to recalibrate success metrics for telemarketing campaigns. Essentially, we need to re-think the number and type of meetings that can be delivered for a given number of days effort.

Some of this is sector specific and some of it holds true across all sectors.

Generally, if you'd asked any seasoned telemarketer at the beginning of 2008 how many meetings they could book in a day it would roughly equate to 1 per day.

A "deal a day" has been the unofficial benchmark for B2B telemarketing.

And, for clarification, I'm talking about senior level, well qualified meetings, not just a 15-minute coffee that's been squeezed out of a prospect and has a 100% chance of being bounced.

So, what's changed since early 2008?

Actually, you know what's changed; we've entered one of the most severe recessions experienced for decades.

What this means from a telemarketing perspective is that it's become harder to get meetings but, ironically, the meetings are much better quality.

Think about it. When times are good, budgets are plump, people are generally more open to looking at new ideas and exploring new relationships. Bringing in a new agency, consultancy or vendor to pitch their credentials is the norm.

However, when budgets have been cut off at the knees and you're wondering whether you've still got a job (or a business) in the next 3 months, you're going to restrict your time to things that have both a short-term impact or are critically aligned with the business agenda.

This means two things:

Firstly, it's essential that your pitch hits those hot buttons. OK, the time-line may vary depending how strategic your proposition is, but unless it cuts directly to what's on the business agenda right now, it's going to fall on deaf ears.

Secondly, if they are interested, you can bet it's hot one.

People just won't meet you to shoot the breeze at the moment. If they've agreed to see you it's because they need your help.

We're finding that businesses which hit those hot buttons and can deliver a rapid return-on-investment without large capital investment are still getting traction.

Sure, the "one deal a day" rule could now be more like one deal every two or even three days, but if the trade-off is high conversions, shorter-lead times, etc then telemarketing can still be one of the best direct marketing mediums for high-end B2B lead generation.

Stop reading & start listening!

2008-12-19T10:07:00.004Z

This is really something that annoys me about telemarketers that use scripts; I'm sure you've had this happen to you too.

The phone rings, I answer "Hello, David Regler" and they start "Can I speak with Mr David Regler please?"

Did they not hear what I just said?

If find this happens in both B2C and B2B telemarketing and it comes down to the simple fact that they're more interested in reading the script than actually opening their ears and listening to what the prospect is saying.

This is one of the reasons why we don't use scripts.

Somewhere there's a book that every telemarketing company has read that says you have to start a call with "May I speak with Mr X, please?". So, guess what, that's what every telemarketing company says when the start the call.

Think about it, you've probably been called a thousand times with that same line. So, when you hear it you just know what's coming, right? Shields up!

The trouble is that they might very well have something of interest but when they start out like this you just stop listening and start thinking "how do I get out of this call?

So you've got this bizarre situation where the telemarketer isn't listening, he's just trying to grind through the script and complete "another call". The prospect on the phone isn't listening because they're sat there trying to figure out what to say to get out of the call (which they'll do once the telemarketer finally takes a breath!).

Two people on the phone, neither wants to be there and neither is listening to the other.

Strange world, isn't it?

Outsourcing Telemarketing vs In-house

2008-12-18T16:24:00.003Z

The other day I was speaking with a prospective client who was considering outsourcing telemarketing after his in-house telemarketer "left and never returned".

I asked how long the telemarketer had been working with him and he told me just 4 days!

Was he any good? "Oh yeah", says this guy, "He made about 20 or so calls a day and got us a meeting before he left"

20 calls a day? One meeting after 4 days work? Oh please...

That pretty much sums up the experience of many businesses who have tried to hire people in-house to "do some telemarketing". I know, when I ran a UK sales team I hired and trained telemarketers. The trouble is, good ones are just hard to find.

What usually happens is this:

During the interview they tell you that they've had some experience telemarketing. Which is true, pretty much anyone who's been in some sales or admin role will have had to do a little cold-calling.

So, you set them on, give them the training and then they go hard at it. If you're lucky, they make plenty of calls, turn up some leads and even book some meetings.

That's week one over.

Then, as sure as the sun comes up every morning, their performance starts to tail off. They start telling you the leads are drying up. And - I guarantee this - they start to "help out" with a few jobs around the office.

It could be some filing, maybe helping with the marketing, or even "researching" online. If someone in the office goes off ill, they're in their seat like a shot. Before you know it, one day soon, you'll wake up and realise that they're no longer making those calls.

Why does this happen?

The reason is simple: very few people like to make cold calls.

Why do you think the average staff churn in most telemarketing call centres is close to 50%? People who can do this job and are any good at it are like hens teeth.

Most people would rather crawl over broken glass on bare knees than pick up the phone and start cold calling (and that includes most salespeople).

If you really want an in-house telemarketing team, expect to invest heavily in recruiting, managing and retaining them. Unless you have a market that can support two or more telemarketers full-time, it simply doesn't make sense to create an in-house team.

Outsourcing telemarketing to a professional telemarketing agency really is a no-brainer for most businesses.

For one thing, it's more flexible. Only need someone for a day a week? Need to halt a campaign, stop during the holidays or avoid specific times within your industry? By outsourcing your telemarketing to an agency that's not a problem.

For example, we work on monthly retainers for many clients, but will take a break whenever it suits ours clients best. That's the kind of flexibility that's not possible with employed in-house staff, even part-time ones!

Also, by outsourcing to a telemarketing agency that works with seasoned telemarketers (like ours, of course), you'll work with experienced people who you simply wouldn't find on the open market.

As I said earlier, very few people like to do this work and are good at it. If you hire someone with little experience then cut to the chase and ask them to start filing.

Quality telemarketing professionals are the ones who do this for a living.

Even the costs of in-house telemarketing vs outsourced seldom stack up.

OK, so you will be able to pay someone to work in-house for less than an agency. Of course, there's a whole bunch of hidden costs you'll incur such as holidays, sickness, management time, IT costs, training, etc, but even with these added, the total "costs" may still be less, pound for pound, for an in-house person compared with an outsourced telemarketer through a professional telemarketing agency.

But, it's not the costs you need to consider - it's your return-on-investment.

Even if an in-house telemarketer costs you half of an agencies daily rate, they will struggle to deliver a quarter of the results of an experienced pro.

What did that guy tell me at the start of this post? His in-house telemarketer had worked with him for 4 days, made 20 calls a day and got him one meeting. No professional telemarketer would survive on those ratios - they'd have no clients.

Outsourcing telemarketing to experienced, seasoned professionals will give you a superior return-on-investment compared with in-house people. Sure, hour-for-hour, day-for-day it might cost more to outsource telemarketing, but if your in-house people deliver a fraction of the results (and they will) then it's an irrelevant comparison.

Any experienced telemarketer worth their salt will produce at least 4x the results of the type of person you're likely to attract for an in-house role.

Plus they'll do it day after day, consistently, without you having to manage them.

And, they won't ask to do the filing :-)

How many dials did you make?

2008-12-11T08:19:00.004Z

Telemarketing, like all direct marketing disciplines, has a strong tradition of measurement.

The number of dials you make, number of DMC's (Decision Maker Contacts), number of appointments you book, it's all about the numbers.

But sometimes you need to look a little deeper at the numbers to see what's happening.

For example, many telemarketers will say something like, "I make 120 calls a day"; as if that's the only metric that matters. Because if you focus just on the number of dials, you're missing something really important - the actual conversations.

If you think about it, when you're getting through to the right people and having a quality dialogue with them, then that takes time. If you pitch, say, 15 prospects in a day, that's pretty good going. Add to that the fact that you'll probably need to do some fulfilment with each one (prepare and send an email, for example) then you can see that it's not all about the dials.

In the film Boiler Room, (which is for telemarketing what Glengarry Glenross is for sales) when the new recruit is being trained he's told "this entire business revolves around the phone. A good broker makes over three hundred calls a day."

Now, when you watch the film, you see these guys pitching prospects, wrangling with them and using every rebuttal available to reel 'em in - and they're still supposed to be making three hundred calls a day? I don't think so!

It's like the sales manager who told his new recruit to make ten appointments per day. When they meet up in the field after his first day the new recruit proudly tells his boss that he did it, he completed ten sales appointments in the day. "Great", the sales manager says, "How many did you close".

"Close?", says the new recruit, "I didn't have time to actually sell them anything!"

It's like all management tools, the activity itself shouldn't be the goal. In telemarketing it's about sales leads and appointments.

Measuring activity gives you an understanding of what's happening, but the focus should always be on results.

Hiring a telemarketing agency? 10 questions you should ask a telemarketing agency

2008-12-10T13:21:00.013Z

If you're considering hiring a telemarketing agency for a campaign, what are the questions you should ask?

I've been asked this before on a number of occasions, particularly by people who have "tried telemarketing before" and had their fingers burned.

The reality is that telemarketing is one of those businesses which you can literally set up with a phone and a spare room. If you include freelancers, there are probably thousands of telemarketing agencies out there, and quality does vary.

So, here's a list of areas which you can focus your questions to determine whether a telemarketing agency is right for you:

1) Client experience - has the telemarketing agency worked on similar campaigns for other clients in your sector? Most sectors have their own terminology and ways of doing business. If your telemarketing agency has worked for similar clients previously they are more likely to quickly grasp your proposition. Typically, when you speak to the telemarketing agency, you'll get an understanding of whether they "speak your language".

2) Market & Sectors - what type of companies has the telemarketing agency experience of calling into. Whilst the first question looks at client experience, this is focused on the companies that you are targeting. For example, a telemarketing agency may have worked with other web design agencies previously, but if they were calling one-man-bands and you want to target FTSE 100 prospects that doesn't really work.

3) Function & seniority - similar to the above question, is the telemarketing agency experienced at calling into the function and/or level of decision maker that you are targeting. For example, if you are targeting HR, has the telemarketing agency successfully completed similar campaigns into that business function. Again, language varies between functions. Calling CEO's is very different to calling middle management.

[It's worth mentioning before I continue that often you need to take a view of the breadth of experience the telemarketing agency has, rather than expecting to find an agency that has done exactly the same campaign as yours. An example could be a telemarketing agency that has called into HR previously for a training company, and has also worked for software companies before, but not run a campaign for a software company calling into HR. Like most things in life, it's about finding the right balance]

4) Reporting - how will the telemarketing agency keep you up-to-date on the progress of your campaign? Do they provide summary reports? Can they work on CRM systems? Depending on the scope and scale of your campaign, a regular update by Excel could be all you need. The important thing is to be kept informed on how the telemarketing campaign is progressing.

5) Data - two questions here. What data will the telemarketing agency be using and, once the campaign has finished, what happens to the data? Cutting costs by re-using stale data is a false economy. And the quality of data has a direct impact on the output of any telemarketing campaign. Personally, I would always make sure that the telemarketing agency buys (or builds) the data-set on your behalf because then it's their responsibility to make sure it's good data (they can't blame you that the data was poor), plus you "own" the data at the end of the campaign (subject to the terms of the data provider, of course).

6) Track record - how long have they worked with their clients? As I said earlier, there are lots of telemarketing agencies out there. What you're looking to avoid is an agency that can't provide references for long-term clients. Good telemarketing agencies (and good freelance telemarketers) keep clients over the long term. Even if they don't work continuously on campaigns, their clients will come back to them. Why, because good telemarketing agencies (and telemarketers) are hard to find! For example, we're still working with our first client we started with back in 2005. That speaks volumes!

7) ROI - telemarketing should always deliver a strong ROI (return-on-investment) and agencies that understand this should be willing to advise you on what they can deliver for their fees. Good agencies will agree deliverables up-front, and work closely with you during any pilot or proof-of-concept period to review performance. If an agency can't give you any clear indication of what ROI they expect to deliver on a campaign - walk away.

8) Staff retention - what's their staff turnover, or churn rate? How long have their people been working with them? This applies equally to telemarketing agencies with employees or ones that work with associates (such as ours). Why is this important? Well, assuming you want to develop a long-term relationship with a telemarketing agency, you want to know if the time you invest getting their people up to speed with your business and proposition is going to be wasted or not. For example, one of our team (who we've worked with for several years) used to be a manager of a telemarketing agency. She told me one of the reasons she stopped and went freelance was because she got tired of coming back after the weekend and finding a whole new team to train. Large call-centres have the highest rate of churn than any other business.

9) Client portfolio - how many clients do they work with? And are any of them direct competitors? This gives you a good indication of whether you're going to be "just another client" or whether you're going to get a more personal service. Also, the question around competitors tells you whether there's likely to be any conflict of interest (and whether the telemarketing agency has any integrity). Working with a telemarketing agency that handles your competitors brings up so many issues around data security, intelligence leaks, etc; it's best to simply avoid it altogether.

10) Who's calling - finally, who's actually going to be picking up the phone and calling on your account? Any telemarketing agency, once you've agreed commercials, should introduce you to the team member(s) who will be working on your account. This is your opportunity to speak with them (ask some of the above questions, like "how long have you worked here?") and get a feel for whether you are comfortable with them representing your company on the phone. If the telemarketing agency can't do this, it means that you'll just get the "next one available", which pretty much means you're just another number to them.

So there you are, 10 areas to probe and prod a potential telemarketing agency.

And if you find more than one agency that ticks all the boxes it'll probably come down to the best question of all - do you like them?

Lead generation from the trade press

2008-12-08T14:07:00.009Z

Here's a question: if you read about a RFP in the trade press, is it a hot lead or simply old news?

I know there are many agencies who spend most of their time reading the trade press and sifting for intelligence on RFP's, tenders, etc. In many cases it's simply because they're afraid to pick up the phone and do some real work :-)

Once they see that XYZ plc is going to be tendering, guess what, they're straight on the phone.

Now, whilst the trade press can be useful for some intelligence, in my experience chasing RFP announcements is simply a waste of time.

Why? Because if you didn't know it was happening before it hit the press then you're just too late.

A senior executive of an FTSE 100 company put it to me like this: "once the word gets out, there's blood in the water and suddenly your boat's being circled by hundreds of sharks."

He was referring to management consultants, but it's applicable to any professional services.

I was recently asked to call a company after an article was published saying they were looking for new agencies. My client presented this as a hot lead. OK, I thought, let's give it a go.

So, I called the contact and he tells me, very politely actually, that he'd already been called by hundreds of agencies off the back of that article and, in fact, the article was incorrect - they had no requirements. So many agencies called them that they published a news release on their website saying that the article was inaccurate and called for the publication to retract it.

The thing that amazed me was that so many agencies had followed up this lead.

To me, one of the ways we add value is by prospecting for business before it becomes public. If we can put you in-front of an opportunity before it gets to a RFP or tender, then you are able to influence the brief.

Frankly, if you come in late to the party then you're really just there to make up the numbers.

B2B Telemarketing: Is it an art or a science?

2008-11-24T08:56:00.004Z

I was chatting about this with one of my associates recently (an experienced telemarketer who's made 1000's of pitches over her career) and we were discussing the process of refining a pitch. It was apparent to me that in the business-to-business (B2B) space, telemarketing is much more of an art than a science.

Here's why I say that.

Direct marketing has always included both a creative element (such as writing copy) and then a science element (metrics, split testing, etc). These things go hand-in-hand because a minor change to the copy, when tested properly, can show a huge uplift in results.

That's why I've always thought of myself as a direct-marketer (coming from a sales background initially) as I'm always focused on results.

Anyway, the same is true for telemarketing but here's the difference: in B2C direct marketing campaigns, the volumes are such that tactics like segmentation, split testing, etc can be applied. For example, if you're sending out 500,000 direct mail pieces (or emails, or whatever) then you can test 1,000 on two different versions to find the one which makes a difference. A 1% uplift can make a huge impact to the overall campaign ROI.

However, in business-to-business telemarketing, and particularly high-end B2B telemarketing, these numbers really don't make sense.

For many clients, we may work on a campaign targeting a few hundred companies. When you really target your sweet-spot, for most small businesses, this is normal. When you are faced with a very small segment, it's not as easy to see statistically relevant results from making discrete changes.

Plus, add to this the human element. That is, even with a script (if you use such things, we don't) the message isn't delivered exactly the same way every time - even using the same telemarketer. So many variables come into play that it's impossible to determine which one made the difference.

Hence, it's an art, and one which is best practised by experienced people who have learned their craft by making thousands of pitches.