What is Telemarketing Lead Generation?
Telemarketing lead generation is basically gaining leads through telemarketing services. You call up potential customers by telephone and ask if they have a need for the product or solution your company sells.
Telemarketing leads are generated through cold calling, which is when you contact a person who has not initiated contact with you or indicated any interest in your product.
This approach to lead generation is very direct and often produces immediate results, whether they are positive or negative. Its most common downside is many people hang up on telemarketers or see them as downright annoying.
How Effective is Telemarketing Lead Generation?
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The conversion rate for telemarketing lead generation is admittedly quite low. But because it is cost-effective and can be scaled more easily than other forms of lead generation, many sales organizations swear by it.
Let’s explore some of the advantages of telemarking lead generation:
- Telemarketers develop a connection with customers which you cannot achieve with plain messaging or email marketing.
- Telemarketing helps to immediately create rapport with prospects.
- It is a lot easier for a telemarketer to maintain contact with a customer.
- Telemarketing lead generation allows you to reach more people than you would with face-to-face contact.
- Telemarketing is an affordable method for businesses to generate leads, promote and sell products and services.
- Telemarketing allows you to target leads without the barrier of physical distance.
- Generating leads through telemarketing allows you to get immediate feedback on your products and services.
Telemarketers are trained on how to approach customers with their tone of voice, proper attitude, and knowledge of the company. They are product advocates that are incentivized through bonuses and other perks to put their best foot forward in every call.
For the above reasons and many others, telemarketing lead generation is well worth a try for companies looking to create a plump pipeline.
With that said, we will be lying if we said telemarketing lead generation doesn’t come with challenges and difficulties. Here are some to take note of:
Potential Drawbacks to Generating Leads Through Telemarketing
Telemarketing obviously has its own set of challenges. Top of these is the fact there is no guarantee that the people listed will even take a telemarketer’s call.
Here are other challenges marketers must brace for when generating leads through the telephone:
- Lack of visual or physical contact with the customer.
- The growing use of call-blocking software by consumers.
- An increasingly restrictive legal environment for telemarketers.
- Loss of control over the lead generation process if you decide to outsource the task as a way of cutting costs.
Even though the above challenges make telemarketing lead generation tougher than many may prefer, they are nothing that can’t be overcome by a conscientious sales team. If you haven’t been as successful, here are some tips to guide you:
5 Tips for Successful Telemarketing Lead Generation
When done right, telemarketing can be a great source of both leads and sales. Here are some tips to guide you:
1 Have a plan
Do lots of RESEARCH. I cannot stress this enough. Research your target market, its type, size, and whatever you think would be vital for outreach.
Don’t just go around calling everyone. Choose a target market and study it carefully.
With the insights gained from your research, draw up a plan on how you will approach your targets. Segment your targets so you know which ones to prioritize and what messages to use when you call them.
Need Help Automating Your Sales Prospecting Process?
The LeadFuze lead generation software allows you to group your leads using different criteria so you know what to focus on.
LeadFuze will help you choose the best leads through market based searches. The CRM gives you all the data you need to find ideal leads, including full contact information.
Need Help Automating Your Sales Prospecting Process?
LeadFuze gives you all the data you need to find ideal leads, including full contact information.
Go through a variety of filters to zero in on the leads you want to reach. This is crazy specific, but you could find all the people that match the following:
- A company in the Financial Services or Banking industry
- Who have more than 10 employees
- That spend money on Adwords
- Who use Hubspot
- Who currently have job openings for marketing help
- With the role of HR Manager
- That has only been in this role for less than 1 year
Go through a variety of filters to zero in on the leads you want to reach. This is crazy specific, but you could find all the people that match the following:
- A company in the Financial Services or Banking industry
- Who have more than 10 employees
- That spends money on Adwords
- Who use Hubspot
- Who currently have job openings for marketing help
- With the role of HR Manager
- That has only been in this role for less than 1 year
Just to give you an idea.
2 Focus on building a relationship before trying to sell
Loyal customers are borne out of strong relationships that are based on trust and mutual benefit. If your goal with lead generation is simply getting your next sale and getting a step closer to meeting your quota, you are going to struggle with telemarketing lead generation.
First of all, KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER’S NAME, because you will want to greet them by name. Show that you are taking note of their wants and needs and that you will make an effort to serve them.
Prospects appreciate salespeople that can relate with them and talk to them in a polite and casual way. They don’t appreciate being hassled and hurried into a sale.
Stay professional even when it’s hard to. People often find telemarketers to be annoying and so you always have to be the bigger person especially when they say no. Focus on establishing a relationship first.
3 Prepare a script (and use it).
Impromptu calls don’t always work well, even if you are an experienced salesperson. So make sure you have a good script that you can follow.
In addition, practice your script. Record yourself and play it back, imaging yourself as the prospect. Be creative. Practice with a friend or a co-worker, they can help you gauge the flow of the call.
Do you think it’s enticing enough? If not, determine whether it is the script’s content or its delivery that’s the problem and then work on it some more.
With that said, use your script as a basis for your call but don’t just rely on it. Every customer is unique and so a lot may deviate from the script, which is okay.
4 Deal with bad calls
It will not always be smooth sailing. A lot of times you’ll encounter bad calls. Don’t take those too personally. Move on to the next number on your list, unaffected by the disappointment of the last call.
Importantly, use bad calls as a learning experience so you can do better next time. Analyze what went wrong; whether the target was simply a bad fit or your script didn’t fit their need profile, and then make the necessary adjustments.
5 Be prepared
Aside from your script and research, the most important thing that you should prepare is yourself.
Before you pick up the phone to call a potential lead, make sure you have everything you need on hand. This includes your notes and script. You don’t want to keep the lead on hold while you shuffle your papers looking for your script.
With preparedness comes confidence. Shake off your anxiety by practicing your script. Breathe and stay calm.
How to Ensure Quality Telemarketing Lead Generation
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In order to improve the quality of your leads, and increase sales you must do the following:
1 Score your leads
Lead scoring is a process of ranking a lead’s interest level and sales readiness based on a methodology agreed upon by marketing and sales.
Companies can score leads in a variety of ways. Some assign points while others use rankings like “hot,” “warm,” or “cold”, depending on their interest level and readiness to buy.
“ In an Eloqua study of 10 B2B companies using lead scoring systems, on average, deal close rates increased by 30 percent; company revenue increased by 18%; and revenue per deal increased by 17% “
2 Make a commitment to nurturing your leads
Very rarely are leads ready to buy the time you start prospecting them. Even when they need your product or service, many will be evasive and will not easily give in to your sales approach.
Lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with qualified prospects regardless of when they are likely to buy, with the goal of earning their trust.
“ A 2010 Forrester Research study found that companies that excelled at lead nurturing were able to generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost per lead than other companies. “
3 Create a marketing-sales feedback loop
Communication between sales and marketing teams is crucial, especially for B2B companies with long, complex sales cycles.
B2B marketers can’t wait until a sale is complete to assess lead quality because the data will be so old it can’t be used to actively manage a real-time lead generation program.
By reporting in a closed loop, marketing is able to send more information to sales (such as additional lead intelligence), and sales is able to provide feedback and sales activity reports to marketing.
(Image Source: UserResponse)
4 Use marketing automation software
Automating the nurturing and scoring of leads in your funnel keeps everything nicely organized. Even better, a marketing automation platform provides invaluable analytics and measurement necessary to improve lead quality.
A good CRM also provides an overview of how each of your leads behaves in the sales funnel and how your marketing programs are affecting lead generation, sales, and, most importantly, revenues. For best results, integrate your CRM system with your marketing automation platform.
Telemarketing is An Effective Way to Generate Sales Leads
Telemarketing is not the most popular method of generating leads, but t is very useful. Despite its bad reputation with consumers, telemarketing lead generation can be very effective if done the right way.
Telemarketing itself is a skill you have to work on and practice to achieve the best results. It is not so hard to learn, but you have to the basics well and practice them. The more you practice the better you will become.