Outsourcing Market Research is a Smart Investment

/in /by

Outsourcing Market Research is a Smart Investment

Hiring a telemarketing firm to conduct your market research can be one of the best investments you make. While it is tempting to use internal staff to conduct market research calls, this is almost never a good idea.

First of all, unless you have staff working evenings and weekends, you are going to have to pay overtime, or even hire additional staff, to make calls. Why? Because a majority of market research is aimed at working adults who are easiest to reach in the evenings or on weekends. Unless your business is completely focused on B2B customers, stay-at-home parents, or seniors, daytime calls will not garner the information you require.

Conducting market research on the phone can be difficult. Many people are reluctant to take time out of their busy lives to answer questions. Even if you explain to them that it will only take a few minutes, they may still resist. Professional telemarketers are well-trained on how to deal with, and overcome, such objections.

Further, when an individual picks up a call from an unknown company, they usually jump to the conclusion that they are going to be asked to buy something. These people often believe that survey, marketing research, and sales calls are all the same thing. Again, it takes an experienced and professional telemarketer to dispel this belief before it is too late. In other words, they need to make people comfortable in the knowledge that they are not a solicitor, but only want information. Such telemarketers know how to make individuals feel as if they are doing an important service by answering these questions, as well.

Now that you know why you need a professional telemarketing firm to conduct market research, here are the many benefits of doing your marketing research via telemarketing. Telemarketing research specialists can glean the following information—in the most convenient and least time consuming manner possible—from your target audience:

  1. What features do people most desire in your brand’s particular product or service?
  2. Where is your target audience currently purchasing this product or service?
  3. What would lure prospects away from their current vendor?
  4. Does your target audience understand how your offerings differ from the competition? How important are those differences to your target audience?

Market research is a great way to obtain information as you launch a new product or service, prepare a new advertising campaign, or seek to find out why there is low interest in a particular product or service. If you want market research that gets the most accurate information from the greatest number of people, it is important to hire professionals who will do just that.

How to Make B2B Telemarketing Even More Effective

/in , /by

How to Make B2B Telemarketing Even More Effective

If you work in the B2B industry, it will come as no surprise that telemarketing is one of-if not the most-effective methods of lead generation. In fact, when surveyed, B2B companies said that they plan to spend even more of their marketing budgets on telemarketing in 2016.

However, when it comes to B2B or B2C marketing, if you are not moving forward, you are falling behind. Therefore, it is vital that your telemarketing methods keep evolving over time. What follows are some tips on how to make sure your telemarketing efforts continue to make a significant impact on prospects:

  1. Never overlook the human element. No matter how you run your telemarketing campaign, at its root, it has to be about talking one-on-one to another person. This has always been the strength of telemarketing and it must remain its number one focus.
  2. Use your website. Your website is a great resource for your telemarketing efforts. Make sure you use it to its fullest potential. When a particular business has revisited your website, for example, use that information to better tell when you need to contact that business again.
  3. Show prospects the light. Surveys repeatedly show that how a person is treated by telemarketers has a great deal to do with buying decisions. In other words, the more knowledgeable and personable a telemarketer, the better light their particular product or service is seen in.
  4. Slow and steady win the lead generation race. B2B buyers want to know that their concerns are understood and appreciated. Therefore, making a quick sale isn’t always the best route to go. Instead, take more time with lead nurturing. It may longer to convert leads by going slower, but in the end, the number of conversions is likely to be much higher when prospects are not rushed.
  5. Use a multi-touch approach. Just because you are calling a prospect on the phone, that doesn’t mean you can’t use other marketing methods to create an interest in your product or service. While on the phone, invite prospects to check out your website, like you on Facebook, or attend a trade show. The key is to always make your brand as accessible as possible.

Telemarketing is a crucial lead generation technique for B2B marketers. Make sure you are using it to its fullest potential so that you are able to capitalize on its many strengths.

Successful Outbound Telemarketing Campaigns Follow the Latest Trends

/in , /by

Successful Outbound Telemarketing Campaigns Follow the Latest Trends

Outbound telemarketing remains an excellent way for B2B and B2C marketers to generate sales leads in an atmosphere where social media and other digital marketing methods seem to reign supreme. The fact that outbound telemarketing is holding its own, however, isn’t just a matter of luck. Instead, the telemarketing industry has worked hard and done an excellent job of evolving and keeping up with the times.

The best telemarketing firms, in order to remain relevant and effective, stay up-to-date on industry trends. These telemarketing firms then update the methods they use to identify prospects. They also update their scripts to reflect these trends.

These efforts ensure that a quality telemarketing firm will help make the marketing efforts of its clients as successful as possible. Equally important, data collected through each telemarketing campaign is used to make subsequent campaigns even more successful.

So what are some of the trends telemarketing firms can use to make sure they are connecting with sales leads in the most effective ways possible?

  • Industry trends: Certain times of the year are important for different industries. For example, the auto industry is buzzing when the new model year cars come out. Major trade shows and conventions will be significant for different industries, as well. By being aware of when people in particular industries will be more receptive to particular sales pitches, you can be confident that there will be more sales conversions.
  • Customer Trends: Black Friday, tax season, summer travel season, and back-to-school are all ideal times to contact consumers. Consumers who have particular products on their minds will be more responsive to hearing about those products.
  • Regional Trends: Certain holidays or historical or religious events are more relevant in different parts of states or countries. Many states have unique and significant events that can be capitalized on, as well.

When outbound lead generation is too broad, a telemarketing campaign usually ends in failure. Therefore, it is essential that precise segmentation be used. The trends listed above allow telemarketing firms to identify the most promising leads.

Outbound telemarketing by trend is especially important when you consider that, in almost all cases, a few quality leads will always trump a greater number of unqualified leads. And filling your sales funnel with unqualified leads is a waste of your sales team’s time and can negatively affect your bottom line.

Outsourcing the Key to Successful Cold Calling

/in , /by

Outsourcing the Key to Successful Cold Calling

Ask any salesperson, and chances are he or she will tell you that the task they most dread is cold calling. This is unfortunate given the importance cold calling plays in filling the sales funnel.

Many salespeople will put cold calls on the bottom of their to-do list for no other reason than they want to avoid making such calls. In order for companies to reap the many benefits of cold calling, it may be time to consider outsourcing this task to a telemarketing firm.

While keeping your sales team happy is certainly one reason to outsource your cold calling, understandably there needs to be more compelling ones to make the change. Here are some of the biggest advantages:

Cost: Salespeople pay for themselves when they are closing sales. When they are cold calling and appointment setting, they are not. It is as simple as that.

Productivity: When you outsource your cold calling, you will have representatives making calls as many hours a day as you require. This ensures that your pipeline will not slow down when you don’t have staff available to make calls.

Reliability: Does your cold calling schedule depend on the availability of staff, vacations or even illness? When you outsource there are no schedules to work around.

Speed: If you need to begin a cold calling campaign for a particular product or service, outsourcing allows you to roll out this campaign quickly. That includes everything from creating a list to perfecting the script.

Data: For every call made, data is recorded and can be analyzed. This allows you to refine things like your script in real time.

Accountability: If a member of your sales staff sets up an appointment with a non-qualified lead, that is time and money wasted. When you outsource your cold calling and a non-qualified lead is identified, steps will be taken to make sure this does not happen again. Sales people are certainly not going to tell you when they are responsible for identifying non-qualified leads. They will, however, report these problems when cold calling is being outsourced.

Quality Control: Want to know how your sales people are interacting with cold prospects? That can be difficult. When you outsource, however, all calls are monitored for quality and you can even go back and listen to calls to make sure you like what you hear.

Allowing your salespeople to do what they are paid to do, and what they want to do, is a good reason to outsource your cold calling. Add in the reasons listed above and it is difficult to justify NOT outsourcing these duties.