07/12/2005  //  telemarketing - top tips for a successful campaign

Telemarketing is simply the use of the telephone for marketing purposes – it is not telesales which is used for achieving the sale of a service or a product. Telemarketing is commonly used for the following objectives:

   To drive attendance to an event (i.e. seminar, conference, exhibition)

   Cleanse a database and maintain it on a regular basis

   To undertake attitudinal research of respondents views and opinions (original market  research)

   To identify the need for a project, product or service (sales lead generation)

   Profile a target company in terms of contacts, decision makers, financial information, business issues, recent history (take over’s/mergers/acquisitions)

   Support a direct mail campaign as a follow up

   Help create awareness of a company, product or service

   Keep in contact with customers/clients on a regular basis (customer care/satisfaction).

Telemarketing can be done in house or it can be out sourced. However as with all things in marketing there has to be a few house rules to follow:

1. Be clear in your mind what the objectives of using telemarketing are going to be. It can be a very useful tool to generate for example sales leads. For example why use your own sales force on a salary with company car and the associated on costs to call against a database when you can more effectively use an external resource?

Many companies tell us they have had bad experiences with external telemarketing. The barriers to entering the telemarketing arena are low; any one can set up and profess to be an expert or guarantee to generate results for you.

TIP 1: No one can guarantee results no matter how good they profess to be. Be wary of those that offer such results. Find out how long they have been trading, who do they have as clients, are their clients prepared to endorse them and can you speak to them directly?

2. As well as clear objectives, set time scales and deliverables as parameters.

TIP 2: Never sign up for a long campaign, always undertake a test campaign that lasts say up to 4 weeks. Too many clients spend 5 figure sums on long term campaigns only to have a bad experience and be disappointed with the results.

Dismiss any agency from your selection criteria that insists on signing you up for a long campaign. Test the approach and fine tune it, when it works, roll out the campaign on a monthly basis with reviews.

3. Make sure the data is cleansed and up to date. Most databases erode by up to 20% in a year, after two years such databases are out of date and unusable.

TIP 3: Make sure the agency advises you to undertake test cleansing as part of the test campaign. If they don’t, then discount them from the evaluation or selection unless you are 100% confident that the data you are providing is accurate. If you don’t have your own database, then ensure that the agency can advise you as to the best possible sources – there are many sources available with differing quality of data provided. Ensure that the source best meets your criteria.

4. Understanding your business. Any agency has to invest the time and effort (at no cost to you) in understanding your business, your products and services and the markets that you serve. If they don’t invest the time then you should be careful.

TIP 4: Only select an agency that is prepared to spend the time in investing in you as a company and a person – those that do should be interested in your needs and wants and in a long term mutually beneficial relationship not a quick win for them selves. Also, if they work for or have worked for the competition, then can they really claim client confidentiality?

5. Meet the team. Normally the person who handles your account is a sales person, but who will actually undertake the work for you? Does the agency use sub contractors or their own staff, who will manage your campaign?

TIP 5: Insist that you meet the team that will be undertaking the work for you, ensure the agency use their own staff and have quality procedures in place to manage the delivery of projects for you. Outsourcing by agencies to third parties only compromises quality.

6. Communication, communication, communication.

TIP 6: Ask the agency how they will report back to you? Only select an agency that reports ideally on a daily basis the progress of any campaign.

It is not good enough for an agency merely to fax you the sales leads or completed call sheets on a weekly basis, they should provide you with management reports showing the number of:

   Calls made

   Successful contacts made

   Positive AND negative responses (i.e. event registrations, requests for further information,
fulfilments made, projects identified). Also choose an agency that is innovative – too many simply say the respondent said ‘No’ or was not interested – the agency should be looking to  add value by probing as to why the response was negative as you can use this information.

   Records amended i.e. duplicates, incorrect contact details

   Mailers sent out or fulfilments made.

7. Feed back both ways.

TIP 7: Give feed back to the agency, let them know what you think of their performance, how many of the registrations they made for you actually turned up on the day or how many of the sales leads were converted into real sales?

This will incentivise and fuel performance at the agency. The agency should be driving the campaign and supporting you rather than you chasing them, the agency should be working as a seamless support function to your marketing or sales department.

If you would like more information about this topic or to discuss what more could be done for your direct marketing then please get in touch. If you have any feedback or suggestions on this article or any other article then please contact us.