Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Use B2B Telemarketing If You Need To Make Things Quick



Rushing is never a good idea when trying to generate sales leads. However, that doesn't mean you can take your sweet time either. Speed is just as equally important as control. There are times that while you can't rush the prospect, the prospect will rush you!


And of course, there are plenty of good (and obvious) reasons as to why.

  • They may have scheduled a lot of meetings throughout their day so they can't talk for long in between.
  • Paperwork and management duties will always take top priority so obviously you need to have a good reason as to why you just interrupted them in the middle of their work.
  • You also have the possibility of calling them when they're analyzing data and making important future plans. It may not be a good idea to interrupt their train of thought.

At this point, you might wonder why telemarketing? Why not just send them an email or even a real marketing letter? The problem with that is that it's going to the complete opposite extreme. You're avoiding all means of directly contacting the decision maker but at the cost of being completely ignored too. Did you send an email? It might never be opened. Sent a real letter? It's the same thing. The worst case scenario is you'll get labeled as a spammer or a junk mailer and now your messages won't be read at all.

The key here is balance. You need to balance getting their attention while not taking too much of their time doing it. B2B telemarketing can accomplish this (or at least, it can play a significant role in the overall technique). Unlike email or direct mail, a ringing phone is harder to ignore. Once the prospect has answered, you only have a window of a few minutes in order to accomplish what you set out to do and that is get their interest. Take note, there's a difference between getting their interest and trying to make a sale right out of the bat. Getting their interest means trying to get to know them first. It might even help to do some research before making the call. Try to ask questions that will help determine needs and make it as objective as possible. Once that's done, evaluate the response and politely end the exchange as soon as possible.

Another technique involves mixing both email or direct mail with telemarketing. Again, it's similar to the first technique. You make a call, make it quick, and then just say you'll send the rest in an email. Think of it as a new way of dropping off a letter. It also tells you beforehand if the prospect would really appreciate the message and won't just toss it in the trash. After that, wait for some responses and don't be afraid to follow-up.

As you can see, you're not rushing the prospect here. But at the same time, taking only a few minutes with a call at convenient intervals shows that you don't want to take up too much of their time. It may not even be an issue if you can't afford to invest in telemarketing yourself. There are plenty of telemarketing services who use similar (if not the exact, same) techniques so can outsource to them instead. It will still always be important to make things quick when contacting busy decision makers.

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