Telemarketing Software Featured Article

Lead generation is the lifeblood of any business. Without leads, companies can’t cultivate new sales, and without new sales, the business stalls. For many companies, this means ensuring that inside sales teams performing telemarketing functions need all the support they can get in the form of quality lead generation.

Forward-thinking companies are taking advantage of the benefits social media can offer when it comes to telemarketing. While few companies may be actively selling via social media, they are using it to build the initial foundation of a relationship with potential customers, according to a recent article by Michelle Hummel writing for Business2Community.

“When someone follows your business on Facebook, Twitter (News - Alert), Instagram or another social site, they will be exposed to your content on a regular basis,” writes Hummel. “This will not only keep your business on their mind, but it also means they’ll start to build a connection to your brand. Because of this relationship, many businesses categorize their social media followers as either leads or current customers.”

It’s not enough to simply monitor social media or gain ideas for targeting customers, however. The leads must be put to use, and this requires the use of an excellent lead management solution that ties in with the telemarketing solution.

“By having all of this [social media] data compiled into an actionable format for your business, your social media efforts will be targeting the right segment from the very beginning,” writes Hummel. “That includes ensuring resources are only being invested into social networks that are the right fit for your business.”

Telemarketing and lead management solutions from providers such as VanillaSoft, which brings together the best of CRM, lead management and call center related tools, are key at this juncture in the selling relationship. In addition to next-best-lead routing, progressive dialing, on-board intelligent messaging, integrated email, and digital call recording, the VanillaSoft suite also offers real-time lead distribution that can ensure that leads identified in social media are sent to the right person to follow up. The solution is a great way to make sure that Web leads (such as those from social media) are handled and routed in the most productive manner that is most likely to lead to sales conversion. This way, leads don’t get dropped, and managers can ensure that someone is taking “ownership” of those leads.