Telemarketing Software Featured Article

While of course every company should value its existing customers, businesses grow by attracting new customers. Marketing campaigns are important, but they can only go so far in reaching out. Waiting for customers to come to you isn’t going to work for you for very long, so at some point, your organization needs to initiate the final connection between sales and prospects. Telemarketing is still one of the most effective means of achieving this.

“Telemarketing is a complementary and integral part of any B2B marketing strategy, and has proven to be a highly effective means for generating leads and increasing sales,” wrote Andy Dickens, the CEO of Virtual Sales Limited (VSL), in a blog post. “By integrating telemarketing before, during or after a marketing campaign, such as direct or e-mail, event/exhibition or digital project, you stand a better chance of creating a better impression, developing longer-lasting relations and gaining invaluable sales opportunities.”

Telemarketing creates awareness that helps to engage with potential customers and upsell new products or services to existing customers. It also helps create dialogs with prospects that can lead directly to converting them to customers. Prospects have questions, and if you’re there to answer them at the right time, you stand a better chance of winning the sale. And while picking up the phone and calling is a great way to do this, it’s a time-consuming process if it’s not automated to some degree. A good telemarketing solution that is cloud-based and easy to set up helps speed and automate the process with a variety of features, including:

Dialing technology. Auto-dialers, either predictive or preview depending on your needs, can speed up the rate of connection with prospects between 35 and 100 percent, eliminating the need to waste time with manual dialing.

Next best lead to call. Dialers, used properly, can prioritize the calling process of leads, which helps sales teams reach out for the prospects most likely to result in a sale.

Dashboard technology. Reporting is critical to any solution, and telemarketing is no different. A good telemarketing platform will consolidate information into an easy-to-read dashboard format so managers can check activity and tie it to successful (or unsuccessful) behavior on the part of inside salespeople.

Lead routing and management. It’s a common occurrence that leads, once acquired, are never followed up, which may be costing businesses millions each year. Once collected, a good telemarketing solution can help route the leads to the right person, and help managers ensure they are being followed up properly.

Voice drop. Salespeople often encounter voicemail today, and “waiting for the beep” can waste time. Voice Drop features allow sales reps to leave the perfect prerecorded voicemail every time.

“We don’t do telemarketing, we do sales” is an often-heard refrain. But the truth is that most companies “do” telemarketing if they’re scouting for leads and new customers. By automating the process, companies can amplify their efforts to acquire new business.