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Telemarketing works!
Telemarketing has always been an effective
direct marketing technique. As the effectiveness
of other direct marketing methods have declined,
it has become the most cost-effective medium for
many objectives - especially lead generation.
Unfortunately, when we talk to new clients we
find many whose experience with telemarketing has been poor. The reason is
the very wide of services that all go under the
name of "telemarketing".
Consider the example of tools. Not all tools are
the same; each has a specific purpose,
use, and level of quality. You wouldn't
use a hammer to tighten a screw. Also, a
tool from a national maker with a lifetime
guarantee is of higher quality than a cheap
imitator. Although it may sound
simple-minded, this analogy of tools works well
for telemarketing. When someone tells you they "do
telemarketing", all they have told you is
they have "tools"; you will need to know a lot
more before you can be sure that they have the
right tool for your needs.
The objectives drive the skills needed
Telemarketing is used to
achieve many objectives. Across all of your
marketing projects, you probably have all the
objectives shown in the table. |
|
Types of telemarketing |
Objectives of the call |
Caller skills needed |
|
Lead generation |
Discover, develop
and qualify sales
leads for your high-tech product or solution -
costing $40K to $400K or beyond. |
Ability to
establish instant rapport with senior managers.
Sophisticated knowledge of IT.
Ability to think in real time and follow the
needs of the exec. |
|
Survey/Research |
Gather
high-level, unstructured input on leading-edge
topics (like future needs for "On demand"). |
|
Get structured,
factual information (like what products are
installed) |
General
telemarketing skills
General IT knowledge
Ability to follow a script |
|
Event
invitation and registration |
Inform contacts
of event and gather registration information |
|
Contact discovery |
Verify or get new
contact data by speaking with
gatekeepers or existing contacts |
|
Caller skills
- the key to success
Very high skills are needed to
make higher-level calls, such as lead generation
for high-ticket IT solutions. When
telemarketing "fails" it is almost always
because of violating this rule.
For lead
generation the high skills needed cannot be
obtained by training. Getting a CIO to talk
to you on the phone and then winning his or her
confidence in a few minutes is harder than
conducting a face-to-face call. A caller
needs years of experience to draw on to
be able to succeed in qualifying leads on the
phone. In fact, this type of telemarketing is so
different we call it experience-based
telemarketing to distinguish it from
regular telemarketing.
KMA's
research on the relative effectiveness of
experience-based telemarketing is so conclusive
that we have created a pool of HiQ callers
that have an average of over 25 years of IT
experience.
Matching goals
with resource
To succeed with your
telemarketing, the objectives of the call must
be matched to the skills of the caller.
Some projects require a
range of skills. By blending a mix of caller
skills, we
can tune the resource to match the needs of your
project. |
| |
Highly-skilled,
experience-based callers |
Moderately
skilled, regular callers |
|
Skills/Caller
profile |
Many years
experience in IT
Deep knowledge of
Technology and target industry
Real field sales
experience
Years of
experience of dealing with executives
Thousands of
successful cold calls |
College grad with
a few years of IT/industry experience
Some general
knowledge
of products
General
appreciation of IT concepts |
|
Benefits |
Reach senior
contacts
Build instant
rapport needed to obtain sensitive data
Build a positive
image for you
Provide your
sales rep with the most information |
Very
cost-effective for the right objectives |
|
Uses |
Lead Generation
Event
attendee/no-show follow up
Nurture long term
opportunity
Build high value
prospect lists
|
Product
announcement
Survey/market
research
Event
registration
Contact discovery
|
|
Results |
High Quality A
Leads (1% - 3%)
B & C leads (3% -
10%)
Extend the sale
Decision process
information
Enhanced
marketing data |
Achieve your
structured objectives Find partially qualified leads
(4% -
7%)
Scrubbed marketing
data |
|
Real examples -
Click to meet the
team |
KMA HiQ
Telemarketing |
KMA Regular Telemarketing |
