I was reading an interesting survey "B2B Marketing Budgets, Strategies, Tactics and Trends" (download a copy here) which looks at the changes in the marketing mix for companies.

The survey looks at tactics for both lead generation and brand awareness for B2B companies.

From a lead generation perspective, the top tactics in terms of effectiveness are:

1) Inside sales and telemarketing are considered the most effective tactic for lead generation (47.6% rated them "highly effective")

2) Trade shows and conferences are the next most effective (moving up to 2nd place from 3rd in the previous year's survey)

3) Executive breakfasts and events fell from 1st place to 3rd place in the survey.

Another thing that stood out to me is that marketers from large companies consistently rated inside sales and telemarketing as highly effective in generating leads whilst smaller companies are more likely to use lower-cost digital tactics for lead generation (search marketing, websites, podcasts) even though "these tactics are not among those they rate most effective"

Is it me or does that not make any sense?

Why use less effective tactics if they don't work as well?

Well, the more you dig into the report you realise that it's mainly an issue of budgets being squeezed and marketers trying to get more from less.

And, on top of that, it's these low-cost digital channels that are seeing the greatest increase in spend.

According to the report, the most widely used digital tactics are company websites (95.4%, which makes me wonder who are the 4.6% of B2B companies that don't have a website) and email marketing (87.7%).

Social networks and blogging continue to see increases in budget spend but also continue to rank lowly in terms of effectiveness for lead generation (they rank higher for "brand awareness")

So, how do you square those stats?

People are spending more money on marketing tactics that are less effective for lead generation compared with proven tactics that consistently deliver?

Has everyone just lost all business sense or is there a different story under the headline figures.

Crucially, it comes down to budget.

Some of the most effective marketing tactics require a larger investment. Trade shows are not cheap. Running a high-touch telemarketing campaign over several months also requires considerable investment.

Sending out 1000 emails however is very low cost. Whether it delivers the number and quality of leads needed to keep your pipeline full is a different story.

Looking at budget size the survey shows that smaller companies have smaller budgets (duh?) and that companies that only sell B2B with a direct sales model (ie: their own salespeople rather than through resellers and channel partners) have the smallest budgets of all.

Even more of a reason not to waste money on in-effective tactics, I say.

Which is why we always work with clients on fee models that are part fixed and part paid on delivering results. For our fixed fees we do things including telemarketing, email marketing, event/trade-show support, etc (basically stuff that we know "works") and then we link the balance of our fees to results, such as a % of revenue generated.

It's a model that works for our clients and, we believe, ensures that we don't waste our time (or your money) doing stuff that isn't linked to tangible revenue growth.

Labels: b2b email marketing, b2b lead generation, b2b marketing, b2b telemarketing, inside sales, sales lead generation

In a recent report on SME Marketing Channel Preferences, Circle Research looked at SME's ranging from one-man-bands through to larger SME's (50-249 employees) to determine which marketing channels they rated as their preference for being effective in reaching them.

These findings can be useful when deciding on lead generation tactics to engage this market.

A word of warning, though, the preferences of your prospect doesn't always mean that it's the most effective channel in terms of ROI, but it can be a good indication.

A couple of key findings for me, and ones that correlate with our direct experience running campaigns into this sector, are:

Telemarketing is not ideal for smaller SME's - I think it's a combination of over use, time-poor decision makers and high number of gatekeepers (everyone in a small business treats the boss as god, in fact, you've more chance of pitching the almighty that the MD of a small business).

When you combine the difficulty of getting the message through with typical lower sales values (because smaller companies have smaller budgets) it makes targeting SME's with telemarketing almost unworkable. I say almost because, if you've got some clout (ie: calling with some authority and a highly targeted relevant proposition) then it can work.

The research also indicates that telemarketing becomes more effective for the larger SME's. This is typically because you're pitching a functional decision maker so can be more targeted and relevant. Plus, the potential sales value goes up, making a positive ROI more likely.

Prioritise Digital Channels - search and email are both proven and preferred channels for engaging SME's. In terms of outreach, we've used email effectively for SME lead generation campaigns. Also, an integrated telemarketing and email campaign can be even more effective in this market.

Search should be a no-brainer channel but, in our experience, it's not always the holy grail in terms of ROI. For many B2B companies selling services, keywords can be too broad and, in terms of PPC, too expensive to deliver a compelling ROI.

In summary, if you need to target smaller SME's then ignore stand-alone telemarketing and prioritise digital channels or integrate telemarketing with an email campaign.

For medium to large SME's (and even more so with mid-sector and large companies) then telemarketing still remains and effective channel but, as always, make sure any lead generation campaign is both targeted and relevant to get maximum ROI for your budget.

Labels: b2b email marketing, b2b lead generation, b2b telemarketing

If you read the IDM's latest Barometer Report you've be forgiven for thinking that telemarketing had been dropped completely as a B2B marketing tactic.

Going through the 30-page report there's not one mention of telemarketing, a proven corner-stone tactic for every b2b marketing organisation.

Why the omission? Has it really been dropped completely or is this just another example of telemarketing being B2B's Dirty Little Secret.

Considering the report cites "lead generation" as the top issue (25% of respondents) for B2B client-side marketers it seems unbelievable that telemarketing isn't mentioned.

No doubt it's just been lumped in with other direct marketing tactics.

Of the agencies involved in the report a whopping 59% were either described as "integrated marketing" or "direct marketing". Hmmm, you're not telling me that they've completely chopped telemarketing out of their service mix are you?

To me, this is another example of how telemarketing just doesn't cut it with the B2B media.

Sure, it's not sexy and it doesn't win awards. But, as proven tactic to reach targeted prospects it still remains a key part of any B2B marketer's plan.

Labels: b2b lead generation, b2b marketing, b2b telemarketing

Just when you thought the hype around social media couldn't get any bigger, there's seems to be a revived interest in that old-school approach - the cold call.

If you look at this poll on LinkedIn, Is Cold calling Dead, you'll see (at the time of this blog) that 64% of 352 respondents answered "No (Have No Plans to Change)".

Only 6% have moved totally to social media and a further 14% say Yes, they have stopped or will stop soon. The rest are somewhat on the shelf.

Even more interesting than that are the comments.

One after another, business owners, sales people and business development executives are confirming that cold calling is still alive and kicking.

You won't see that said in much of the B2B marketing media.

Also, people are confirming that they use social media to enhance their cold calling.

Whilst picking up that phone may be old school the approach has changed. Researching targets online before engaging (something that we always recommend) leads to a more intelligent approach and, ultimately, higher conversion rates.

If you read between the lines in the comments you'll find that many of those people who think it is dead are probably justifying the fact that they hate cold calling. Or they're selling "social media" as the new magic bullet.

Truth is, cold calling still works, but it needs a more intelligent approach.

Which is where we come in, I guess.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, cold calling, social media

There's a recurring theme I keep seeing that actually makes me wonder why I bother.

You see, I come across lots of business owners who have tried telemarketing agencies before and found that they just didn't deliver what they promised.

They tell me something like "we were promised we'd get 2 appointments per day and we only got 1" or "they said that they'd get us senior appointments but we always seemed to end up in front of someone too junior".

You may even have experienced something similar to this yourself.

And, behind this, you'll find plenty of telemarketing agencies (large and small) who are constantly churning clients and have to replace them with new ones.

So, there's this ever increasing spiral of clients looking for more than is delivered (either because they had their fingers burned previously or simply have unrealistic expectations) and telemarketing agencies who are willing to promise the earth as they need to plug a gap of lost clients because they haven't been able to deliver what they promised.

This dynamic is driven by a highly competitive and fragmented market and also by clients looking to get more for less from their marketing budget.

It's all a bit "chicken and the egg" and, in then end, no one wins.

Now, maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see the point of playing that game.

Here's the reality check: no-one really knows what results you'll get until they try.

This is true of any marketing spend, even "results-based" models such as pay-per-click (which only guarantee "clicks" not sales). Even if a telemarketing agency has worked with a similar sector before, targeting similar prospects it's just that - similar. Even the timing of a telemarketing campaign can vary results so let's stop pretending that anyone really knows what results you'll get.

The only way to find out is to run a pilot that's big enough to get traction but small enough to mitigate the costs of it not working.

Also, let's start being a bit more "grown-up" about results.

Any telemarketer worth their salt should be able to come up with a realistic return for a given investment. Some may be overly optimistic, some much more cautious, but ultimately their predictions shouldn't be miles apart. Given the parameters of any campaign, most experienced telemarketers will agree on the type of results they can deliver.

I've always worked in sales roles where you had to build long term relationships. If anything, I lean towards to conservative end of the spectrum. Why? Well, mainly because I believe in delivering on promises. Plus, I know that if we do deliver, we are more likely to build a longer term, sustainable relationship with our clients.

However, if I was an account manager for a telemarketing agency only interested in winning the next client to keep "bums on seats" then wouldn't I be motivated to inflate expectations to win the gig.

Which will only result in more client churn and more business owners who've had their fingers burned.

Personally, I'd rather set realistic expectations and not win the work. There's a significant investment of time on both sides to set up a campaign and get it under way so why bother unless both parties believe it's the start of a profitable, long term relationship.

I'd like to think that the telemarketing agencies that take the short-term view will eventually drop out of the market but, unfortunately, I doubt that will happen.

More likely they'll just continue to muddy the water for everyone else.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, telemarketing agency

One of the first things that anyone considering telemarketing wants to know is "how much does telemarketing cost?" or "what is your pricing for telemarketing services?".

Of course, many telemarketing companies answer this question by just quoting a daily rate, or you can look at the many services online that will take your details and then sell them on to 4 or 5 hungry telemarketing companies who will pester you for days to give you a quote when all you really want to know is "how much is a telemarketing campaign going to cost me?"

If you could just get a sensible, grown-up answer to that question you could decide whether it's worth considering further.

So, we thought we'd take a different approach and actually try to answer that question in a way that not only makes sense but actually provides you with an idea of return-on-investment (ROI).

You see, telemarketing costs are only part of the picture.

What you really need to consider is "what can a telemarketing campaign deliver in terms of revenue".

Now, the answer to that depends on a number of different variables, ranging from your target market and the brand equity you have within it, through to how many sales you can convert from meetings and what is your average revenue per sale.

Lots of things to consider, eh?

So, to help you, we've developed a simple telemarketing budget calculator in Microsoft Excel.

Once you open the excel sheet, all you need to do is select a number of variables, such as "What size of business you are targeting?", "What is your approximate budget?" and "What is your average revenue per sales value?" and the calculator will tell you what ROI you should expect for a given telemarketing budget.

You can adjust the budget (as well as the other variables) to change the ROI.

Is it perfect? Does it work for any telemarketing scenario?

No.

It's based on our experience working with business-to-business product and services companies who are targeting new business.

Generally, new business is as tough as it gets for telemarketing. If you want someone to call existing or lapsed customers then you can expect a higher return than our calculator will produce.

Also, most of our clients are not well-known brands. We have worked with a few big names and I can tell you that is makes telemarketing so much easier. So, again, if you're Microsoft, Accenture or IBM, you'll certainly out-perform our calculator in terms of ROI.

However, if you're looking to use telemarketing to generate new business in a competitive but targeted market then our model will be accurate enough for a sense-check on budget.

Also, in some circumstances the calculator shows a negative ROI.

Well, guess what... telemarketing probably isn't for you.

For most companies with a medium to high-value business-to-business sales proposition telemarketing still remains one of the most predictable and consistent methods of opening doors and generating new business.

Why not download our Telemarketing Budget Calculator and see if telemarketing could work for your business?

Labels: b2b telemarketing, new business development, telemarketing ROI

I've been following a number of discussions recently on LinkedIn about the integration of telemarketing with email, online and direct mail campaigns.

When I compare these discussions with some recent articles I read around highly targeted DM campaigns aimed at senior decision makers and I'm starting to see a pattern emerging.

You see, all these sexy and highly creative B2B campaigns seem to rely on the rather un-loved tactic of telemarketing as part of their success.

I'm not saying that they wouldn't succeed entirely without the telemarketing element but I would say that it's a critical element seems to be hugely under-valued.

For example, in February's B2B Marketing Magazine there's an article about a highly targeted DM campaign aimed at 200 senior decision makers within a specific geographical area.

The DM piece was sent out, 3 days later an email followed up tied into the main theme of the campaign. Lots of sexy stuff about micro-sites, etc. Finally, 2 days later, an outbound telemarketing call was placed to those targets that hadn't responded.

Unfortunately, whilst the article gives an overall conversion of 20%, it doesn't give any specifics about responses at each stage of the campaign.

To me, this is typical how today's integrated campaigns are reported.

Whether it's following up a DM piece or responding to an online trigger, telemarketing is always seen as the final bit tagged on the end. All the clever work is done up front and, oh well, let's hand it over to telemarketing to wrap it all up.

Having worked on these integrated campaigns before, and followed up some very clever creative work which clearly had no impact, you'll forgive me if I'm a little cynical.

We've been involved in large integrated campaigns where it's been down to the telemarketing effort to literally pull it back from the brink. When no-one's biting suddenly it's "get on the phones and make it happen".

Because, after all the creative messaging and output is sent out you're into the rather messy world of dealing with diary clashes, PA's, firewalls and over zealous post-rooms.

I agree 100% that a smarter, more integrated approach is the way to go for all B2B marketing campaigns. But I'd suggest that telemarketing plays a larger part of the process than most marketing agencies will admit.

Perhaps it's because you don't win many awards for telemarketing :-)

Labels: b2b marketing, b2b telemarketing, integrated b2b marketing, prospect marketing

According to a recent survey in January's B2B Marketing Magazine "telemarketing remains a key part of the marketing mix for most B2B brands".

Unfortunately, the report doesn't specify the size of businesses surveyed, although I suspect most are medium and large sized companies since only 15% of the respondents relied entirely on external telemarketing agencies and "the largest portion of respondents had an internal telemarketing team"

It was interesting that the most popular reason why telemarketing was retained internally was because "the complexity of products and services makes outsourcing difficult".

The best way of thinking about this is to consider why these companies see keeping telemarketing in-house for complex sales proposition easier than outsourcing.

In my view, the primary reason why it would be seen as difficult to outsource telemarketing is the quality of the telemarketers.

Let's be honest, even the best call centres struggle retaining their people. They have one of the highest rates of employee churn than any other industry. If you have a complex sales proposition then you need to invest in training your telemarketers plus they have to be a pretty high-calibre to start with.

Therefore, when you outsource your telemarketing you run the risk of having to train and re-train telemarketers. Retention is always the biggest issue.

If you're a large company you can avoid this simply by hiring your own telemarketers and paying them above the industry average. Most good telemarketers in call centres would jump at the chance to get out.

Why do you have to be a large company to do this?

As I've blogged about previously, Outsourcing Telemarketing vs In-house, the case for in-house telemarketing just doesn't stack up for small businesses.

Simply put, it is too difficult for most small businesses to manage and retain top-class telemarketers.

So if you have a complex product or service, what are your options?

The answer is to find a telemarketing agency that retains the caliber of telemarketers you need. Almost always, this will be a small agency rather than a large call centre.

If a telemarketing agency starts talking about having 100's of employees with account managers, systems, processes, etc then you can guarantee that they're a volume body shop.

However, if they're a small outfit who can provide you with personal direct access to the telemarketers making the calls, and will invest time in training their people to understand your proposition then you're on the right track.

But then again, if you're reading this blog post then you've already found us :-)

Labels: b2b marketing, b2b telemarketing, outsourcing telemarketing

This is one of my favourite sayings from Bill Good (read his book "Hot Prospects").

Even though the book's been updated (it includes a chapter on Google) Bill's an old school trainer on prospecting systems. I first read one of his books when I ran a sales team back in the early 90's and his pragmatic style and no-nonsense approach influenced me greatly.

"Prospects are located not created" is a fundamental fact of prospect marketing.

And when you think about it, prospect marketing is basically the opposite to search marketing. It's the Yang to Google's Ying, if you will.

Search has undoubtedly changed the face of business-to-business marketing. Compared with just 10 years ago; it's now easier for prospects to find you.

Or should I say, it's now easier for prospects to find enough vendors to give them what they want.

Because there's the rub.

Searching Google (and let's face it, in the UK that's 90% of searches) will give you some alternatives, but it'll not show you everything.

If you're not in the handful of suppliers a prospect looks at (either through organic or paid search) then you're not in the game. And, of course, the term search implies that prospects know what they're looking for.

Many times, when we open doors for clients, the prospect is aware of a need but hasn't yet decided how they were going to fulfil that need.

They were looking for ideas.

Are they busy searching Google to find get new ideas? Sometimes.

But they're also going to conferences, chatting with their peers and meeting new and interesting suppliers.

When someone actively seeks them out and engages them in a conversation about these issues it's a welcomed call. And typically leads to new business with little competition (compared with a prospect that found you on google along with the other usual suspects).

Another reason I like the "located not created" phrase is that is implies a search, which is what prospect marketing is.

Our campaigns always start with sourcing data and names and then scoring and segmenting the data-set; we're searching before we pick up the phone or send an email.

And when we speak with a prospect we're asking questions to qualify their interest.

Sometimes we strike gold and the timing is perfect. More often, we identify a future need which requires nurturing.

Either way, our focus is not about creating a need; it's about finding a qualified opportunity.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, direct marketing, prospect marketing, search marketing

I'm currently in the middle of a campaign with one of my associates that reminds me how tough telemarketing can be at times.

It also underlines my view that you need different types of telemarketers for different campaigns (which is also one of the advantages our associate model).

Just like different sports, I think that there are different styles of campaigns that demand a different approach and temperament of telemarketer.

Using the analogy of cycling, since I've been following the Tour de France recently, in one camp you have the "sprinters".

These are people are best to deliver power over short distances, much like a short, very targeted telemarketing campaign. Think here about niche campaigns with a small list of targeted contacts that require a specialist touch.

Great sprinters, from a telemarketing perspective, are specialists with deep domain expertise. This enables them to maximise results over a short distance (which means a small list). It's all about power; they're typically referred to as "heavy hitters".

We've got a number of associates that fit into this bracket. Typically, though, they're not that good at longer campaigns which require more stamina to complete.

For that, you need an endurance expert.

These telemarketers are the ones that legends are written about. Calling into functions such as IT, HR & Marketing has become a herculean task.

Most of these people have put in place systems and protocols to stop you getting through. It's an often hostile environment that requires a think skin and determination to keep going. Dial rates of 120+ a day are not uncommon, and expect to only actually pitch less than 10 decision makers a day.

Attributes of telemarketers in this category include perseverance and a dogged determination to keep going. They know their numbers and watch metrics such as dial and pitch rates since they know that if they speak to enough people they will deliver.

Again, we have some excellent associates who are endurance specialists. They are a rare breed are are the real deal when it comes to old school cold calling.

So, as ever, it's all about horses for courses, as they say.

If you have a niche proposition with a small target universe, invest in a heavy-hitter who can make every call count. Just don't expect them to put in days on the phone or bother about how many dials they did.

If you have a more generic offering, possible targeting SME's or the mid-market, then you are going to need someone who can crank out the calls and keep going when others give up.

Occasionally, you can get people who can do both. Jonathan Vaughters, team manager of Garmin (in the Tour de France), says: "In athletics, you can turn a miler into a marathon runner, but you can't do it the other way round."

I'd agree with that in telemarketing too.

A heavy-hitter, which the right attitude, can pound the phones like the best of them. However, in my experience, the traditional endurance telemarketers struggles with the short campaign as their style often relies on a high % of blow-outs before they strike.

With small campaigns you just don't have that luxury.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, cold calling, outbound telemarketing

I read a recent article featured on DemandGen Report, Four Keys to Converting Stalled Leads into Closed Sales During A Downturn, which looks at approaches you can take to recycle "dead" leads and convert more of those stalled deals.

As Dave Green says in his article, "the slowdown in the economy has created longer selling cycles and smaller deal sizes", which is something I certainly agree with.

Dave suggests that one way to recycle those dead or stalled deals is to run a professional telemarketing campaign to understand what the problem is. This could be done as a market research project and the resulting information can be used to offer incentives that address the problems of delay.

This is an excellent way of re-engaging with leads that the sales team have lost traction with. In my experience, sales will too easily write off deals which, with a different approach, can be possibly brought back to life.

Telemarketing can be used either to re-engage or, at the very least, further qualify whether the opportunity can indeed be salvaged.

I also like Dave's comment that "no matter how sophisticated the automated nurturing process is, there is no substitute for human interaction."

It's good to hear that coming from a well respected demand generation guru.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, demand generation, lead qualification, sales lead generation, telemarketing lead generation

If you're thinking of running a lead generation campaign, telemarketing is still an effective B2B marketing tactic to consider.

Obviously it's not the only lead generation tactic and, if you read the marketing press, you'd think that everyone had dropped telemarketing lead generation in favour of "social media" or "twitter". But, when it comes to ROI, telemarketing is still a solid direct marketing tactic for lead generation.

So, when is it best to use telemarketing for lead generation?

Here are 3 situations which make telemarketing an ideal tactic for lead generation:

1) In early stage markets - if you're selling new technology, or are in an early stage market, then you can guarantee that your prospects are not looking for you. That's not to say they're not looking for solutions to their particular problem, it's just that they don't yet know your product or service exists.

In these circumstances, you need to educate the market. A telemarketing lead generation campaign is ideal for this situation as it is all about starting a dialogue.

2) Against established competitors - unlike above, here there's an established market with existing "players". Very often these competitors are the "usual suspects" that prospects turn to when they are looking for RFP's or solutions.

In this situation, you need to break in and get their attention otherwise they'll simply continue with the people they know. Again, using telemarketing as a means of opening a dialogue is ideal.

You should note that each of the above examples needs a slightly different approach and objective. A campaign to build awareness for your business against incumbent competitors will be different to one where you are educating the market.

3) Targeting a "wish-list" - a third way to consider whether telemarketing is a suitable lead generation tactic is when you have a highly targeted "wish-list" of companies. Typically this implies a small list of businesses, less than 200 companies for example.

Why is this a good fit with telemarketing?

Well, if you know that your proposition is ideal for a very small target market (perhaps based on a number of firmographics such as turnover, ownership, etc) then you need to make sure that you maximise every possible opportunity available.

Essentially, you can't afford to sit back and wait for them to come to you.

In all three examples there's a common theme: control. Telemarketing is all about pushing out into the market and taking control of the lead generation process.

As I said at the beginning of this post, telemarketing is not fashionable at this time. Read the press and you'd believe that marketing today is only about "permission-based", "online" and "social media".

Google may be great, but if you're selling something that your audience is not looking for (yet) then all the adwords budget in the world will not deliver the leads you need.

Likewise, if you want to break into a competitive market with established, better resourced incumbents then you need to engage before the buying process starts.

In the right circumstances, telemarketing still remains an effective lead generation tactic.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, sales lead generation, telemarketing lead generation

Interesting news from Brand Republic that Blueview has acquired digital agency Glass and B2B telemarketing firm Logicall.

It's looks like a logical (no pun intended) move for Blueview since they're building an agency offering "multi-channel customer management" solutions.

I'm particularly interested in the news because, if you read any of the B2B marketing press for the past 12 months, you'd be forgiven for thinking that telemarketing was dead and everything was about "digital".

Telemarketing still remains and effective part of the B2B marketing mix and, as Blueview seems to believe, if it's integrated with other marketing channels it becomes even more effective.

I believe this will be a trend that continues.

Whether that means further integration with the industry or an expansion of multi-channel services from traditional telemarketing agencies, we'll have to see. Or maybe even both.

I know from our side we are running more email marketing (digital) campaigns backed up with telemarketing. Throw in micro-sites built specific to campaigns and you can see how the two disciplines are becoming more integrated.

As I said, it's certainly a trend that will continue.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, digital marketing, email marketing

I've recently finished reading the excellent Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin.

In his book Seth maps out 14 trends that are shaping the business world and suggests that the winners will be the companies which align their business model with what he calls "New Marketing".

Unsurprisingly, since this book is from the guru of permission marketing, Seth says in the executive summary that Old Marketing tactics such as telemarketing and cold calling "are all in trouble"

I didn't exactly spit out my coffee at that point but it did make me sit up :-)

The thing is that Seth's talking about telemarketing as a "mass marketing" media, since he compares it with Network TV and newspapers.

And in that sense, he's absolutely right.

Mass-market telemarketing, which is typically B2C, is dead. As I've posted about previously (see Ethical Telemarketing Companies? Now I know we're in trouble!) unsolicited cold calling to consumers just doesn't work any more.

But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

Telemarketing can still be extremely effective as a marketing tactic and, in certain situations, can deliver far better results than other, often over-hyped, digital marketing tactics.

As long as it's highly targeted and relevant then outbound telemarketing can not only be effective but it can also be well received (I posted about this a year ago Google ads show us the future of cold-calling).

My view is that telemarketing is already shifting to higher value, more complex sales propositions where it can still deliver a strong ROI.

Will telemarketing ever become extinct as a marketing tactic?

I guess that if it no longer delivers a return-on-investment then the answer's yes. Or if legislation comes out to ban it's use in business-to-business.

At the moment, though, if you need to reach senior decision makers and key influencers in business, high-targeted telemarketing can still deliver.

Labels: b2b marketing, b2b telemarketing, cold calling, social media

Even though I've been in the telesales business for over 20 years (I ran a telesales team back in 1989 for an IT services company), I'm always interested in reading books on the subject. You never know, you just might pick up a real gem of an idea.

Anyway, I was looking Art Sobczak's Telesales Blog and saw a recommended book that's not in my library called Successful Sales Managers Guide to Telephone Sales.

Cool, I thought, let's have a look at this one. But, then, something stopped me dead in my tracks - it was published in 1999!

Now, in some ways, 1999 isn't that long ago. But in the world of telesales it's an eternity.

In a way, the title of the book gives it away - "Telephone Sales".

I was chatting the other day to one of our associates who worked in one of the first telemarketing companies back in the 80's. We were talking about how the game has changed so much in that time.

For a start, there was no voicemail. Not to mention the fact that people were actually happy to chat with you :-) No email. No web.

Today, at some levels within an organisation, you can call all day and not reach anyone. And that's exactly why the tactics that worked in the 80's, and even back in 1999, just don't cut it anymore.

Back in 1999 I was a regional sales manager for a company selling IT solutions for manufacturing (the fact we were selling to manufacturing dates the story for a start!) In those days, you would ask a prospect, "do you have an email address?".

The game has changed.

The description "Telephone Sales" just isn't accurate any more.

Telephone, voicemail and email are all daily tools. Today, we set up as many appointments by email as we do by phone. Social networking sites like LinkedIn and web based research tools have become critical in positioning your approach. Web demos have become the norm for software telesales.

But in a few years time we may be saying... that's so 2009!

Labels: b2b telemarketing, cold calling, social media, telesales

I've noticed a few telemarketing companies have started to brand themselves as an "ethical telemarketing company".

As soon as I saw that I just knew that we're in trouble :-)

I mean, how bad has an industry got to get before your main point of differentiation is that you're "ethical".

Maybe I'm old fashioned but I start from the principal that you should be ethical in business full-stop, not just for the purpose of marketing spin.

It's not just telemarketing either. I recently read a report that said many players in the email marketing business have started to position themselves as the "best practice" specialists.

Best practice? Surely applying best practice should be a fundamental principal of any marketing agency?

Of course, what we're seeing here is what happens to any marketing medium that gets abused.

Go on YouTube and search for telemarketing and you'll see hundreds of videos showing recordings of idiot telemarketers being abused by the general public (all good fun). In B2C telemarketing they effectively broke their own market by over-use, to the point that they are now locked out by TPS and "Do Not Call" registers.

Email's going the same way. If the latest advances in anti-SPAM software doesn't kill it then you can bet some legislation is heading our way.

Can you remember when faxes came out? You'd get into the office in the morning and there'd be a mile of fax paper on the floor. That's why we got the FPS.

Direct marketers love cheap a marketing medium.

Getting back to the point about "ethical telemarketing", to me, I think it's just marketing spin.

There are good and bad companies in any industry. Over time, the good ones grow and the bad ones disappear. Telemarketing, as with email marketing, is one of those areas that is in demand and can be set up with very little overhead (just a phone in the case of telemarketing).

There are clear regulations which should be adhered to in different markets (such as the CTPS register in business-to-business) and I would suggest that most (if not all) telemarketing agencies already do that.

Despite all what I've said about abuse of cheap medium, there will still be a place for telemarketing or telesales. It'll be niche, highly targeted, and integrated with a multi-channel approach that links opt-in lists, email and other web services, but there'll still be a need to speak with prospects.

Can you remember "junk mail"? How much mail do you get through the post now? But guess what, there are still plenty of B2B DM agencies pulling good responses with highly targeted and personalised campaigns.

At the end of the day, ethics are more about the people you're dealing with. And the people who are making the calls on behalf of your company.

Personally, in my experience, when someone feels that they need to tell you they're ethical - it usually means that they're not.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, email marketing, telemarketing best practice

Script or no script? That is one question that I think divides opinions about telemarketing.

If you've read my blog before then it'll be no surprise that I come down firmly on the "No Script" side (see my post "Stop reading & start listening!" as an example).

But there's still a lot of people out there who will tell you that to be successful with telemarketing you need a "killer script". Just google "telemarketing script" and you'll find plenty of people hawking that holy grail.

There are a number of sales trainers that I agree with on almost every aspect of cold calling and prospecting but when it comes down to scripts I just don't buy it.

The thing is, I've never met a seasoned telemarketing professional who actually uses a script.

If you're working with telemarketers in a traditional call-centre (where they've been dragged off the street, sat down in front of a phone and told to start dialling) then a script is probably necessary. For anyone new to telemarketing in fact, it's probably a good starting point as it gives you an idea of the structure of a call. But that's all it should be, a starting point.

Because, if you've ever received a call from someone reading a telemarketing script - I don't need to tell you why they just don't work.

The reality is that anyone who's been prospecting/telemarketing for any length of time (and all our people have at least 10 years cold-calling experience) will tell you that they don't use a script.

However, that doesn't mean that they don't know what they're going to say.

All telemarketing pros start each call with a plan of what they want to get out of it. They've done their homework before they pick up the phone so they understand exactly what they're calling about.

At Maine Associates, we work through a client briefing process so that our people can understand your business, learn the key messaging and positioning and prepare themselves for the campaign.

They'll typically have notes tagged to their monitor or stuck on the wall in front of them; they'll create a cheat-sheet with key points and messages on it. All this preparation means that when they actually speak with a prospect they know exactly what they want to say.

This frees them up to focus on the real job in hand, which is their call plan.

A telemarketing call is just a conversation. And if you know what you want out of the conversation (your call plan) then you don't need to read a script.

You can boil down any telemarketing call to just three steps: get their attention, tell them why you're calling and then ask them for what you want.

I've read many telemarketing scripts and they really do boil down to these basic steps. Sure, they'll be padded with lots of conditional branching, etc but they all follow a similar format. Most telemarketing companies that prepare a script just pull out a boiler-plate and drop in the company name and a copy of "what they do" pulled from a the client's website.

The other thing about each call being a conversation is that there will be a number of questions back and forth. Questions are essentially about qualification; the telemarketer's asking questions to qualify the prospect and the prospect is asking questions to understand if it's of interest.

Which is why you need to really know your stuff, rather than just read it off a script. No amount of branches in a script with cover every twist and turn of a live conversation.

And here's something that every seasoned telemarketer will tell you. After a while (which could be after a few hours or a few days) gradually a "pitch" evolves.

Now, to be clear, a pitch is not a script.

A pitch is basically an approach, an angle, that the telemarketer has found works for them. Two telemarketers could have a completely different pitch and still get results. That's because a pitch is something that comes from within.

When you know your subject matter, know what you want to get out of the call, and have spoken with a number of prospects, a pitch just starts to come together. You begin to notice the words that hit home and start to find a way around the common objections.

All good telemarketing professionals instinctively know when they've got their pitch.

Now, of course, the script brigade will you you that you write down your pitch and then you've got a script to hand over to someone else. But, for me, that's missing the point (plus I still don't think it would work).

Probably one of the main reasons I don't like scripts is that they take away a persons natural talent. It de-humanises the process (both for the telemarketer and their prospect)

I've found that the reason people insist on telemarketers reading their scripts is because they just don't trust them.

In my experience, marketers are the most guilty of this; they usually think that they can write the script best as they know how to write copy. Guess what, a telemarketing call isn't a prospect listening to someone reading sales copy at them.

Telemarketing is all about people.

Teach your people about your business, your value proposition and what qualifies as a lead and then let them get on with it.

By all means, monitor the results early on to speed up learning and help refine the pitch (we have regular conference calls during the first few weeks of any campaign) but, if you're working with experienced telemarketing professionals, trust that they know what they're doing and will develop their own way of making it work.

In the end, you only use a script if you (or your telemarketing company) don't trust the people making the calls.

And if you don't trust them, do you really want them calling your potential clients or customers?

Labels: b2b telemarketing, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company

I was recently interviewed for a podcast on Telemarketing & New Business Development by Michael Beale.

Michael runs a UK training company and, in the past, I've attended a number of his excellent NLP training courses.

Anyway, as a trainer and consultant, Michael found the interview useful to think through the process of starting a telemarketing campaign, so I thought I'd post a link to the podcast and transcript.

You can either download the podcast here or read the transcript of the interview.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, cold calling, new business development

We regularly get asked whether we work on a "pay-per-appointment" or "pay-for-performance" basis for our appointment setting services.

It's worth exploring the subject further to explain our views on this compensation model for appointment setting and why we believe there's a better way.

Pay-per-appointment sounds like the holy grail for most clients.

It appears (at first glance, anyway) as a zero risk option. With the popularity of Google's pay-per-click and other pay-per-lead online offerings it sounds like a no-brainer, right?

Well, like most things in life, it's not that straight forward.

Here are 4 things to consider if you're looking at pay-per-appointment or pay-for-performance appointment setting:

1) Compensation - it's pretty much universally acknowledge that commission-only sales compensation packages have been discredited. Think of all those mis-selling scandals within the pensions sector. It may still exist in the world of double-glazing and time-shares (do you want your business associated with these people?) but elsewhere business has realised that a balanced compensation plan which includes both a basic and performance element is the best way.

Why? The main reason is that performance-only plans motivate people to only be interested in making a short-term sale and encourages manipulative, aggressive and hard-selling tactics (watch the films "Tin Men" and "Glengarry Glen Ross" for more on this).

In the context of pay-per-appointment setting this translates to a boiler-room approach to closing the meeting at any cost.

After all, no meeting means no money so why should they care if they upset a few people? Think about all those arrogant sales people who've cold-called you in the past, pushing for you to agree to something that you weren't interested in and simply ignoring what you were saying just to close the deal. Do you want those people calling your potential clients and representing your company?

2) Quality - OK, so you've got your appointment, the next thing you need to think about is whether it's any good. I've written previously about this (see my post Just what is a qualified appointment?) but it's worth stating again.

A "qualified" appointment means that the person booking the meeting has to apply their skill and judgement to evaluate the quality of the appointment before agreeing to book it. This involves asking qualifying questions and deciding whether the meeting is worthwhile.

If you want a qualified appointment then your appointment setter needs to actually decide to not book some appointments.

When I talk with prospective clients they all want good quality, qualified appointments with senior decision makers. No-one wants to waste their time, do they? So our clients are trusting us to follow a process which includes qualifying out some opportunities before agreeing to book an appointment. If we follow that process correctly, it inevitably means that we may work hard, pitch a number of decision makers and not book any appointments - because they didn't qualify.

Does that make sense?

People pay us to set up qualified appointments. Our performance can be evaluated in a number of ways, one of which is the number of appointments we book, another is the number of decision makers we pitch and qualify, and a third is linked to activity (such as time worked).

We've not got a problem being rewarded on a results-focused basis (all our fees have a performance-based element) but it needs to fairly reflect what we actually do.

3) Pipeline - another thing about pay-per-appointment or pay-for-performance appointment setting is that it only focuses on short-term results at the exclusion of developing a longer term pipeline of contacts.

As I've blogged about many times before (see Is telemarketing a short or long-term investment?) much of the value in a telemarketing campaign comes from developing relationships over a number of touches. In addition, utilising integrated marketing tactics, such as email marketing, seminars, direct mail, etc all add to the overall ROI.

When you pay-per-appointment you really are only seeing the tip of the iceberg and have no visibility of what's below the water line. Pay-for-performance appointment setting companies will not give you any details about who else they've called, the conversations they've had or even what stage other prospects are. You'll get no feedback on future requirements, competitors, review dates, etc.

Any why should you? You're only interested in the appointment, right?

What this means is that while you're only working with the 1% who have agreed to see you, your competitors are building relationships with the 99% who want more info, have future requirements, and generally are not ready right now.

Do you think an appointment setting company is interested in sending your latest piece of thought-leadership collateral? Are they motivated to nurture those relationships so that you're positioned to be invited on the next RFP?

Of course not! You're not paying them to do that, are you?

4) Risk - finally, the most over-looked element of pay-per-appointment or pay-for-performance appointment setting is an appreciation of risk. Most companies consider the model to be zero-risk. But, the reality is that it only eliminates one risk - the risk of paying and getting no appointments.

As we've covered already, there are other risks associated with pay-per-appointment models that are rarely acknowledged.

There's the risk that the person calling is so motivated to book an appointment (if they don't book an appointment they don't get paid, right?) that they'll be aggressive, use manipulative techniques and generally strong-arm the prospect into booking. Or perhaps they may just come across as desperate, booking the appointment for "just 15 mins" in a way that positions your time as worthless.

Remember, as far as the prospect is concerned it's your company calling them. Is that a risk you want to take?

Another risk we've looked at is the risk of wasting your time. How much does it really cost you to attend a sales appointment? Whether you're a sales person or business owner I guarantee that it's more than the cost of making the appointment.

If you get sent on a wild-goose-chase of an appointment that's been squeezed out by a paid-on-results telemarketer it will cost you. Unqualified appointments cost you in many ways, including the fact that while you're kicking your heels in reception, waiting for someone who's in their office wondering why they agreed to see you, you could be seeing someone who does want to buy.

And, finally, there's the "opportunity risk".

I'm talking here about the risk that you're leaving money on the table, letting your competition build relationships which you have no visibility of, and basically having no control of the marketing process.

This latter point about control needs some explanation.

Pay-per-appointment firms generally use their own data. This is typically a well-worn database of contacts that is shared across multiple campaigns for multiple clients.

Have you asked yourself why most of these pay-for-performance appointment setting firms focus on just one sector? It's so they can re-use the data and contacts they have. And if you're going to re-use the data then working exclusively with one company per sector just doesn't make sense.

Let's leave to one side the fact that they will often be calling on behalf of your competitors at the same time as they're working on your campaign; handling competing clients actually allows these firms to leverage their success (ever wondered why your competitor always seems to have signed into the same companies you meet with?)

Anyway, they also use the same data because they're not going to invest in new data just for you, after all, you're only paying for results. And if they're using the same data, after a while they get to know the "usual suspects" who will always see someone for an appointment. That's their low-hanging-fruit, right?

So they go after them first, get you a quick initial flurry of appointments, everything's looking great.

Then, a few months into the campaign, it starts to dry up a little. The number of meetings coming in slows down. The quality is dropping, further still. And all the while time is ticking, targets are getting closer and you're not getting the traction you need.

Why is this?

The reality is that once you get past the low-hanging-fruit and the lucky-you-called-me-today's, there's a lot of graft needed. Activity needs to continue, diligently calling back, sending info, building those relationships.

For the pay-per-appointment firm this is a diminishing return on their time.

Why should they be investing in building a pipeline they're not acknowledged for? Better to move into the next new client and start harvesting that low-hanging-fruit again.

We've worked with clients who come to us after they've been through this process and have spent months spinning their wheels. They can't get any meaningful data, they've had a handful of good, bad, and ugly appointments and now the pay-per-appointment setting firm isn't returning their calls.

Of course, if you've got no money to invest in marketing then pay-per-appointment might be all you can afford in the short-term. Who knows, you might just get lucky and close one deal quick enough to keep paying for more appointments. In my experience, it seldom works out that way.

Or perhaps you've got a hungry sales team of road warriors and you just want to keep them busy. Pay-for-performance appointment setting could be for you. After all, look at the number of meetings and activity targets they're all hitting.

But, surely there's a better model than that?

Over the years we've found it's better to have a fee model that strikes the right balance between fees that ensure focused activity and a performance element linked to revenue generated.

With us you pay some fixed fees (which are significantly below usual day rates of telemarketing companies), plus a % commission on revenue generated from appointments attended.

We believe this model ensures both that activity is focused and that we have a common objective of only delivering qualified sales appointments that don't waste your time.

Labels: appointment setting, appointment setting services, b2b telemarketing, pay-per-appointment

One of the things we're finding in the current economic climate is the need to recalibrate success metrics for telemarketing campaigns. Essentially, we need to re-think the number and type of meetings that can be delivered for a given number of days effort.

Some of this is sector specific and some of it holds true across all sectors.

Generally, if you'd asked any seasoned telemarketer at the beginning of 2008 how many meetings they could book in a day it would roughly equate to 1 per day.

A "deal a day" has been the unofficial benchmark for B2B telemarketing.

And, for clarification, I'm talking about senior level, well qualified meetings, not just a 15-minute coffee that's been squeezed out of a prospect and has a 100% chance of being bounced.

So, what's changed since early 2008?

Actually, you know what's changed; we've entered one of the most severe recessions experienced for decades.

What this means from a telemarketing perspective is that it's become harder to get meetings but, ironically, the meetings are much better quality.

Think about it. When times are good, budgets are plump, people are generally more open to looking at new ideas and exploring new relationships. Bringing in a new agency, consultancy or vendor to pitch their credentials is the norm.

However, when budgets have been cut off at the knees and you're wondering whether you've still got a job (or a business) in the next 3 months, you're going to restrict your time to things that have both a short-term impact or are critically aligned with the business agenda.

This means two things:

Firstly, it's essential that your pitch hits those hot buttons. OK, the time-line may vary depending how strategic your proposition is, but unless it cuts directly to what's on the business agenda right now, it's going to fall on deaf ears.

Secondly, if they are interested, you can bet it's hot one.

People just won't meet you to shoot the breeze at the moment. If they've agreed to see you it's because they need your help.

We're finding that businesses which hit those hot buttons and can deliver a rapid return-on-investment without large capital investment are still getting traction.

Sure, the "one deal a day" rule could now be more like one deal every two or even three days, but if the trade-off is high conversions, shorter-lead times, etc then telemarketing can still be one of the best direct marketing mediums for high-end B2B lead generation.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, telemarketing agency, telemarketing ROI, telemarketing services