Have email and social media replaced the phone as the primary business to business marketing communications channel? Surprisingly, the answer is no. Telemarketing may have changed, but it is still an important competent of an overall marketing campaign. This is especially true if your product requires a complex sale. An email or a tweet are just not going to be enough to generate a sale. To manage the process of the complex sale, personal contact is necessary. Here are five ideas for effective business to business telemarketing.
Build Relationships with Telemarketing
Telemarketing that aims to close a sale in one call is a thing of the past. The appropriate goals of telemarketing today are to generate interest in your product, to educate the customer and to ensure overall satisfaction. Telemarketing, like any good marketing, is about building fruitful relationships.
Use Telemarketing in Conjunction with Other Marketing Tools
Today, there are multiple communications channels available to get your message out to prospects. Content marketing, email nurturing and social networking are all important components of a marketing strategy. They can generate many promising leads. If your product or service involves a complex sales process, eventually someone is going to have to pick up the phone and call these leads. The customer is purchasing a solution to a critical business issue. They are going to want to talk to a live representative about their decision.
Multiple Contacts Are Required for Good Telemarketing
In today’s complex environment, multiple contacts are required to initiate the sales process. There are at three phases involved in moving a prospect to a decision. The first phase involves getting through to a decision maker. There may be any number of screeners and gatekeepers between your marketing team and the decision maker. It may take a number of calls to discover the identity of the real decision maker and to finally connect with this person on the phone. The second phase of contact involves conveying the necessary information about your product or service. This can be done by emailing marketing collateral, though a webinar or by a presentation. Once the decision maker is educated about the product that you offer, the third phase commences. A decision must be made. Each of these phases may involve multiple contacts. It is important for the marketing team to be persistent and to manage the customer relationships in order to eventually close sales.
Learn About Your Prospects Through Telemarketing
In the complex sales process, you are looking for ways that your product solves a critical problem for the prospect. The telemarketing team must learn to ask good questions and listen to the prospect. Doing this identifies the key problems that the prospect is dealing with. This changes the whole dynamic of telemarketing. Instead of looking for a quick sale, your team is solving problems for the prospect. Rather than appear as aggressive salespeople, your team will be seen as helpful experts. Sales will naturally flow from this approach.
Recruit a Great Telemarketing Team
You want to make sure you have a top-notch team to carry out this important task. Whether you outsource the telemarketing or build your own team, you want to make sure that the telemarketers understand your product and have the best training. The goal is to create a team of people who build relationships with prospects through multiple contacts. They should look to solve problems and not just go for the quick close.
Telemarketing is not dead. It is an invaluable part of marketing for the complex sale. If you take the right approach to telemarketing, you will see rewards.
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