Old but gold. That’s what telemarketing is. If you can’t see the beauty that it radiates to your marketing and sales activities, you are definitely missing out on something!
You may just be a few years older or not even born yet during the inception of telemarketing, but it doesn’t mean that it is outdated. In fact, about 60% of marketing managers from Fortune 500 companies expressed that telemarketing is very effective in leads generation and customer outreach.
People who say that telemarketing doesn’t work may be doing their campaigns with methods from the 90s. Well, it actually wouldn’t work during these modern times. That’s why you have to step up your telemarketing game and adopt new techniques to keep up with the ever-changing market environment and consumer behavior.
Now, let’s look at these new telemarketing techniques you can employ to kick off a successful telemarketing campaign.
Use Good Icebreakers
One challenge for telemarketers is to make prospects feel comfortable to talk about themselves and their pain points. Some are hesitant to share valuable information, especially during the first meeting. That’s why building rapport when calling is essential, and an effective way to kick off a great conversation is through icebreakers.
Break the tension or awkwardness with these icebreakers:
- Offer a compliment – about your prospect’s recent achievements like a promotion or a simple observation like being able to pick up the call quickly
- Mention a current event/holiday – could be an upcoming holiday or recent events/news in your prospect’s area, but be mindful because not everyone celebrates the same holidays
- Find a commonality – something similar between you like hobbies, hometown, or school can increase your prospects’ interest and make them more willing to talk
- Showcase your knowledge about a prospect – could be an event they are preparing for or any interesting and relevant information that you’ve discovered from your minor research
Note that it should come out naturally in the conversation. Also learn to personalize your icebreakers and avoid using the same ones for several clients.
Talk Less, Listen More
You have two ears and one mouth for a reason, and that is for you to talk less and listen more to your prospects. You may want to talk about your products/services, but there’s a right time for that. In fact, you’d be more successful in converting leads if you could get them talking about their company, their goals, and the problems they’re facing.
Focusing the conversation on your prospects is how you can gain exclusive information about them and better understand their needs or wants. So, by the time you make your pitch, you can address relevant issues, needs, and goals. And that’s how you can increase the possibility of successfully turning them into customers.
Research beyond Demographic Data
Calling your prospects without knowing anything about them is like going to a battlefield without any weapon. So, if you want to have successful calls, you need to spend time and effort researching your leads, and it should go beyond knowing their basic information like name and job title.
You can widen your research with firmographic data, which is about companies and what they do, and technographic data that presents the software and technologies companies use and their purpose. Having such information helps your telemarketing team prioritize the right prospects and produce more productive conversations, which eventually leads your telemarketing campaign to higher sales conversions.
Help to Sell
Winning over customers is the ultimate goal of your telemarketing campaign, and what best way to achieve it is by helping your prospects along their customer journey.
When dealing with leads, you will go through several calls before you could actually close deals. In these instances, you should be helping your prospects diagnose their pain points, understand their needs, and identify appropriate solutions or actions. If you dwell too much on selling your products/services every time you get in touch with your prospects, they may find you too pushy and eventually get irritated. And you don’t want that for your business. So, keep helping your prospects because that’s how you can add value. Then, sell when they are already sales-ready.
Integrate Artificial Intelligence
You can’t just have the right people in your telemarketing campaign. You also need to accompany them with the right tools and software to maximize their productivity and efficiency. That’s why you have to provide them with the optimal work environment, and integrating Artificial Intelligence in your operations is the way to go.
You might ask, How can AI make a difference?
With the surge of data you have to deal with, AI can give you a competitive advantage as AI:
- sift through mountainous amounts of data and pre-qualify, sort, and hand out leads to agents
- analyze prospects in the pipeline and identify deals with the greatest likelihood to close
- consolidate customer data and update records for Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- gain insights on the time prospects are receptive to sales calls, their interest in the offering, and customer behavior
So, go get moving! Integrate Artificial Intelligence ASAP and provide your prospects with superior customer experiences
Create Multiple Contact Points
There’s this famous saying, “No man is an island,” and ironically, it is applicable to marketing too. With the availability of several communication channels today, one channel alone won’t effectively capture your customers. Your prospective clients expect to reach you at multiple touchpoints, so telemarketing should go along with other channels, such as mobile, web, email, and social, to get your message across to your prospects.
Build a multiple-channel marketing program to provide an immersive experience that can attract your prospects’ attention and stimulate their interest in your offering. It will also help you gain valuable insights into your prospects’ behavior, then use these to modify your approach and curate your pitch according to their needs and wants.
Takeaway
As the world continues to evolve, so does telemarketing, which means that you should too. You can’t expect telemarketing to work if you’re not updating your strategies. You have to continuously lookout for changes and be proactive in adapting to them. As long as you have the right strategies, techniques, tools, and people in your telemarketing campaign, it is highly likely that you will succeed. If you’re developing your campaign right now, refer to the techniques above to level up your game.
