Despite being a more traditional form of marketing, telemarketing is actually still an important element of the mix of marketing tools you should be using to reach out to potential customers, including email, social media, direct mail, etc. What makes telemarketing unique from other forms of communication is that it involves direct human-to-human (H2H) interaction, allowing stronger lead and prospect engagement. The more engagement you have with a potential customer, the more opportunity there is to qualify them and eventually close the sale.
Of course, telemarketing isn’t easy, and you can often be met with a lot of rejection. That’s why investing in software for effective B2B telemarketing results can ease the pain of struggling with telemarketing efforts. A sales engagement platform includes tools like queue-based lead routing technology so that sales teams can spend less time searching for prospects and more time on the phone.
The B2B marketing strategies you implement in your business can affect your success in the long run. Properly marketing your businesses using different forms of communication will make it easier for you to stand out from the competition, haul in customers, and create a positive brand in the industry. These milestones can pave the way towards your long-term business success.
You can also implement these other strategies to see significant improvements to your telemarketing efforts.
1. Make Your Goals Realistic
By creating realistic, tangible goals, you’ll be better able to track your progress and measure results. When creating a plan, set doable deadlines and break up more long-term plans into smaller milestones.
If you want to attract more customers with your B2B telemarketing efforts, for example, your goals should be clear and realistic. How many customers do you want to have? How long are you planning to implement such strategy? What are your short-term goals to help you attract more customers?
All of these things are vital to easily determine if you’re making any progress with your B2B telemarketing efforts and assess if changes should be made with your current plans.
2. Telemarketing Should Be a Part of Your Overall Strategy
As already mentioned, B2B telemarketing is just one part of the puzzle. Instead of treating telemarketing as separate to your other marketing initiatives, it should be one channel of many that you use to reach customers.
With the number of businesses prioritizing their marketing today, it’s important that you also do the same. In fact, coming up with a B2B telemarketing strategy should never be considered as an extra or luxury. But, it should be a necessity for your
business.
3. Provide Coaching and Training for Your Team
Instead of waiting for one of your salespeople to underperform, you should be providing coaching and training on the regular. Not only is it a good idea to refresh people’s memory about important sales tactics, but it also increases morale and shows your willingness to invest in them.
There are many training platforms available for employees today, so make sure that you use one that targets your team’s weak areas. Aside from improving your business’s B2B telemarketing efforts, letting your team participate in training and workshop is also a great way to retain them. This can boost their morale and encourage them to work better for your business.
4. Acquire Quality Contact Lists
You can either purchase lead databases or create your own lists using tracking software that can identify your website’s visitors and where they are coming from. Contact lists should never be rented because after a certain amount of time you won’t be able to use them anymore, meaning that you’ll lose nurtured leads.
5. Take Advantage of Sales Scripts
Having a script is great for when sales reps get put on the spot or perhaps even have a forgetful moment. Instead of being read word for word, sales scripts are meant to be a guideline that your sales reps can follow and adapt to.
It’s acceptable to let your team use a sales script at first. But, as they progress, teach them to avoid relying on the document too much. If they already mastered how to talk with customers and convince them to make a sale, then there’s no need to rely on
sales scripts. Relying too much on it can prevent them from actually engaging with their customers.
For instance, with a sales script on hand, they’ll be too busy reading the document that they fail to empathize with the customer.
You can also take advantage of software that auto-generates branching scripts so that sales reps can have a more organic conversation with potential customers. All they need to do is click an option, and the script will generate a response based on what was inputted.
Invest in Your Telemarketing Efforts
By investing in your telemarketing efforts, you can reach more potential customers, generate more leads, and nurture existing relationships. It would be a mistake to underestimate the power of telemarketing, so make sure that you are taking steps to improve your efforts.
