Help and advice with telemarketing.

Telemarketing has numerous business benefits.  It’s a great way of building prospect lists, increasing customer loyalty and winning sales and can be used successfully whether you are a large scale organisation or a small business with limited resources.  Indeed, when telemarketing is employed correctly, it can deliver sales conversion rates much higher than the response rates typically achieved by direct mail.

Indeed, business to business telemarketing is more effective than consumer telemarketing because there is less apathy towards the medium.  Typically, people do not mind taking business sales calls during office hours as much as consumers mind taking sales calls during their free time.

However, all companies undertaking telemarketing must ensure they are abiding by legislation and relevant industry codes of practice.  The laws around telemarketing to businesses have tightened significantly over the past few years and it is essential you are fully compliant or you risk incurring significant penalties.

The Telephone Preference Service (TPS) is aimed at helping companies comply with the law.  It is a service administered by the DMA (Direct Marketing Association), to which consumers and businesses can subscribe should they wish to opt out of sales and marketing calls from any company. 

Businesses who make telemarketing calls must always consult the TPS register to ensure they are not contacting registered individuals.  If a registered individual or company is accidentally contacted, the company doing the contacting is breaking the law and risks court action and a significant fine.

The key to a successful telemarketing campaigns lies in accurate, up to date business data lists which can be checked against the TPS register.  Segmenting your telemarketing list into the most relevant contacts for your products and services is also crucial for ensuring high telemarketing campaign response rates.

Remember, telemarketing is just one marketing tool. For best sales conversions, you should integrate telemarketing with direct mail.  By doing this, the recipient is already aware of your business and your offer and your phone call is warm rather than cold.  If you carry out an integrated campaign, you should make calls within five working days of sending out your direct mail piece; otherwise any benefits are likely to be significantly reduced.

In summary, there are many benefits to telemarketing and any company not employing it as a sales tool would strongly benefit from bringing it into the mix.