What Is Telemarketing And Why It’s Still Important In The Digital World

Businesses use telemarketing as a means of generating leads, making sales and performing other marketing activities to connect and interact with their customers over phone calls.

Formerly it only meant calling prospects to sell their products or services. But nowadays, it has evolved with video conferencing calls, for a more interactive session between a salesperson and a potential or existing customer.

With the invasion of digital marketing, traditional marketing tactics like telemarketing have been replaced by social media and content marketing.

People are no longer interested in receiving these calls and they also have the means to ignore and block them altogether. Additionally, they can shop online, which makes the whole premise of telemarketing redundant.

But despite the criticism, cold calling still has its advantages. It can prove useful as a tool for nurturing leads and prospects and building high-quality databases. While it can be very annoying to receive calls from strangers compelling you to buy things, modern B2B tools make telemarketing a more exact science.

So no wonder that over half of the B2B marketers still use telemarketing for effective lead generation and term it as one of the most productive tactics to generate sales.

What Is Telemarketing?

The word telemarketing brings to mind all those infuriating and inconvenient calls requesting us to buy things we don’t need.

However, it has proven to be a handy tool for businesses that have limited budgets for promoting their products and services. When incorporated with other marketing tactics, telemarketing can prove to be very effective at hitting the right notes for your marketing campaign.

Inbound telemarketing consists of taking queries or order calls generated through advertising, direct mail or any other marketing channel. On the other hand, outbound telemarketing directly targets the customer to sell products or services – cold calling.

Why Is Telemarketing Used?

Telemarketing is either used as an independent tactic or in combination with other marketing strategies to help organizations achieve their sales target.

It is not only used to pitch products and services to customers but also as a tool for lead generation, advertising campaigns, B2B sales and event promotions.

Following are some uses of telemarketing:

Selling

60% of marketing managers of Fortune top 500 companies testify to the effectiveness of telemarketing when it comes to reaching out to customers and closing sales.

Telemarketing is used by companies to sell their products or services and tap into new markets and customer bases.

The satisfaction of existing customers is just as crucial to a business as the contentment of prospective buyers – telemarketers ensure that both get the attention they require and address their queries.

Generating Leads

Telemarketing can play a huge role in creating leads and a new customer base. Through this tactic, an organization can reach out to potential customers and compile the lists of new prospects.

The telemarketers then pass these updated lists to the sales teams who can reach these customers to generate sales. They also identify the nature and requirements of the prospective customer and relay this information to the sales force.

Following up after closing a sale is also a critical aspect of the telemarketer’s job because a follow up with the generated leads can increase sales opportunities by 20%.

Conducting Surveys And Compiling Information

Telemarketing can be an efficient tool in analyzing the success of any marketing or sales campaign.

Telemarketers get in contact with customers to gather reviews and gauge levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction and relay it to the marketing team for analysis.

Studies show that 17% of the average day for a salesman is spent in entering customer’s data. Compiling this information can then be used to target the prospective clients for the next marketing campaign or help in reconnecting with inactive clients and winning them back.

Enhancing Customer Experience

Connecting with inactive clients can prove to be more cost-effective than acquiring new clients. Studies have shown that it costs five times more to gain a new client than to retain the past one.

Telemarketing can really help ensure a satisfactory customer experience.  The prospective and existing customers must be treated as acquaintances rather than customers because empathy is what counts at the end of the day.

Telemarketing In The Digital Age

Telemarketing has been an effective marketing tool for ages, but with the intrusion of digital marketing and technological advancements, it has taken the back seat.

Many stigmas surround telemarketing in today’s world due to cold calling or agencies that are more focused on the number of dials rather than the quality of calls and sales.

But time and again, it has been proven that even with the presence of social media, search engines and other digital marketing tools, nothing can beat the value-driven from a one-on-one conversation with a customer.  Such personalized exchanges are essential to generate leads and make sales.

The telemarketers of today use technology to make their job more engaging and effective. That’s why telemarketing is predicted not just to remain relevant but also thrive in the coming years.

Advantages Of Telemarketing In Today’s Digital Era

If you want to increase your business’s sales and boost revenues while keeping costs low, telemarketing is the solution to your dilemma.

It is a valuable marketing tool that enables you to strike a personal connection with your consumers so that you can better understand their requirements. Furthermore, it offers a multitude of benefits that drive your business towards success.

Following are some advantages of a good telemarketing strategy:

Deploy Marketing Automation

When telemarketers gain the ability to track behavioural trends and engagement levels of the prospects, they earn an in-depth understanding of how to better cater to their needs.

Market automation lets them nurture prospects and all their interests during a personal contact – this ensures that the call is no longer cold but in fact, quite timely and appropriate.

When powered by marketing automation technology, a telemarketing campaign can bring in more inquiries and qualified leads than ever before.

Strengthen Quality Leads

The most significant advantage of telemarketing is its ability to generate leads which is the primary objective of businesses and companies.

It has proven to be the fastest way of securing new customers by allowing the companies to communicate with potential customers who cannot be reached by the company. Lead generation is all about searching for the right customers whom many companies are unable to find and fail at a good telemarketing strategy.

Saves Extra Costs

Choosing to telemarket over other marketing strategies is a great way to promote your business cost-effectively.

It saves you from the hassle of allocating a budget for door-to-door sales teams. You can also outsource the marketing process to other telemarketing companies who can do the legwork for you and give you an advantage over your competitors.

This further allows the company to control its budget objectives while leveraging its marketing activities to the max.  

Friendly And Accessible

Telemarketers are required to engage the customers, and to do this they must be cordial yet professional towards them.

A friendly and approachable demeanour compels the customer to listen to you before they decide to take your offer. This helps you to tap out maximum potential from the art of telemarketing.

Warm Calling

Cold calling can be very aggressive and might elicit negative reactions from your customers.

But thanks to digitally-powered marketing automation programs, telemarketers can now indulge in warm calling. This means following up when they have any query or complaint instead of calling them to sell your product or service.

This will compel your customer to listen to you and might lead to a prospective generation of sales.

Work Smarter

Businesses networking sites like LinkedIn let telemarketers become the authority on lead generation. They can use professional networking resources to ensure the quality of all their leads so that they know who they are talking to and whether they are the right contact.

This makes telemarketing more efficient and effective, giving marketers all the information they need to find and nurture strong leads.

Prompt Feedback

The most crucial benefit of telemarketing is that it allows you to conduct surveys and collect feedbacks to measure the success of your campaign.

This creates a bond between the consumer and the company and maximizes direct communication, which enables the consumer to convey their questions and problems about the company’s product or services.

In Conclusion

Telemarketing continues to thrive in this digital age, despite the bad perceptions that surround it.

It has found its uses in generating leads, while also selling and driving revenue for a business. The effectiveness of telemarketing in this digital world lies in the level of personalization and exclusivity that it offers to the customers.

Telemarketing not only generates leads and sales for the company, but it is also an efficient way of keeping in touch with customers who provide regular feedback for the company’s products and services. This allows the business to take constructive criticism and improve their services.

Apart from this, it can also prove to be very cost-effective for businesses that have limited marketing budgets but want to generate maximum results from their campaigns.

These advantages testify to the fact that telemarketing is beneficial for businesses and companies even with the influx of digital marketing. Nothing can replace the power of one-on-one conversations with customers.