Written by “The marketing of goods or services by means of telephone calls, typically unsolicited, to potential customers” – that’s what the dictionary says.
It seems like a pretty simple question, doesn’t it? And it also seems like a pretty straightforward answer – it’s marketing through the phone, right?
If you look at stock images of telemarketing, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s entirely about people smiling while wearing headsets, with a few good thumbs up shots for good measure.
Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. At least, it is if it’s done well. And let’s not forget that a lot of people don’t see much of a difference between telemarketing and telesales. So, let’s start there…
What’s the difference between telemarketing and telesales?
Telesales seems like a bit of an old-fashioned term these days. Although, there are plenty of people who use both terms interchangeably, to the point that telemarketing has become a bit of a blanket phrase for the both of them.
Telemarketing is a way to generate interest in your product or service, make appointments with prospects, share information, and generate leads.
Telesales, on the other hand, is a way of selling your products or services directly to the customer by phone.
So, if you’re setting up appointments, that’s telemarketing. If you’re taking card details and signing people up to your service, that’s telesales.
What does it matter?
Often, when people thing negatively about telemarketing, they’re thinking about telesales. The high-pressure tactics to get you to part with your money, the lack of time to think and evaluate whether or not this is something you want, the incessant calls to wear you down – that’s the sales side (we should point out that not all telesales are like this, but those that are give everything about the industry a bad name).
This kind of perception puts people off telemarketing as a whole – why would you want your business associated with these sorts of tactics and activities? But when you understand the difference, you can start to see that the marketing side of the industry is a very different prospect.
So, how is telemarketing different?
Telemarketing is not about pressuring people to buy, or hounding them until they give in, or shady tactics to get a yes. It’s about finding qualified leads who have a need for what you offer. There’s no point making call after call to the same person if we know they’re not the right lead.
Instead, it’s about finding the leads that need your services. It’s about talking to people, finding the right people in an organisation, and finding out if we can help them. It’s about sharing how they’d benefit from having a conversation, and getting that conversation booked in with the right person from your organisation.
Telemarketing (when it’s done right) isn’t there to get as many people booked in for meetings as possible – that just wastes the time of your sales team. It’s there to get qualified leads – leads that have an opportunity to convert into paying customers. So, there’s no point in the high pressure stuff, because that just gets a load of appointments on the books with no chance of closing any of them (frankly, most of them won’t even show up).
What else does telemarketing do?
- Creates a reliable source of data, enhancing your CRM with the right contacts for further marketing and sales activity (no more buying data that’s unreliable or outdated)
- Presents your brand to people who don’t yet know about you, increasing awareness even in those who aren’t yet ready to buy
- Frees up the time of your sales team to focus on closing rather than generating leads
- Qualifies and, as importantly, disqualifies contacts to streamline your activities
- Creates a pipeline of current opportunities to pursue
- Creates a pipeline of future opportunities – if prospects are in contract with another company, you’ll capture that information and be ready to reach out when their contract term is nearing its end
- Provide stronger appointments that are more likely to show up
- Identify gatekeepers and blockers in your target organisations so you can develop a plan
- Adapt and respond to market conditions and prospect needs to convert calls into appointments
Can we do it in-house?
Telemarketing is a skill. It takes a lot to be able to handle how often you hear the word “no” on a daily basis. And generating the people skills required to create valuable appointments and adapt as necessary doesn’t come quickly.
So, if you want in-house telemarketing, you’re going to need to hire an experienced team – there’s no point just sticking a few people on the phones for a little while and hoping for the best.
Or, you could give us a whistle and find out how we could help.