Traditional Telemarketing Vs Smart Long-term Marketing

By Author: Chris Gayle
Total Articles: 5
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The traditional approach to telemarketing is to call, try to get the appointment or lead and move on to the next person. There is nothing wrong with that approach as far as it goes. But that is as far as it goes. What about the prospects on your list you can't reach on the phone that easily because they are always in a meeting or out of the office or they just don't pick up the phone. That group of "difficult to reach" prospects usually makes up 70%-80% of your list. Your net return on that group is going to be 0 if you use a traditional telemarketing approach. And what about the prospects that you do reach on the phone but they are not ready to talk to you yet? That group will make up the majority of the people you do speak with. Realistically you are leaving at least 95% of your list of prospects on the table with a traditional telemarketing approach. That just doesn't make sense. There has to be a smarter way to approach your marketing.
A Smart Long-Term Telemarketing Plan
The basic principle of a smart long-term marketing plan is a) to identify ...
... an appropriate prospect list that includes all prospect companies who you would like to be doing business with, and b) communicate with those prospects consistently and effectively until they are doing business with you. The rule is: whoever builds up the biggest prospect list and communicates with their prospects most consistently and effectively-wins!
There are 2 reasons why you need to communicate consistently with your prospects. First it takes multiple contacts or "touches" to break through to your prospects and move them to the point where they are interested in talking to you. Each contact or touch scores a certain number of points and the points build up cumulatively until you have scored enough points with your prospect to bring them to the stage where they want to talk to you. The second reason to market consistently to your prospects is because of timing. One of the key reasons that your prospects do business with you is because you just happen to hit them with the right offer at the right time. If you are communicating consistently with your prospects, your chances of hitting them at the right time are pretty good.
Powerful E- Telemarketing System:
Phase 1: Preliminary Calling Combined with Email
We will call your prospect list with the main objective of setting face to face or phone appointment leads for you or whatever type of lead you require. We will also obtain as many email addresses as possible of the key decision making contacts when we are not able to reach them directly. A series of email templates (customized with your company logo and signature) will be developed to a) confirm the appointment setting time, b) send information after speaking directly with the contact, and c) send information when we have received permission from the receptionist or assistant. We will get plenty of front-end leads from the initial calling campaign plus hundreds of email addresses for future follow up. You get double value from your campaign!
Phase 2: Monitoring Email Activity and Calling "Hot" Prospects
Professional Prospecting software allows us to see who is opening your emails and how many times they are opening them. We can then zero in Professional Prospecting follow up calls on "hot" prospects. They opened your email for a reason. We are monitoring the email opening activity for the prospects we did speak to as well as the prospects who we could not reach directly on the phone but we were able to obtain their email address from the receptionist or assistant. It makes sense to put in extra calls to reach the prospects who have shown that they are interested in what you have to offer by opening your email, particularly those that have opened your email more than once.

Phase 3: Follow Up Emails and Targeted Calls to "Hot" Prospects
Communicating with your prospects consistently on a long-term basis is the key to winning the marketing battle. Remember that every "touch" scores more points. The more times your prospects see your name and get your message-the more it starts to sink in. And timing is everything! If you are in front of your prospects consistently, you are much more likely to be in front of them at the time when their interest level in your product or service is at its highest. We strongly recommend that you send a weekly or bi-weekly follow up email to your prospect list. We can continue monitoring who is opening the emails and focus Professional Prospecting follow up calls on the "hot" prospects.