A well executed business to
business telesales campaign
should still be the centre piece
of any marketing mix, even in
2010. It's still the only form
of marketing at your disposal
that does not rely on the
prospects actively taking action
to make contact with you. It
does not matter if you deploy
tried and tested marketing such
as direct mail, public
relations, advertising, events
or look to technological
advances in email marketing,
online marketing, social media
etc, they all rely on the
prospect having already
identified their potential
interest / need for your
solution and then they make
contact. They also all rely on
significant budgets and long
periods of time to gather
critical mass, before your
prospect automatically thinks
about you, when they feel they
need a solution.
Telesales is unique, it allows
you to proactively contact your
ideal prospects and engage in an
intelligent two way
conversation. During the
conversation you can establish
their pains, their challenges,
demonstrate your products
benefits and reinforce your
offering by using past case
studies. The critical difference
between telesales and other
forms of marketing is the
prospect need not have any
knowledge of your company or
solution 5 minutes earlier to
agree to a sales meeting.
However, telesales needs to
adapt and move away from the old
image of thumbing through any
old list and mechanically
pitching to as many people as
possible. To be successful at
telesales in 2010 you have to
adapt and use new tools. Here
are the 3 quick and easy
techniques to bring your
telesales into the 2010's.
Integrating email marketing and
telesales.
Did you know that integrating
email marketing and telesales
can increase telesales
productivity between 25% - 75%?
Telesales reps are now able to
access real-time results of
prospects opening and clicking
through to websites from most
email marketing solutions. The
telesales rep in 2010 can call a
prospect while they are still
reading the original email and
start a conversation on subjects
that are relevant to the web
pages they have just been
visiting.
Integrate your CRM, data
acquisition and prospect
profiling.
It is now possible to save
enormous volumes of time in
identifying contact details and
prospect profiling. Applications
instantly download information
direct into your CRM about
individuals and the company that
would have taken an inordinate
amount of time if gathered by
any other means. This not only
increases the time spent
actually targeting prospects by
the telesales rep in 2010, but
also provides better information
to the telesales rep so they can
adapt their conversation to the
company and individual they are
speaking too.
Build Social Media links then
use it to the max.
The explosion of social media
has enabled the telesales rep in
2010 to actually see the
networks they live within.
Everyone is forging links
between one another and with the
popularity of sites such as
LinkedIn.com we are now able to
see who knows who, past
employment and what they are
currently doing. This insight
allows a telesales rep in 2010
to bring existing relationships
into their conversation. This
means the telesales rep in 2010
can gain better access to target
prospects and improve the
effectiveness of calls to
arrange sales meetings. This new
network knowledge can uncover
people your prospect knows,
mutual contacts, past and
present colleagues etc. All
these relationships can be
levered into conversations to
great effect.
The telesales rep in 2010 has a
completely different profile
from the past. They are using
every possible piece of
information at their disposal to
hold unique conversations with
their prospects and drawing upon
more and more sources of
information. The telesales rep
in 2010 will keep telesales at
the centre of your marketing
mix. Those that do not change
will lose this valuable
marketing tool forever.
Source: Vincent
Rogers
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