The days of telemarketing consisting of rooms full of inexperienced people following a script and contacting prospects at random are long gone. Telemarketing is no longer a dirty word in the world of sales, in fact, it’s a $27 billion industry.
Specialised B2B sales are one of the many areas that have jumped on telemarketing, given its huge potential to reach global prospects who would typically be difficult to infiltrate. The popularity of telemarketing has been compounded since the global shift away from face-to-face to digital interaction that COVID-19 spurred.
Despite being in a new era of telemarketing, we often hear prospective clients asking questions stemming from the negative perception which has built up over the years; ‘Isn’t it just cold calling?’, ‘How will your team know our product like we do?’, ‘Isn’t telemarketing off-putting to our potential clients?’
We know from experience that telemarketing offers so much more than people perceive. Yes, it is hard work, but it is one of the most fruitful and rewarding lead-generation sources. Here’s 5 reasons why specialist B2B organisations use outsourced telemarketing and why you should too:
1. Make it personal with better response rates than email alone.
Unscripted phone calls by highly trained, highly skilled callers are worth their weight in gold. It’s more than a formulaic exchange, it’s valuable conversations with prospective customers that not only gain market insight but feedback on commonly heard objections and questions that decision-makers might have about your product. Specialist telemarketing organisations focus on a particular industry or niche, allowing them to develop expertise about the marketplace overall as well as your specific competitors. All this meaningful data allows a better understanding of your target audience and together, a well-planned, successful campaign with true ROI.
2. Flexible scalability.
Outsourcing lead generation means that you avoid the need to scale internal headcount. This is particularly important in the uncertain times we’re operating in and means it’s easy to flex up and down based on business needs. If you have a new product launch you can easily invest in targeted campaigns or develop your strategy based on seasonality or industry peaks and troughs. Outsourcing gives flexibility that you just can’t get otherwise.
3. Telemarketing expertise at your fingertips.
Your internal sales teams are experts in closing, but they might not be experts on the phones. There are very specific skills required to build relationships through telemarketing; it’s all about building rapport, getting past gatekeepers, assessing needs, and overcoming objections, all in a limited timeframe. Specialist telemarketers don’t just jump onto the phones. At Gungho, each one of our team completes 16 weeks of initial training and enters an ongoing learning and development programme.
4. Quality, up-to-the-minute data.
You might have a list of prospects and a stack of business cards but how do you target the right people? Outsourced telemarketing companies often boast millions of contacts, which might sound impressive, but considering quality is the most important factor when it comes to data and successful lead generation. At Gungho we’ve developed the world’s largest Legal, Risk and Compliance dataset which is completely unique and cleansed by 140+ team members weekly. We don’t hold filler accounts that inflate our contact numbers; we know that our dataset is compiled exclusively of decision-makers and buyers. Replicating a dataset like ours would be very expensive and time-consuming which leads us to our last point….
5. It’s more cost-effective.
This can feel counter-intuitive if you only focus on the investment needed to outsource, however, when you weigh up the money wasted trying to replicate the expertise of specialists, the investment pales in comparison. Time and time again, the data shows that outsourced lead generation through telemarketing is cheaper than in-house teams. To do this effectively, when considering the people, data, tech and experience needed, it will on average cost approximately £1000 per appointment to replicate what an outsourced agency can offer.
