Sunday, May 22, 2011

Why Telemarketing Remains the Unsung Hero of Lead Generation

By Kathy Tito

Denise Clancey is a true luminary in the field of telesales and telemarketing. She is the former Vice President of Telesales & Customer Service at Lotus Development, a subsidiary of IBM. In this position, her organization delivered $151 million in sales from corporate customers in addition to managing one million plus Customer Service inquiries. She also established a successful Small Business Sales organization that was responsible for bringing in $32 million in new business its first full year of operation, 100% via telephone.

Today Denise runs her own firm to help organizations launch, re-engineer, or re-claim the management of their telesales and telemarketing organizations. Unlike many sales professionals that represent their own consultancy, you won’t find Denise tweeting, liking, posting, or promoting her latest adventures online (gasp!). So let’s start with that curious point.

The Bootstrap: Denise – how do you live without a constant stream of social media pouring from your keyboard? Surely your client roster must be down to zero at this point (I’m being facetious of course!). Or are you making a statement, intentional or otherwise, about the tele-industry?

Denise: Okay, I admit that I am a telephone zealot. I would rather make a call than write a paragraph (surprising statement from English major). That said, though, I do live with a healthy dose of social media. I have my favorite sites, I follow my favorite experts, and, occasionally, when I feel like I have something to add, I will.

More often than not, I respond to requests for referrals, candidates, and suggestions…any way I can link requests from business associates with the talent that I know and information that would be useful. I like to make connections and social media, in its many forms, allows me to do that quickly and easily. As for the lack of abundance of posting and blogging from my computer, no statement, intentional or unintentional. I just would rather pick up a phone than spend time editing my writing.

The Bootstrap: You’ve got some weighty bullet points on your list of achievements as a corporate executive with Lotus/IBM. Frankly, this is why you were approached for this interview. Do you think that companies can achieve the same efficiencies you brought to your telesales organization today, with the variety of marketing channels that have entered the scene? How does a sales organization reconcile all of the options?

Denise: One of my first jobs at MCI had me running a B2B telemarketing team, reporting to the head of Direct Marketing who reported to the VP of Marketing. I cut my teeth on marketing clusters and verticals. From the beginning, I saw the value of leveraging and integrating many marketing and sales channels in support of the customer relationship and the sale. And, although most of my corporate titles said ‘Telesales’, ‘Inside Sales’, and ‘Customer Service’, a key success factor was my departments’ ability to coordinate with the marketing programs that made the initial contact and with the Field Sales team that may be involved in the larger deals long term.

The key to coordinating and leveraging these channels is to test, determine the best ones to use (cost vs. results vs. effort) and to be sure to connect them tightly. Just as it is a waste of time and money to launch a direct mail campaign without determining the follow-up, it is also a waste of time to invest in cold calling if you are not in a position to capture the information on every call, assign them to a communication path, and stay in touch, consistently.

Just as it is a waste of time and money to launch a direct mail campaign without determining the follow-up, it is also a waste of time to invest in cold calling if you are not in a position to capture the information on every call, assign them to a communication path, and stay in touch, consistently.

I often encourage prospective clients to test and leverage inbound and direct mail before they invest in telemarketing. These can be lower cost providers of leads and inquiries. Once these are in place, telemarketing is the obvious channel for ongoing correspondence.

The Bootstrap: How is tele-management (on every level) at your client firms dealing with the online media phenomenon?

Denise: Online media means different things to different clients. My larger clients tend to have a plan in place (or being formulated) with the right focus and resources to match. These larger companies tend to organize online under Marketing or Customer Operations. In larger clients, the work is to coordinate the calling with online Marketing just as Telemanagement would coordinate with other Marketing channels.

For smaller clients, it is a whole different ballgame. Many of my smaller clients are just dipping their toe in the online world and, often, Telemarketing plays a frontline role. In these cases, the prospect and customer will likely be using online information to form an opinion about the client.

A cold call results in the savvy prospect pulling up the client’s website in the moment or ‘Googling’ the client to see what appears. It is important for the Telemarketers to see what the prospect sees…and to see it before the prospect does. I encourage these clients to brief their Telemarketers early and often and to build company searches (for their prospects as well as searching their own company name) into the Telemarketers’ prep time. Just as a good Telemarketer will search for information about their prospects before picking up the phone, a good Telemarketer will also search for information about their own company and how it is represented online. Management is well served by keeping up on the news and allowing their Telemarketers to do the same.


The Bootstrap: When you are working with a telemarketing team, are they being supported by systems that facilitate information distribution via email? What are some popular solutions you are seeing?

Denise: Everyone is using email, more often than not, the standard bearers (Constant Contact, Exact Target, Vertical Response). Smaller companies look to Emma for their solution. Some are taking a more comprehensive approach using tools like Marketo and Eloqua. For those want to combine sales efforts with prospect responses, Amacus delivers a solution that delivers a ‘digital sales assistant’.


The Bootstrap: Are there any recent case studies that you’d like to mention where you’ve seen organizations really hit the ground running with their telemarketing, and surprise everyone with the results. What were some of the driving forces?

Denise: A recent client had great success with opening up a new market using teleselling. They decided to launch their effort using an outsourced telemarketing partner and bring the team in house when they decided that they had the right formula in place.

The key to their success was their willingness to jump in head first and be willing to make changes quickly and often. The project was intense to start. It meant my client had to be available to respond frequent inquiries from the Telesales Reps and to participate in daily reviews. From these reviews, we were able to develop a plan and methodology for selling their services by phone.

It took about 60 days to get things to the point where we felt we had a workable go-to-market strategy but it was well worth it. Within six months, the team was hitting its number. By the end of the year, my client decided to staff it in-house and continue to use the outsourced partner to develop leads.

The most significant aspect of this client’s success was their willingness to get started, to test assumptions and make changes as needed. Don’t wait to get it perfect before you start.

The most significant aspect in a client’s telemarketing success is their willingness to get started, to test assumptions and make changes as needed. Don’t wait to get it perfect before you start.

The Bootstrap: Do you feel that overall, a telemarketing investment is the most reliable method to fill a sales pipeline with qualified leads, in the shortest term possible?

Denise: Telemarketing is the quickest way to fill your pipeline and to understand what the market is saying about your products and services and about your competitors. It can stand alone as a lead generator but is more effective if combined with inbound marketing and direct marketing.


The Bootstrap: As you know, some firms are not able to make sales or marketing investments in equivalent proportions across all platforms. Which “new media” practices present an opportunity to fortify the lead generation process when used in conjunction with telemarketing? For example, email, blogging, twitter, websites/landing pages, twitter, or video.

Denise: I agree, there are so many options out there. Some would argue too many.

The single best piece of advice that I was given and that I, in turn, give clients is to identify a few platforms that work well for your company and to execute them consistently and unfailingly.

Direct Marketing and Telemarketing are ripe for testing to determine what works. One of the keys to this is to clearly understand not only what it takes to launch a communication channel but also to identify what it takes to manage and maintain that channel over time. It is the managing and maintaining where many of my clients make the brilliant choice to engage outside services.

One of the keys to this is to clearly understand not only what it takes to launch a communication channel but also to identify what it takes to manage and maintain that channel over time. It is the managing and maintaining where many of my clients make the brilliant choice to engage outside services.


The Bootstrap:
Telemarketing – primary pipeline driver for the foreseeable future?

Denise: Telemarketing can be a primary pipeline driver. Or it can complement a full cycle marketing communication plan. If you don’t know where to start and don’t have a reliable list, purchase a list, create a prospecting script, and start cold calling. The right telephone approach can identify prospects, isolate target companies and industries, and create a prospect database that can support inbound & outbound marketing and sales.


The Bootstrap:
Why is telemarketing often misunderstood as “too expensive” or questioned – “do people really respond to that?”

Telemarketing gets a bad rap because people often conjure up images of having been interrupted at home. These experiences overshadow their experience with B2B telephone sales calls, which can be welcomed, if they are well-timed and well-run.

Denise: People do respond to telemarketing and teleselling. Telemarketing gets a bad rap because people often conjure up images of having been interrupted at home. These experiences overshadow their experience with B2B telephone sales calls. Business people are appreciative of well timed and well managed telesales calls. A knowledgeable Telesales person calling with a solution for the customer is a welcome call.

Just as Telemarketing can be the low cost provider for selling, it can also be an expensive investment. It all goes back to testing and coordinating the communication plan.

The results speak for themselves. The industry is thriving and, for the savvy business leader, it is an integral part of their company’s overall marketing and sales mix.

Kathy Tito, President and Founder of New England Sales & Marketing, conducted this interview. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to either post them here, contact her directly at (978)387-0999, or email her. Her blog is: http://www.bootstrapb2bmarketing.com/