Where does Telesales fit into your sales and marketing process?

First, let me thank you for taking the time to read my first blog in over 5 months!

If you have been following our progress and company updates recently you will see that we have been ridiculously busy! However, with that being said I wanted to make a very quick blog and ask the questions in the process of “where does telesales fit into to your sales and marketing process”

2020 has been a rollercoaster! Between lockdowns and unclear restrictions, it’s safe to say everyone is now just trying to see the light at the end of a very long and dark tunnel. As a business, Excel has quadrupled in size and each month we have seen a steady increase in clients and revenue which is great but I’m amazed at the number of prospects and contacts that haven’t looked at their business development for the rest of the year and 2021.

There are several ways that we look to generate new business for the company which is outside of the old-fashioned way of “cold calling”, such as.

• Social Media
• Trade shows
• Seminars
• Podcasts

There are many others that people use, each one being a different way for businesses to gain exposure and explain what they do.

So, with that being said…

Does the telephone still have a role to play when it comes to Business-to-Business marketing and lead generation? 

Firstly my favourite way of generating new business is still the old-fashioned way of picking up the telephone and having a conversation.

We live in a world where you now learn how to use a computer or mobile before learning to talk properly, shocking but true!

It is no surprise that there are more and more posts declaring that

“Cold Calling is dead” and that selling through social media is going to be the only future in the sales and marketing process.

I agree that that social media is a great tool, I use it daily and I have recently completed a level 4 diploma in social media marketing.

This post was a simple way to share my own experiences with you and explain why I think the telephone and more importantly cold calling is still one of the most important and effective tools in Business 2 Business lead generation and sales.

1, Lead Generation

It might sound obvious putting this as number 1, but I feel it should be here to help everyone remember that it is one of the original solutions used to help companies grow and sustain.

Telemarketing starts with a desire to sell a company’s products or services, if you sell into a defined target market then you are more likely to be successful.

The normal flow after identifying your target audience is to gain a desire from your prospect and when your leads are cold it usually means your prospects will not be expecting your call at all.

This means that your ability to listen and identify key buying signals must be even greater than that of a follow-up call.

From there, your goal is to build a relationship, identify a sales opportunity and arrange an appointment. This is where the process can ultimately fail. Excel has an incredibly strong ethos - Quality over Quantity!

It sounds so obvious, but it’s commonly forgotten, maintaining quality means identifying certain key points before scheduling a meeting or generating a lead:

• Why are we seeing this prospect?
• Where do our services fit in?
• What is the need?
• How can we help?

Appointment setting is still one of the most valuable and important exercises for any business.

2, Inbound Lead’s

How many junk emails do you receive daily?

How many emails do you receive that are relevant or make you sit up and pay attention?

When it comes to managing your inbound enquiries, you need to be certain that the prospect has a genuine interest and more importantly a need.

Managing your inbound emails and identifying them as a genuine lead is critical to a company’s success, not following up on these leads in the right way means your business could be losing money.

I do not necessarily mean the money that the prospect might be looking to spend with you straight away but what about the money you have spent driving that traffic to you?

These marketing activities can come from any number of sources but if you have been waiting for a response of some sort then why delay it any further?

This could be viewed as a warm lead, but we don’t want to get carried away by that. You could in fact be 1 of 3 companies that provide a service your new prospect is looking for.

When we receive an inbound lead at Excel we make sure the necessary steps are taken to identify them as a warm lead:

• How are they relevant?
• Why have they contacted us?
• What is the need?
• How can we help?

The point I’m making is that telemarketing can amplify your return on investment from your other marketing channels, the last thing you want to do is waste your hard work from initial marketing by not picking up the phone and completing the marketing jigsaw.

3, Social Media Follow up

Social Media is everywhere, whether it's professional or personal we can’t escape it.

I am a firm believer that different platforms attract different audiences, the likes of Facebook and Instagram normally attract people that want to work for you whilst Twitter and more importantly LinkedIn attract those prospects that want to work with you.

At Excel, we are very active on Social Media and we post regularly, we try and break the mould when it comes to posting the same message every day and with that, we find that people see our human side.

But here is the big question….

How many times do you actively follow up with someone that has liked a post on your Social Media with a phone call??

Back in June, Excel decided to run a LinkedIn marketing campaign and found it was being liked by several prospects that I had struggled to speak with, normally people like to send out mailing shots after they have some interest but why do that?

Something we published had attracted them, the money we had spent on this campaign had brought them to us, why send another email?

After discussing what has brought these prospects to Excel, we were able to identify:

·     How are services could help

·     Where telemarketing fitted in with their needs

·     Why they were attracted to a construction-specific telemarketing company

At Excel TM Group we believe in exploring different marketing channels and we are huge advocates of using social media to promote our different services. We back up each of these with targeted call campaigns, this has provided measurable success and helped increase the ROI from all our marketing projects.

Telemarketing has often been called the grunt work of sales and can receive an unfair reputation. However, at Excel, we are working to break the mould and build long-lasting relationships with our team and clients. Our aim is to be the most transparent and quality-driven construction-specific lead generation and telemarketing partner available.

If you would like to know more or have any questions on the services provided, please get in touch today.

Thank you for reading.

Mike Dunn

Managing Director