Telemarketing has outlived a wide variety of marketing strategies. It continues to be a priority for many businesses when it comes to keeping in touch with your customers, retaining those customers, and developing relationships with target markets. However, launching a successful telemarketing lead generation campaign takes time and planning.
How to Identify your Telemarketing Lead Generation Goals:
The first step in setting up a successful telemarketing lead generation pilot program is to know which metrics to measure and the goals you’re trying to reach.
What goals are you looking to accomplish by outsourcing Telemarketing Lead Generation?
- Are you looking to drive new sales?
- Test a new market or customer segment?
- Launch a new product?
- Augment your internal teams’ pipeline?
- Looking to reduce costs?
How do you define success of Telemarketing Lead Generation?
To make sure your expectations are articulate and can be clearly communicated, have a solid understanding of what you’d consider to be a successful telemarketing lead generation pilot. Here’s a few things to consider:
- Forecast different models and predict various outcomes given the factors that make up your goals
- Be open to feedback on the models
- Know the ideal duration of the test
- Understand the capabilities of the outsourcing partner
Outline your Telemarketing Lead Generation pilot program strategy
Once you have decided to launch a telemarketing campaign, you need to transition into the planning phase. A good telemarketing lead generation campaign plan should outline the details and scope of the campaign. This will allow everyone involved to clearly understand what the campaign will affect and how it will work.
Developing a solid telemarketing strategy is imperative if you want to expand your market reach, bring on new customers, and increase annual revenue.
Using a Telemarketing Lead Generation company will allow you to focus on your core business while maintaining your productivity and competitiveness, among other advantages. Hiring an outsourced call center service provider for telemarketing lead generation also requires a leap of faith. For the risk-averse, the questions and doubts can be overwhelming. Don’t forget the common-ground question; when you hire any company to help grow your business… here are a few:
- Will the outbound call center be effective?
- Will I like the way the call center’s representatives talk with potential customers?
- Is outsourcing worth the risk?
- What if I don’t want to make a long-term commitment to an untested call center?
Pilot programs
The best way to address these concerns is to start with a scaled-down telemarketing lead generation pilot project. Another way to look at a pilot is a ‘test drive’ of the capabilities. Not only will you get to test your outsourced call center’s capabilities, but you also will be minimizing your financial risk. It is also a great way to hold your call center accountable for producing solid results.
Considerations for Successful Telemarketing Lead Generation Pilot Programs
Launching a successful telemarketing lead generation pilot project is a balancing act. Many factors influence the success of any telemarketing lead generation pilot.
- It should be small enough to minimize your financial risk yet large enough to test the call center’s skills and abilities accurately.
- It should give the call center’s representatives enough experience with your sales pitch and message that they become confident, proficient, and conversational when delivering them.
Execute the telemarketing lead generation strategy
A well-executed telemarketing lead generation pilot project has two critical and interrelated elements: reporting and mid-course corrections.
Reporting for Telemarketing Lead Generation Programs
Once results start to come in, you and your call center services program manager must analyze the data and make real-time program adjustments that refine and enhance your messaging, target audience, and other program elements.
Doing this requires detailed and quick reporting. Having data at your fingertips about every call will allow you to assess the call center’s productivity as well as the number of calls that resulted in new leads, appointments, completed surveys, rejections, or no contact made.
Mid-course corrections
Meet with your team of representatives and ask for their impressions of the calls, what seems to be working and what does not. Participate in call calibration sessions, listen to call recordings, and identify effective calling tactics in coordination with your call center’s management team. Accentuate what is working and eliminate what does not.
Final thoughts
At the end of the day, a good telemarketing lead generation pilot should give you a firm idea of a scaled-up program’s likelihood of success.
Request plenty of data and agent access, and you will improve your ability to make an educated decision on whether you should increase your investment for a scaled up long-term partnership.
Erin Langenberg is an Implementation and Quality Assurance Manager for Quality Contact Solutions. Erin has 20+ years in sales, technology, project management, and call center management roles. Erin is passionate about delivering high quality results and seeks out opportunities to improve current processes. Erin can be reached at erin.langenberg@qualitycontactsolutions.com or 516-656-5102.
