Many people have become allergic to cold calls these days. Ask any telemarketer, and they will tell you how people hung up on them, even slammed phones, when they suspect they are talking to telemarketers.
You cannot blame people for doing so because there are organizations who have given telemarketing or cold calling a bad rap. Despite the bad news, it does not mean that telemarketing is dead. In fact, it remains one of the strategies companies use, even the Fortune 500 companies, to drive revenue.
However, if you are still using dated cold calling techniques, better not do it at all. Many changes have happened over the years, so if you are serious about telemarketing, here are a few tips for creating a successful telemarketing script.
Let’s start with the opening:
Hello. My name is Thor Odinson.
I’m calling up tech startups in the area to check if they will be a perfect match for our lead generation beta program.
In a nutshell, we help you connect with your target buyers in any market and industry.
Does it sound interesting to you?
Now, let’s break down it down to see why this is the perfect introduction.
Hello. My name is Thor Odinson.
It seems like a no-brainer to start with your name when you introduce yourself. However, it will surprise you that many people forget this important step.
Telling your prospect who you are, establishes context and trust. More so, a name makes the call more human than sounding like a bot.
Set aside your pitch for a minute. Forget about small talk. People already know that chatting about the weather is BS. It might sound friendly, but if they don’t know who they are talking to, they will not spare any minute to hear the rest of what you say. Besides, you have interrupted them from whatever important they are doing.
Get to the point. It shows that you value their time.
I’m calling up local startups to check if they will be a perfect fit for our lead generation beta program.
The words have been chosen carefully. In that one single sentence, you were able to:
Notice that we used “tech startups” rather than “customers” or “prospects.” That’s because you are making an exploratory call. We also use “beta program” to show them that you understand the language they are speaking (remember you are talking to tech startups).
Just a note: The details of your script depends on your target audience and what you are offering them.
Going in for the kill minus the fluff
In a nutshell, we help you connect with your target buyers in any market and industry.
In less than 10 seconds, you have delivered your elevator pitch clearly and briefly. According to experts, your elevator speech should not exceed 20 or 30 seconds more. According to the Harvard Business Review, if you can hook your prospect in the first 8 seconds, they will allow you to drive your message without giving you a hard time.
Your prospects don’t have the patience, especially if you are cold calling them; so make that first 8 seconds count.
Does it sound interesting to you?”
The question allows your prospect to say no at the first opportunity, so why should we use such question?
Think about this:
If you make small talk and proceed to your sales pitch, your prospect might be polite enough not to hang up on you. However, he or she will spend the rest of the call thinking of reasons how to end his or her call with you. You wasted both of your time.
On the other hand, if you allow your prospect to say no at the earliest time possible, you can extract more information from him or her. It allows you to extend the conversation even if for just a few more seconds.
Before we continue with the script, let’s take a look at the whole script structure:
You should have raised your prospect’s curiosity at this point before you deliver your elevator pitch.
Learn more about your prospect, their needs, their problems, and their processes. Here are a few questions to ask:
Related: How to Skillfully Recognize and Respond to True Buying Signals
At this point, you try to find their decision timeline, price sensitivity, and other relevant information.
You schedule what happens next and get the necessary contact details.
Related: ‘Don’t Talk With Your Mouth Full!’ and Other Sales Call Tips from Mom
You have a script, but that should not make you sound like a robot nor should it limit your conversation. Scripts are primarily there to help you deliver your message with clarity and brevity. They also help you polish and develop the sales process as well as increase your sales IQ. They also help you adjust or make changes quickly during the conversation. Most importantly, scripts allow you to listen well to your prospects, enabling you to gain a better understanding of them and their company. In other words, scripts help you perform well.
Related: 4 Sales Call Rapport-Building Techniques That AI Can’t Yet Do [VIDEO]
You now have an excellent telemarketing script, but that does not guarantee that you will get a “Yes” all the time. You will still get a no, but you have to embrace the “nos” you are getting.
Why?
Because they will give you insight. Understand why your prospects are saying “no” to you.
More often than not, it’s not really because they are not interested in what you offer. To lessen the percentage of rejection, present the value you have to provide early on during the conversation.
Related: How to Handle Early Sales Objections, According to Science [VIDEO]
Now, it’s your turn to polish your telemarketing script.
Rebecca Matias is a Business Development Manager at Callbox. She is a proactive marketer who is willing to share her passion, leadership principles and craft in marketing. Follow Rebecca on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Source: https://www.callboxinc.com/telemarketing/sales-call-success-perfect-telemarketing-script/
Publish Date: June 27, 2018 |
Telemarketing still pretty much remains a numbers game.
To deliver results, calls need to be made at scale.
Not convinced?
Let’s do the math…
Let’s say your funnel looks like this:
If you want your reps to meet 20 opportunities,
you need to call up over 1,000 prospects.
Keep in mind that’s all based on some pretty decent conversion rates.
If those percentages go down,
you have to call more contacts to hit your targets.
That’s why you need volume to get results.
To manage and improve sales call volume,
keep a close eye on these 4 crucial metrics…
Related: 5 Data-backed Tips for Better Phone-based Sales Presentations
Related: 5 Winning Sales Cadence Examples (and Lessons to Draw from Them)
Source: https://www.callboxinc.com/telemarketing/track-kpis-learn-increase-sales-call-volume-video/
Publish Date: May 17, 2018 |
Genetically speaking, you’re more like your dad than your mom. But just because you inherit more of your dad’s DNA doesn’t mean your mom plays a lesser role in shaping who you are. In fact, a Gallup poll finds that more than half (53%) of adult Americans believe their mothers have a stronger influence in their lives.
So, in celebration of Mother’s Day, today’s post revisits some of the timeless pieces of advice mom gave us when we were growing up. We might not have realized it back then, but these nuggets of wisdom kept us healthy, got us out of trouble, and prepared us to become responsible adults.
And now, these same old “momisms” can help us engage in better sales conversations with our leads and prospects. Here’s how:
As a young person, you probably lost count of how many times your mom told you to mind your manners and be polite. As your mom explained, saying “please” meant you acknowledge someone had to go out of their way to do something, while “thank you” meant you were grateful for the effort.
Clearly, your mom was on to something. Saying “please” and “thank you” during sales calls isn’t just good manners, it’s good sales practice, too. According to stats cited by Converza, calls that convert are twice more frequently handled by agents with good phone etiquette.
Related: 4 Sales Call Rapport-Building Techniques That AI Can’t Yet Do [VIDEO]
Even the most laid-back mom in the world frequently tells her kids to turn off the television and go do their homework. That’s because mothers understand the value of completing assignments and know the best use of their children’s time.
It’s easy to see why this age-old piece of motherly advice is relevant to doing sales calls. Around 42% of sales reps feel they don’t have enough information before calling a prospect, which is surprising given that being unprepared ranks as one of the top turn-offs for B2B buyers.
When your mom kept barking at you not to talk with your mouth full, she wasn’t just trying to make you conform to some arbitrary dinner table convention. She wanted you to avoid forming socially awkward, potentially wasteful, and possibly unhealthy (think choking) habits.
But beyond practicing good table manners, keeping your mouth shut while chewing helps you appreciate the importance of doing one thing at a time. Just as there’s a time for engaging in conversations over dinner and a time for finishing your plate, the various activities that make up a sales call also need to follow time management best practices to be effective.
Whenever we got a little carried away with self-congratulations, mom was always there to serve us a slice of humble pie. She just seemed to know how to help us strike a balance between modesty and confidence.
It turns out we could also use a healthy dose of humility in our sales calls. An analysis of more than 25,000 sales calls discovered that the most effective calls all tend to avoid self-promotional language, sidestep criticizing competitors, use collaborative terms, and focus on prospects’ pain points/objectives.
Remember that time you saw a really cool toy commercial and begged your parents to buy it for Christmas? Or when your best friend got a pet snake and you wanted to get one too? Each time you asked, it was always mom who voiced out her disapproval using this classic line, which by now should be permanently drilled into our heads: “What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”
As reps, we’re trained and equipped to handle prospects’ objections, but sometimes a “no” really means “no”—no matter how we try to get around it. In certain situations, it’s better to leave uninterested prospects alone and move on, instead of pushing for a meeting or a sale.
Keep in mind that only 17% of sales people believe they’re pushy while half of the prospects think they actually are.
Related: How to Handle Early Sales Objections, According to Science [VIDEO]
Nothing annoyed mom more than hearing an “I don’t know” from her kids. When mothers asked us about something, they always expected definite answers. But more often than not, due to any number of reasons, we’d rather not answer her directly.
Every time we come across an undecided prospect (or a prospect pretending to be one), it saps the momentum out of the sales call. That’s how your mom probably felt, too. So, never take “I don’t know for an answer” to your sales questions.
To get clearer responses, keep your questions simple, ask about one thing at a time, make sure your questions follow a logical sequence and sell prospects on the next step (not the deal).
The Takeaway: Mom’s wise words still ring true in our adult lives. As sales professionals, these timeless lessons also give us practical guidance to approach how we do what we do. With that, we say:
To all mothers out there, happy Mother’s Day from the Callbox team! Thanks for making us what we are today.
Source: https://www.callboxinc.com/telemarketing/dont-talk-mouth-full-sales-call-tips-mom/
Publish Date: May 10, 2018 |
By 2050, machines will take over half of all jobs.
… and telemarketers will be the first ones to go.
An Oxford study says
there’s a 99% chance
AI will replace human telemarketers soon.
But until AI learns how to build genuine rapport,
sales calls will remain a person-to-person interaction.
That’s because there are four building blocks of rapport
that only we humans can do for now.
Talking about oneself releases feel-good chemicals in the brain.
It’s even more rewarding with a person who’s really listening.
Start with an open-ended question;
let them share a bit about themselves.
People do business with people they like.
No matter how well AI mimics human speech,
there’s nothing like the real thing.
Let the conversation flow naturally and show genuine interest,
but don’t overdo it.
AI knows more about your prospects than you do.
But only people can connect and find common ground in a conversation.
Bring up interesting tidbits that prospects can relate to.
Build on these points at different moments in the call.
Related: 5 Data-backed Tips for Better Phone-based Sales Presentations
The secret to building rapport is creating shared experiences.
Whether it’s defining the prospect’s problem or identifying a solution,
working together brings people closer.
Turn sales calls into collaborative brainstorming sessions.
Use “we”, “our”, and “us” in the conversation.
Rapport is a two-way connection between people.
It’s going to stay that way unless machines master these four skills.
Source: https://www.callboxinc.com/telemarketing/4-sales-call-rapport-building-techniques-video/
Publish Date: April 10, 2018 |
One of the most frustrating and (perhaps) scariest aspects of sales is cold calling. No matter how professional and trained your sales team is, calling a prospective client for the first time without prior notice is intimidating.
The reason is simple - no one wants rejection and when you cold call, there’s a bigger possibility of getting turned down. But this does not have your story because there’s a better way how to do it.
Check out some of our infographics!
SMART Calling - Sales & Marketing At the Right Time - enables the sales team of a business or company to reach their target at the time they are ready to make the decision. It is based on different sets of data and factors, which give you an insight which prospect should be pursued first. It goes beyond getting a list of the right prospects. It also tells you which of these prospects are ready to make the decision and WHEN to call them.
Let’s say for example that your target is hospitals, and you know that a third-party pharmacy makes the buying decisions. You just don’t let your sales team barge into their door and deliver the sales spiel. Instead, you patiently wait for the right time to pounce. It is done by studying the online behavior of your prospect including lead scores and KPIs.
Related: 5 Winning Sales Cadence Examples (and Lessons to Draw from Them)
Yes, a sales script is very helpful, especially when training new candidates. It also provides confidence to someone who is shy or anxious about talking on the phone. Most of all, it helps you steer the conversation to where you want it to go.
However, there’s a couple of problems with using a sales script: first, it sounds fake. Customers are more informed nowadays than before, and they can tell whether you are using a practiced spiel or not. Second, sales scripts get you stuck in a routine. They might be quite useful, but it also stops you from discovering a better alternative.
Related: Don’t Waste a Moment! See Sample Cold Calling Scripts
People tend to be self-conscious when they talk to prospective customers on the phone. Thus, they tend to change the tone and texture of their voice. Your sales people are not immune to this.
A good exercise is recording your sales call and let your sales team listen to them. It makes them collectively aware of the techniques that work, the mistakes they’ve made, and the things they need to improve.
Aside from recording your calls, using analytics tools can also help you thoroughly dissect your calls, including the turning points of the call and the important keywords that engages the customer. It will also help you brainstorm new strategies and techniques to improve your team.
Goals are powerful - that’s a no-brainer; thus, it makes perfect sense why your sales team should have them. Goals help them measure their success and tells them where they are at. If they know where they are, they are motivated to continue and push themselves to reach the goal.
Here’s a tip with regards to goal setting: do not make short and long-term goals. You should also set individual and group-focused goals. It will not only encourage them to work together but will also push them to improve as they engage in a bit of friendly competition.
Check out our recently published Client Success Stories
Three minutes per call is enough. Don’t chat with your prospects and never give them the impression that you are. Remember that you have a mission, a goal to fulfill and you need to focus on that. Be quick and straight to the point. After that, go on to the next prospect.
Don’t forget to take a break as well. Experts advise taking a 5-minute call after every 15 calls you make. During this time, relax and de-stress, so you’re refreshed when you get back on track.
Related: How to Structure a Successful B2B Sales Call Blueprint
Not because your strategy is working means you keep on doing that nor should you be comfortable with it. If you want to keep on improving, you need to be agile, dynamic, and innovative, even if it means deconstructing current strategies and experimenting with different approaches.
Observe how your experiments progress - keep the strategies that work and throw those that don’t. Soon enough, you will discover something worth pursuing.
A Final Note
Unlike tips like starting your call with a positive story, the above are strategies and methodologies with long-term effects. You can apply them, again and again, to help your sales team improve and learn by themselves. Accordingly, they will not produce immediate results, but when applied over the course of time, they can give you the positive results you’ve been waiting for.
Source: https://www.callboxinc.com/telemarketing/6-smart-calling-essentials-better-telemarketing-results/
Publish Date: April 4, 2018 |
In 1967, a PR consultant named Murray Roman launched the first-ever phone-based mass-marketing campaign. The project hired and trained 15,000 housewives to place a total of one million calls per day on behalf of Ford Motors. The campaign’s goal wasn’t to generate sales, but to identify likely automobile buyers (i.e., lead generation). This project gave birth to outbound telemarketing, and right from the outset, it was data-driven to the core.
According to a 1976 Harvard Business Review article, Murray Roman’s campaign collectively reached more than 20 million contacts. Each call followed a carefully-prepared script and lasted under a minute. The campaign generated a total of 340,000 leads (or 1.7% of contacts reached), handing off about 2 leads per day to each of Ford’s 23,000 dealer salespersons, who in turn managed to convert 187,000 of these leads into qualified opportunities (leads planning to buy in 6 months). All in all, the campaign helped Ford sell 40,000 units for a total of $24 million in revenues.
Related: What Makes an Outstanding Telemarketing Campaign [for All Types of Industry]
Half a century later, outbound telemarketing remains as data-driven as ever. With its new role in the modern digital marketing toolkit, telemarketing boosts marketers’ performance by delivering leads at scale and producing results in real-time. Given this channel’s current function, the success of today’s telemarketing campaigns, argues Robert Howells of the Global Marketing Associates, hinges on better use of data.
One crucial data-related aspect that needs a major rethink is telemarketing performance metrics. As the channel evolves, so do the yardsticks used to measure performance. Today’s marketers rely on a dizzying array of metrics and indicators to gauge how well each component of their strategy is working, including telemarketing. Modern telemarketing performance metrics help marketers answer five key questions about their campaigns:
These are the five areas to look at when evaluating telemarketing performance—whether you’re running campaigns in-house or outsourcing to an agency. In this post, we’ll go over some important metrics to keep track of under each performance category and find out how to make informed decisions based on the numbers.
If telemarketing had a set of axioms that fundamentally defines how it works, then The old adage “it all starts with the list” would surely be part of it. Data quality impacts every other area of telemarketing—from call volume to conversions to ROI—that having the right list means already winning half the battle. To make sure your (or your agency’s) list always stays up to snuff, keep a close eye on the following metrics:
To get a feel for the overall quality of a telemarketing database, you need to track the ratio of known errors to the number of records. These errors include missing values, duplicates, invalid contacts, data entry errors, etc.
Related: Declare Your Independence from Bad Data: A 5-Step Plan
Another crucial measure of telemarketing data quality is the level of segmentation a list allows. Does your list contain valid industry codes? Does it let you segment into different job titles? Does it create redundant segments? How well do the segments match your target buyer profiles or personas?
Data quality directly affects the number of positive contacts, the number of conversations with decision makers, and the number of conversions your campaign generates. That’s why, when expressed as a percentage of total records, these three ratios offer valuable insights on the accuracy and relevance of your list (these metrics are discussed in more detail later).
Telemarketing campaigns also provide great opportunities for businesses to update and enhance their marketing data. That’s why tracking the amount of new information obtained or verified through phone calls gives you some idea on the quality of data you’re working with. How many new records were you able to add? How many fields did you update or verify?
Related: Why Customer Profiling Could be the Best Investment your Company Makes
Telemarketing still pretty much remains a numbers game. To drive real conversations and conversions, campaigns need to scale call volume and activity. But there’s more to monitoring volume than simply counting and adding up the number of calls made. Effective telemarketing campaigns keep track of:
This metric indicates the average rate at which an agent or rep places calls. While high calls-per-hour figures are generally a good sign, the quality of each call matters more than quantity alone. Also, there’s a lot of non-agent factors that impact call-per-hour numbers—such as script complexity, dialer system efficiency, and pre-call/post-call work required—which skews benchmarking. That’s why this metric shouldn’t be taken in isolation.
This is the average amount of time an agent or rep spends on each call. It’s good practice to keep calls under a specific number of minutes, but very low average talk times can indicate poor quality of conversations. To make meaningful comparisons, make sure you take factors like the length of the call script and admin work required.
This metric refers to the time an agent or rep spends on calls versus the time spent between calls. Occupancy rates tell you how productively agents allocate their time. If this number is greater than 1 (or 100%, when expressed as a percentage), then agents are spending more time actually calling than doing things in between calls.
According to data cited by HubSpot, It takes 18 calls on average to actually reach a B2B buyer. While this may or may not be the case for your industry or target market, most B2B leads today require more than one attempt to contact. That’s why the calls-per-record metric is a crucial number to keep an eye on.
Related: 6 Ways a SMART Telemarketing Platform Doubles Sales Productivity
Steli Efti over at the Close.io blog points out that most marketers spend 90% of their efforts just trying to reach decision makers. This means only a small portion of their time actually goes to having conversations with the right prospects. Not surprisingly, one thing that separates top-performing campaigns from the rest is the ability to improve reach metrics, such as:
This refers to the percentage of dialed records where agents are able to speak with the target contact. When this metric is low, it indicates agents or reps aren’t reaching enough prospects. Persistently low positive contact ratios can mean there’s an underlying problem with list quality or outreach tactics.
Related: 4 Ways to Get Past Gatekeepers and Reach Prospects Every Time [VIDEO]
Abandonment rate is the percentage of calls which aren’t picked up by the target contact. This can also include answered calls ended while still being routed to a live agent or rep. Convoso recommends keeping abandonment rates under 5%. Anything beyond this needs a closer look.
For campaigns that require multiple touches with a decision maker, focusing solely on the total number of conversations can overstate reach rates. That’s why you also need to look at the number of unique decision maker conversations. This metric gives insight into data quality as well as lets you compare initial contact versus callbacks and follow-ups.
Related: Things to Do When Dealing With A B2B Prospect that’s Difficult to Reach
This metric looks at how many positive contacts asked for materials about the offer or company. Tracking the number of RFIs allows you to drill down further on a campaign’s reach rates. There are two ways to look at this metric: as a gauge of how well agents handle the “send me more info” objection, and as a measure of a prospect’s interest.
Monitoring how many uninterested contacts agents identify also provides valuable insight on several campaign components. A very high number of not interested prospects can mean you’re targeting the wrong audience, but it can also indicate that agents are doing a good job filtering unqualified leads.
Modern marketers now use telemarketing to achieve a wide range of goals. This broadens how we define “conversions”. Telemarketing conversion rate now refers to the percentage of calls that result in a specific action from the prospect. Radius suggests tracking the following outbound conversion metrics:
This is the percentage of decision makers reached that qualify as leads. Again, what constitutes as a lead will depend on the campaign goal (schedule a face-to-face meeting, sign up for a free trial, verify some information, etc.).
This is the percentage of telemarketing-generated leads that actually convert into paying customers. Depending on the sales process, conversion into sales can take place right after the lead is handed to sales or at the end of a longer nurture cycle.
This metric tells you how many calls it takes to get a result (conversion). In some ways, it can be thought of as the flipside of lead conversion rates. Calls per outcome measures how efficiently a campaign generates results and you largely want to minimize this metric.
Related: How to Use the 3 Levels of Pain Points for Better Sales Conversations
Conversions directly impact a campaign’s costs and returns. To get a 360-degree view of telemarketing performance, you also need to look at whether the money you spend on telemarketing is actually producing value.
This is the total costs incurred in the campaign divided by the total telemarketing-generated leads (or opportunities). When done in-house, telemarketing costs can include direct costs (staff, telecom, database, software, etc.) and overhead. But when outsourced to a third-party agency, costs are more streamlined and transparent.
Telemarketing ROI is the revenues attributable to the channel divided by the total telemarketing costs. But because modern telemarketing is just one component in a revenue-generating machine, it can be a bit of a challenge to determine how much of the revenues telemarketing actually contributes. This is usually estimated through attribution models such as first touch, last touch, weighted, time decay, linear, and position-based attribution.
Related: Going Beyond the 500% ROI: How to Integrate Telemarketing with Other Channels
The Takeaway
Telemarketing performance metrics help you uncover problem areas and rooms for improvement in your campaign. But keep in mind these numbers are only averages, summaries, and headline figures. They only tell you part of what’s going on. To really get the full story, you have to dig deeper into the components that make up your telemarketing strategy: the list, the script, the audience, the agents, and the calls themselves.
Source: https://www.callboxinc.com/telemarketing/digital-marketers-guide-telemarketing-performance-metrics/
Publish Date: March 7, 2018 |
My experience tells me that salespeople tend to be evenly split on this one, but they somewhat lean slightly toward meeting prospects in person. Face-to-face meetings let sales folks put their people skills to use and allow more time for conversing with the prospect. More importantly, in-person presentations enable salespeople to read prospects and get to know them even better from visual cues.
When you’re meeting prospects face-to-face, it’s fairly easy to get a feel for how interested (or disinterested) they really are. Once a prospect slumps down onto the chair with eyes wandering and chin resting on one hand, these are dead giveaways you’re losing your prospect’s attention—and that you better switch gears or risk blowing up the deal.
You obviously won’t get this level of visual feedback during phone-based presentations. Sales meetings done over the phone only provide salespeople verbal clues on whether or not a prospect is really into your conversation.
That’s a huge information gap, considering that 93% of communication is nonverbal.
Still, phone presentations play a key role in the selling process. There’s just no substitute for the convenience and efficiency that phone calls deliver. In some cases, for example, the telephone remains the most viable option for many companies that can’t afford their own field sales team or businesses whose target prospects are too far away.
That’s why it’s crucial to refine your phone-based presentation strategy. Conventional sales wisdom offers a ton of useful advice on substance and delivery that you should definitely pay attention to. But data to support (or disprove) these best practices are hard to come by—until now.
The data scientists at Gong, an AI-enabled language platform for improving sales team performance, crunched the numbers from over 25,500 sales calls earlier this year. Their analysis found some surprising things about many of the sales profession’s time-honored calling tactics. Among other findings, they uncovered several qualities that the best sales calls have in common.
Here’s a rundown of five actionable tips based on Gong’s study that you can (and should) apply to improve results from your phone-based sales presentations:
This is prospecting 101, but salespeople seem to have forgotten this lesson. Gong’s research finds that the average sales rep takes up 65% to 75% of the total call time with prospects. Even more importantly, the study reveals that talk-to-listen ratio impacts win rates:
The numbers speak for themselves. Let your prospects do more of the talking. Just listen.
Relared: A Software Company’s Guide to More Software Clients and More Sales
Gong’s analysis also uncovers a strong correlation between the number of times pricing came up in a sales call and the likelihood of closing the deal. They find the sweet spot to be between 3 and 4 times:
Moreover, there’s the right time to talk about price in a sales call. High-yielding sales calls tend to bring up price-related discussions around the 40- to 49-minute mark. This indicates that top-performing reps build value before talking about price, while low-performing and average reps mention pricing throughout the call.
Related: Ditch that Pitch: The Case Against Selling to First-Time Prospects
In another analysis (this time involving 519,000 sales calls), Gong’s data science team concludes that there’s a clear relationship between the number of questions a rep asks and his chances of closing the deal.
So, what type of questions should a rep ask? The research also identifies that questions about your prospect’s business pain points exert the most impact on win rates. Elementary. By that, you should read this later How to Use the 3 Levels of Pain Points for Better Sales Conversations.
Needless to say, prospects’ responses indicate a sales call’s likely outcome. But some remarks appear to be more telling than others, particularly the following replies to timeline questions:
Responses that indicate caution can imply that your prospect is seriously considering your offer. Responses that suggest hesitation, on the other hand, can mean a lack of interest.
Related: Using Social Signals to Spot Sales-Ready Leads
Every sales rep knows that their style and tone matter as much as the message itself. Gong’s findings seem to support this idea. Some specific words and phrases apparently influence a rep’s chances of closing the deal.
In other words, reps who focus on collaboration and inspire confidence tend to close the most number of deals.
Related: How To Improve A Lagging Inside Sales Team
The Takeaway
So there you have it, five practical ways to improve phone-based sales presentations backed by solid data. Most of you are probably already following some variations of these best practices, and the study findings cited here only serve to vindicate your calling methods. The most important results, of course, are those generated by your own campaigns. What other tips and tricks do you apply that are supported by hard numbers?
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Source: https://www.callboxinc.com/telemarketing/phone-based-sales-presentation-tips/
Publish Date: November 10, 2017 |
Hold on to your high hats folks, because we are about to drop major love for telemarketing.
And what better way to start off than with some juicy observations from 72Solutions.com:
We can say all we want against telemarketing. But the fact that B2B brands are using it as their main channel for generating leads and increasing sales speaks volumes about how it is going to stay in a digitally-driven world. Read more on Keep Calm and Cold Call: B2B Telemarketing is Still an Unstoppable Force
You are probably thinking, “Well, I should drop everything and focus more on outbound campaigns.”
But before you go planning on setting up a telemarketing component, you should understand that a lot has to be considered in building a truly effective conduit for generating and nurturing sales leads.
Without proper strategy and implementation, a B2B telemarketing campaign would not be able to provide the results you wanted, entailing a waste of resources on your part. Avoid going down this road by understanding the elements that will make most out of your conversations with B2B prospects.
Now, businesses are deeply divided on the issue of using call scripts. Some say they reduce the “human aspect” of a telemarketing call, while others agree they are essential to keeping the conversation within the road to a sales appointment. Both parties seem to offer valid points, but why not find a middle ground?
There is truth to the issue that call scripts dehumanize conversations, but only if these scripts are designed specifically to make you sound like a robot. With that said, the best way is to create a script that includes the most relevant information you have to say (i.e. your company’s identity, its products and services) as well as some spaces in between where you can improvise and respond to questions like the bag of flesh and bone that you are. Check out our sample telemarketing scripts here
The trend right now has always been integration. B2B companies have decided that it is best to tie up their telemarketing with scalable marketing automation systems.
Related: 6 Ways a SMART Telemarketing Platform Doubles Sales Productivity
But what can marketing automation do for the simple act of picking up the phone and talking to a decision-maker?
A LOT. And one essential thing it can do is to enable telemarketers to concentrate on leads that already indicate high exposure and interaction with your content. Marketing automation takes these interactions into account and scores each lead accordingly. You will eventually acquire a list of prospects that express high levels of interest in your products and services. What’s more, these are prospects who are now ready to accept a cold-call.
Related: How to Get Quality IT Appointments Hands-Free with Marketing Automation
Related: For List Buyers: Fantastic Leads Databases and Where to Find Them
But list-building has always been a critical issue among B2B enterprises. In most cases, they have to do it from scratch, which obviously takes a whole lot of time. They can always purchase lists from third-party marketing service providers, but there is no guaranteeing that such lists contain profile-consistent prospects.
But one thing is certain: List-building should always be about quality. And whether you are building your database yourself, or acquiring one from a marketing firm, you still need to make sure that the names and addresses contained in it are responsive. Stop chasing invalid email addresses. Or else you get to see your campaign suffer.
Get our FREE sample telemarketing scripts for All Industry types. This includes scripts for appointment setting, event telemarketing, and data profiling:
A WINNING SCRIPT and S.M.A.R.T Calling strategy is surely the BEST combo!
Get more qualified telemarketing leads today! Dial 888.810.7464
This ebook walks you through some key questions and tips to help you get started on using a predictive lead scoring system for ranking and classifying leads. Grab a copy here!
Source: https://www.callboxinc.com/telemarketing/what-makes-an-outstanding-telemarketing-campaign/
Publish Date: October 11, 2017 |
When really is the “best” time to call leads? By now, we know the answer to be between 8 and 9 in the morning as well as 4 to 5 in the afternoon. The best day of the week for a sales call? Everyone now knows it’s Wednesdays and Thursdays. That’s based on a widely-cited study from DR. James Oldroyd and InsideSales.com whose findings have now become woven into conventional marketing wisdom.
While Dr. Oldroyd’s research has certainly given us B2B folks some fresh insights on timing our calls, the way that most marketing blogs and news outlets have reported the study’s results leaves a lot to be desired. It’s not hard to find posts that try to promote the study’s findings as the de facto standard for every inside sales rep on Earth to follow, regardless of industry or context.
Will Thursdays work equally work for both an HR manager in the United Kingdom and a CEO at a startup in Singapore? Maybe. But then again, maybe not. The fact is that there’s no single, universally-valid “best” times for reaching out to different prospects via phone calls. The right time to talk to leads will depend on a whole set of factors unique to each individual prospect.
This is where a SMART telemarketing platform comes in handy. SMART is a technology for managing outbound calls that tell inside sales reps which prospects on a call list will most likely pick up the phone and are interested in listening.
Related: Keep Prospects Glued on the Phone Like Bees to Honey
This is based on a prospect’s reachability score—computed from that prospect’s lead score, time elapsed since last contact, positive phone contacts, email responses/actions, and website activity. This means SMART calling determines the “best” call schedule for every single prospect instead of assuming that it’s the same for all leads.
SMART calling clearly brings some measurable benefits to an inside sales team’s performance. Here’s a rundown of six ways it boosts sales team productivity (arranged in no particular order):
With a SMART telemarketing platform, inside sales agents no longer need to carry out many non-value-added (NVA) activities in their workflow. That’s because the system updates reachability scores and lines up calls in real-time.
This means that reps avoid wasting time manually scrolling for the next call or dialing up unavailable prospects. In other words, SMART calling keeps a steady flow of willing and interested prospects on cue.
Related: SMART Calling: What’s the Edge?
Lattice Engine estimates that 42% of sales reps feel they don’t have enough information before making a call. That’s a shocking statistic, especially with today’s buyer-led purchase process where prospects expect to speak with knowledgeable sales people.
With the time freed up by SMART calling, inside sales reps can review notes or brush up on a prospect in preparation for a call.
Related: Who Says Telemarketing Can’t Drive Leads Further Down the Sales Funnel?
Depending on whom you ask, it takes 6 to 13 touch points to generate a viable lead. What’s even more interesting is that these touch points take place across different marketing channels.
A SMART telemarketing platform gauges a prospect’s reachability not only through her lead score but also with her responses and activities on past touch points such as calls, emails, and website visits.
Helpful Guide: Weed Out Junk Leads With Predictive Lead Scoring
SMART calling prioritizes prospects not only on availability. It also ranks contacts according to their willingness and interest as well. Prospects with higher reachability have higher lead scores and tend to be more engaged on previous touch points.
This implies that leads higher up the calling cue have a higher likelihood of responding or converting once reps interact with them in live conversations.
Related: Classification of Sales Leads: Hot, Warm or Cold
We’ve already become a little familiar with how reachability scores work. The key thing to consider is that reachability is based on actual prospect data. That’s why a SMART calling system is able to measure reachability for each prospect in the calling database.
These computations are made in real-time, so that reachability scores are kept up-to-date once new data points on any of the attributes become available.
Related: Using Social Signals to Spot Sales-Ready Leads
By helping inside sales reps focus on what they do best (having meaningful conversations with prospects) instead of doing mindless and repetitive tasks, a SMART telemarketing platform helps develop a more motivated team.
SMART calling removes the barriers that get in the way of most sales reps. Rather than spend a huge part of their day making a ton of calls to unavailable or uninterested contacts, reps can now give their full time and attention to what really matters.
The Takeaway
It’s not very smart to simply follow one-size-fits-all tactics in sales and marketing. The best way to find out what’s going to work for you is to test it out using your own data. SMART calling builds on this idea by finding the different “best” times to talk to every decision-maker. It’s no longer just telemarketing, it’s smart telemarketing.
Get our FREE sample telemarketing scripts for All Industry types. This includes scripts for appointment setting, event telemarketing, and data profiling:
A WINNING SCRIPT and S.M.A.R.T Calling strategy is surely the BEST combo!
Get more qualified telemarketing leads today! Dial 888.810.7464
This ebook walks you through some key questions and tips to help you get started on using a predictive lead scoring system for ranking and classifying leads. Grab a copy here!
Publish Date: September 19, 2017 |
For what it’s worth, telemarketing is still relevant to businesses today and for very good reasons.
B2B marketing, after all, entails listening to your audience and asking about the issues they wanted to be resolved right away. Telemarketing does not falter in this respect it’s all about urgent and intimate communication. Making a cold call to a lead opens you up to better sales opportunities better than any other marketing channel could.
In fact, research by DMA Contact Centres and Telemarketing Council showed telemarketing as the top channel, with an effectiveness rate of over 90%.
With the advent of digital marketing today, businesses are afforded newer and more effective means of reaching out to their target audience, positioning their brand front and center, and hit record revenues. The trend right now is integration, and marketers know better than to allow only one marketing channel to do all the handy work in lead generation and appointment setting.
For a fact, having a diversified marketing campaign can be beneficial to a business. Not only does it work to cover larger prospect populations, it also functions to boost ROI significantly. In the same paper, DMA showed that integrated telemarketing can deliver a thousand times the ROI for B2B companies. This proves once and for all that telemarketing isn’t dead; it continues to thrive as long as businesses are seeking to increase their qualified leads and come up with hard-hitting results.
As a marketer, you might as well ask yourself, “Where to start?”
For that, you only need to identify the channels you pair your cold-calling campaign with. For DMA, email continues to be the most reliable of these channels among B2C and B2B companies. Although company websites and social media remain as two of the most effective ways to scout for leads, email does a lot more when it complements the urgent and straightforward engagements that only telemarketing can secure.
One thing’s for sure, email can further add to telemarketing’s effectiveness in terms of generating leads by following up on where the initial conversation last took place. At the end of a cold call, marketers can initiate an email blast and provide content and information that had been left out.
But aside from email, marketers can also integrate their telemarketing with other effective channels. You can maximize your telemarketing by using the following tips:
We all know that social media is overrated, but hear us out on this one: You can use social channels in order to gather important information about your prospect’s expectations and needs. That way, you can come up with the right talking points that will guide you even before you pick up the phone and start calling.
Related: Using Social Signals to Spot Sales-Ready Leads
Most of the time, your prospects don’t even know who you are. If they are not that aware of your brand, then why should they even bother answering a cold call from you? It makes a whole lot of sense if you have a telemarketing campaign without an effective social media presence to back it up.
Interesting Read: Who Says Telemarketing Can’t Drive Leads Further Down the Sales Funnel?
Want to maximize your integrated telemarketing and email marketing efforts? Check this out. While your telemarketing does the hatchet job of scouting for qualified leads, email allows you to set appointments with ease. For one, when an appointment is set via cold call, you can then send an email to confirm the date and other details. This allows you to reintroduce yourself and provide a summary of the things you discussed over the phone.
Related: How to Get Quality IT Appointments Hands-Free with Marketing Automation
There are somethings you just can’t do with telemarketing alone, and one of them is data cleansing. To know for sure if the contacts on your list are active, you only need to send an email to the address and follow up with an outbound call to confirm the contact. Here’s how to Declare Your Independence from Bad Data: A 5-Step Plan.
According to dma.org.uk, telemarketing is mainly used for the following purposes:
The best conclusion about telemarketing integration was also quoted by DMA so here it goes:
The marriage of telemarketing and email remains the most effective combination. Yes, telemarketing requires a greater investment than some channels but with ROI gures of between 500% to 1,100% it offers a return for every £1 spent – and that return will increase if it’s combined with other marketing channels.
But businesses need to be more creative in how they use telemarketing - it can be used for more than just selling. Think beyond immediate sales or lead generation and consider incorporating other elements into your call, such as obtaining opt-in for further marketing contact.
Our digital lives mean alternative products and services are just a click away, but the human interaction of telemarketing can improve customer loyalty and trust when it’s done right.
A WINNING SCRIPT and S.M.A.R.T Calling strategy is surely the BEST combo!
Get more qualified telemarketing leads today! Dial 888.810.7464
This ebook walks you through some key questions and tips to help you get started on using a predictive lead scoring system for ranking and classifying leads. Grab a copy here!
Source: https://www.callboxinc.com/telemarketing/how-to-integrate-telemarketing-with-other-channels/
Publish Date: September 5, 2017 |
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