Online Sales

What Is Telemarketing? Definition, Advantages, and Examples

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By Nerea Boada, on 10 August 2023

This article contains sponsored links.

Telemarketing is an marketing technique used by companies to contact potential customers and talk to them about their products and services. Traditionally, it is done by phone but nowadays, companies also use videoconferencing, especially in more advanced stages of the purchasing process. The best-known example is cold-calling, where a company contacts a person for the first time with the intention of selling its products or services, but it can have many other applications such as generating leads, confirming attendance at events, Post-sales follow-up and evaluating customer satisfaction. While digital marketing is now the norm, telemarketing is still an effective and widely used technique in the public service, insurance, credit cards, and NGO sectors.

Using a good sales script, investing in training, using inbound methodologies and monitoring compliance are just some tips of how to improve your telemarketing results. Let's take a look!

What Is Telemarketing Definition Advantages and Examples

Advantages of Telemarketing

  • More personal communication:

    Compared to email marketing, telemarketing is a more personal approach that can facilitate the connection between the seller and the prospect. This can be especially beneficial for businesses that sell high-value products or services.
  • Get in touch with a large number of customers in a short time:

    Telemarketing allows businesses to reach many potential customers in a short time. This can be a valuable way to generate leads and sales.
  • Low cost:

    Telemarketing can be a relatively low-cost way to market a business. This is especially true when compared to other marketing channels.
  • Help clean databases:

    It can be used to help clean up and update customer databases. This can be helpful for businesses that want to ensure they are only marketing to customers interested in their products or services.
  • Offer a large amount of information about the product or service:

    Adapt your product or service exactly to the potential customer's needs.
  • Create a good impression and experience for the customer:

    This can help your business build relationships and encourage repeat business.


Disadvantages of Telemarketing

  • It is intrusive:

    You are interrupting the potential customer to offer them information they have not requested. This can be perceived as intrusive and negatively affect the company's reputation.
  • Restrictions and exclusion lists:

    These are telephone numbers that cannot be used for telemarketing.
  • Investment to train agents:

    Ensuring that the customer service reps are following the company's script and best practices.
  • Conversion rate is low:

    It is difficult to find the right person and the right time to offer your services, especially if you do not have a good database.


How to Improve Your Company’s Telemarketing Results

Use a Good Sales Script

One of the most critical aspects to improve telemarketing results is to have a good sales script. A well-structured and effective script can help sales teams maintain a consistent track of conversations, ensuring no crucial information is lost during the calls. It can also assist your team in structuring cold calls and personalizing their approach depending on the prospect they are addressing.

The free sales script generator from noCRM.io is an ideal solution. It allows your sales teams to construct vital questions for every cold call. By simply ticking off boxes, you can collect responses and send them directly to the CRM of noCRM.io with a single click.

noCRM free sales script generator
This generator is designed to simplify cold calling. You can start from scratch or adapt sample scripts to suit your needs. Using this tool can significantly boost the outcomes of your calls.

In addition to a good script, an effective CRM like noCRM.io is essential. It can streamline your lead and sales management, leading to increased conversions. Thus, a potent combination of an efficient script and a powerful CRM can maximize your telemarketing efforts.


Invest in Training

For a consistent customer experience and better results, it is necessary to stick to a script and a set of guidelines for each call.

Training your call center professionals helps them understand the script and adapt to situations that may arise on a call, ensuring that they represent your brand in the best possible way. Investing in a call tracking system is also recommended to monitor how well agents follow the script and detect possible problems.


Do Internal Marketing

Once again, the success of a telemarketing strategy depends heavily on people. If call handlers do not feel motivated and valued, it will be very difficult for them to be good representatives of a brand.

The best telemarketing comes from companies where employees feel valued, and the organizational culture is positive. This not only improves employee performance but also lowers turnover and, thus, personnel costs.


Use an Inbound Methodology

The inbound marketing methodology seeks to get the people to approach the brand, not vice versa. This is achieved by offering users valuable content adapted to their interests.

Inbound marketing works by following a conversion funnel, which traces the stages a user goes through from the first time they hear about your brand until they become a loyal customer. Call the customer only when you know they are ready to convert.


Offer More Methods of Contact

Nowadays, customers have different preferences for how they want to contact businesses. Some customers even prefer to reach out on social media.

That's why it's important to have an omnichannel marketing strategy since people have different habits and preferences when contacting companies.

Instead of limiting yourself to telemarketing, we recommend creating a contact center that offers different possibilities to customers when they want to get in touch with your brand like email, chat, messaging, social networks, and so on.


Establish Objectives and Monitor Compliance

  • The last recommendation for more effective telemarketing is to have a continuous improvement strategy. This means setting clear objectives and indicators, monitoring compliance, and adjusting as needed.
  • Objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, an objective for a telemarketing campaign might be to increase the number of leads generated by 10% within the next quarter.
  • Compliance is the extent to which the telemarketing team meets objectives and indicators. This can be monitored by tracking the metrics and ensuring they are progressing well.
  • Continuous improvement means making adjustments to the telemarketing strategy as needed. This might involve changing the objectives, the indicators, or the way that telemarketing is operating.
  • Then, establish a series of periodic controls to monitor whether these indicators are being met and modify the strategy accordingly.


7 Examples of Telemarketing

  1. Product sales: This is the most common type of telemarketing, where a salesperson calls a potential customer to try to sell them a product. The calls can be made to both new and existing customers.

  2. Sale of services: This type of telemarketing is similar to product sales, but the salesperson is trying to sell a service instead of a product.

  3. B2B telemarketing: This is directed to businesses rather than individual customers. Businesses use B2B telemarketing to sell their products or services to other businesses.

  4. Inbound telemarketing: This is when a potential customer calls a company rather than the other way around. This type of telemarketing is often used for customer support to gather feedback from customers.

  5. Technical support: Another example of a customer contacting the brand, in this case, to request help with a problem related to the product or service.

  6. Satisfaction surveys: This type is used to gather feedback from customers about their satisfaction with a company's products or services.

  7. Political telemarketing: This type is used by political campaigns to contact voters and inform them about candidates, policies, and more.

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Nerea Boada

Es Licenciada en Economía y Derecho por la Universidad Pompeu Fabra. Está especializada en acciones integrales de marketing online para la generación de leads y en la planificación de campañas de e-mail marketing, Mobile Marketing, Content Advertising y Social Media.

Nerea holds a degree in Economics and Law from Pompeu Fabra University. She specializes in comprehensive online marketing actions for lead generation and in planning e-mail marketing, Mobile Marketing, Content Advertising and Social Media campaigns.