Use Telemarketing to Generate Qualified Sales Leads

By Jim Graziano, President, Onset Marketing LLC

Business telemarketing is a reliable method to generate qualified sales leads. Many accounting, consulting, law, technology, and other professional service businesses are turning to business telemarketing to generate new immediate, short- and long-term sales opportunities.

We have used it across multiple industries, to large and small companies, to a wide range of target contact people within the company and for promoting services, solutions, and products. In each case, we were able to establish a consistent flow of qualified sales leads.

At the start of a new telemarketing campaign, it is important to define what constitutes a “qualified” sales lead. For a sales lead generation program to succeed, the telemarketing team and the sales team need to share a unified definition of a qualified sales lead. Qualified sales leads have a much better chance of closing.

Some common criteria used in defining a qualified sales lead:

• Buying motives for the product or service
• Purchasing timelines and urgency
• Opportunity size
• Confirmed budget
• Prospect’s role in the decision making process

Telemarketing is effective because it requires an immediate response. You have a live person on the phone who can identify the correct contacts, answer questions, address value points, and overcome objections. Telemarketing can efficiently and accurately identify contacts at firms interested in purchasing your products and services. And it is one of the most cost effective and quickest ways to generate new clients.

Telemarketing benefits:

• Establishes personal contact and a professional first impression
• Enables multiple products to be offered—focused on the prospect’s business type and needs
• Can fill your opportunity pipeline—and let your salespeople do what they do best

For example, if telemarketing prospectors call 1,000 prospects, they very well could end up with 36 sales appointments for near-term opportunities, 26 long-term sales opportunities, and 150 e-mail addresses for follow-up marketing campaigns. (Download the graphic at the end of the article)

Uses of Business Telemarketing

Good telemarketing campaigns:

• Combine personal attention with field-tested techniques
• Integrate multiple media to communicate with prospects, such as custom Web pages, online survey forms, and e-mail
• Are conducted by experienced businesspeople who can converse with top-level decision-makers and do not sound like telemarketers
• Utilize extensive experience in prioritizing target markets, developing the call list, and creating a strong value-oriented call strategy

Choosing a Business Telemarketing Firm

Outsourcing your telemarketing sales lead generation function has several key advantages, including lower total costs, scalability, and superior quality leads—when services are provided by a skilled firm. It is important to choose the right business telemarketing sales lead generation firm. We recommend selecting a firm with the following attributes:

1. Provides strategic campaign planning and tracking—including target market profiling, call list, call strategy, and sales lead demographics analysis
2. Focuses on generating high-quality, qualified sales leads—and not necessarily quantity
3. Strong and successful track record

Picking the right firm can help insure a profitable and successful campaign.

Many professional services firm are discovering business telemarketing provides a consistent and persistent flow of qualified sales leads and sales appointments. Business telemarketing is a direct marketing approach where prospective clients are engaged in a high-level conversation to qualify their need for services and products. Choosing the right business telemarketing firm can help you quickly build a strong sales opportunity pipeline.

Jim Graziano is president of Onset Marketing LLC, a strategic marketing and sales lead generation firm that uses a fast-track approach to help companies diversify in new markets and build presence in existing markets. For more information, visit http://www.OnsetMarketing.comor call 248.596.9788.