Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing used across industries and includes tasks like lead generation services, cold calling, appointment setting, and lead qualification. While telemarketing services were traditionally carried out over the phone, today, they have evolved to include email marketing, social media, and live chat support services.
There are different types of telemarketing and they have different strengths and weaknesses. While the best type of telemarketing depends on your requirements, these are four types that your business will benefit from.
Lead generation services are categorized as inbound and outbound depending on who initiates the interaction. Outbound telemarketing is where the business reaches out to the customer. Inbound telemarketing, on the other hand, is when the customer or potential customer initiates the interaction.
If your business has advertised a product on social media, for instance, a potential customer may use your live chat support services to find out more information about it. When they make this inquiry, your business will provide them with the necessary information and use various tactics to ensure the potential customer makes the purchase.
This is how inbound lead generation services operate and your business can benefit from high conversion rates by opting for call centre outsourcing. A call centre will have the required equipment to ensure agents can easily access information and data that will improve the quality of the call and provide a better service to leads.
While inbound lead generation services rely on the customer initiating contact, this does not mean that marketing teams sit idly until contacted. Inbound telemarketing makes use of social media, newsletters, blogs, and other platforms to attract new customers from target groups by creating awareness of the brand and sharing information about products and services.
As mentioned above, outbound telemarketing is a method of initiating communication with a lead or potential customer. A business that uses call centre outsourcing services may have an agent or operator make a cold call to a prospective customer and lead generation services usually have operators follow a script that guides them through key points that should be raised with a prospect and how to respond to any objections raised by the prospect.
Agents are also required to have extensive knowledge about the product or service because the leads they contact need to be introduced to the business, brand, and their products.
An example of outbound telemarketing is when your insurance company contacts you to introduce a new plan. You may be considered a potential customer due to your relationship with them as well as your age, income, or sector of employment. The insurance company may have identified you as a prospect for their new product and will use lead generation services to convert you into a customer.
While outbound telemarketing is often believed to be intrusive, call centres have improved and modified their tactics so they are not disruptive or inconvenient. This has made more businesses consider outbound telemarketing as an ideal method of marketing for them.
When we visit an online store and purchase clothes for personal use, we are customers or consumers of that business. These are business-to-consumer or B2C sales. However, there are businesses that purchase from other businesses and these are business-to-business or B2B sales.
Telemarketing considers these two sales models when carrying out lead generation services. B2B telemarketing is when both the party selling the products and the party buying the products are business entities.
In such an instance, call centre outsourcing services will use B2B telemarketing strategies that will enable them to raise awareness about a brand and product and build credibility among potential and existing customers.
In addition to scripts that are vital in telemarketing, B2B telemarketing may also use B2B lead lists, tools that prioritise sales calls, and data collected from a customer relationship management software.
The fourth type of telemarketing your business needs is B2C telemarketing. If you sell goods directly to the consumer, your B2C sales can improve significantly with lead generation services. Like outbound telemarketing and B2B telemarketing, the main goal here is to identify potential customers, introduce them to a product or service, and sell it to them.
A customer support outsourcing service will develop a telemarketing strategy for B2C sales models with a few key decision points and consider consumer behaviour and decision-making patterns. B2C telemarketing is also product-driven, unlike B2B telemarketing, which is relationship-driven. This is because B2B sales usually aim at a long-term relationship.
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