A well executed business to business telemarketing campaign should still be the centre piece of any marketing mix, even in 2010. It’s still the only form of marketing at your disposal that does not rely on the prospects actively taking action to make contact with you. It does not matter if you deploy tried and tested marketing such as direct mail, public relations, advertising, events or look to technological advances in email marketing, online marketing, social media etc, they all rely on the prospect having already identified their potential interest / need for your solution and then they make contact. They also all rely on significant budgets and long periods of time to gather critical mass, before your prospect automatically thinks about you, when they feel they need a solution.

Telemarketing is unique, it allows you to proactively contact your ideal prospects and engage in an intelligent two way conversation. During the conversation you can establish their pains, their challenges, demonstrate your products benefits and reinforce your offering by using past case studies. The critical difference between telemarketing and other forms of marketing is the prospect need not have any knowledge of your company or solution 5 minutes earlier to agree to a sales meeting.

However, telemarketing needs to adapt and move away from the old image of thumbing through any old list and mechanically pitching to as many people as possible. To be successful at telemarketing in 2010 you have to adapt and use new tools. Here are the 3 quick and easy techniques to bring your telemarketing into the 2010’s.

Integrating email marketing and telemarketing.

Did you know that integrating email marketing and telemarketing can increase telemarketing productivity between 25% – 75%? Telemarketeers are now able to access real-time results of prospects opening and clicking through to websites from most email marketing solutions. The telemarketer in 2010 can call a prospect while they are still reading the original email and start a conversation on subjects that are relevant to the web pages they have just been visiting.

Integrate your CRM, data acquisition and prospect profiling.

It is now possible to save enormous volumes of time in identifying contact details and prospect profiling. A perfect example is the ability to add solutions from Onesource™ or Hoovers™ to Salesforce through the App Store. These instantly download information direct into your CRM about individuals and the company that would have taken an inordinate amount of time if gathered by any other means. This not only increases the time spent actually targeting prospects by the telemarketer in 2010, but also provides better information to the telemarketer so they can adapt their conversation to the company and individual they are speaking too.

Build Social Media links then use it to the max.

The explosion of social media has enabled the telemarketer in 2010 to actually see the networks they live within. Everyone is forging links between one another and with the popularity of sites such as linkedin.com we are now able to see who knows who, past employment and what they are currently doing. This insight allows a telemarketeer in 2010 to bring existing relationships into their conversation. This means the telemarketeer in 2010 can gain better access to target prospects and improve the effectiveness of calls to arrange sales meetings. This new network knowledge can uncover people your prospect knows, mutual contacts, past and present colleagues etc. All these relationships can be levered into conversations to great effect.

The telemarketeer in 2010 has a completely different profile from the past. They are using every possible piece of information at their disposal to hold unique conversations with their prospects and drawing upon more and more sources of information. The telemarketer in 2010 will keep telemarketing at the centre of your marketing mix. Those that do not change will lose this valuable marketing tool forever.

Author Bio: Derek Rogers is a freelance writer who writes for a number of UK businesses. For telemarketing support, he recommends Telemarketing GB.

Category: Marketing
Keywords: telemarketing, tele marketing, telemarketin agency