Telemarketing: Giving You the Edge

Marketing can be a huge challenge for the small or medium scale entrepreneurs. Television advertising is too expensive, radio promotions covers only a small area of prospective customers, while print ads just end up in the trash basin. It would be nice if a less costly method of advertising can be used to promote their products and services.

Considering that, it would perhaps be a wise choice to go for telemarketing. Despite the negative public image of telemarketers, this industry has continued to grow and survive over the years, helping business improve their chances of getting in touch with the right people and getting their wares off the shelf much faster than other selling tactics. In addition, telemarketing services can provide instant feedback for their client entrepreneurs who want to know what their customers think of their products or services.

Now what can professional telemarketers do? The can perform a myriad of functions, as long as the medium is through the phone. They can do hard-selling, negotiations, appointment setting, lead generation, surveys, and answer customer inquiries and complaints. There are a host of other tasks that they are capable of doing. That’s why a lot of effort should be taken to find the right telemarketers for the job. And the additional cost of hiring one can be very minimal, compared to the benefits that will surely come.

It’s true. Telemarketing can be the answer in these hard times. For businesses to continue, this way can provide the much needed help.

On Telemarketing and Sales Improvement

If you’re in the business of selling products, then you would definitely agree that the most painful thing to see is your wares simply gathering dust, lying around in your warehouse or, worse, in the shelves of your stores. You’d want to do something about it, but you know that the people living close-by have bought it already and wouldn’t be buying again very soon. Perhaps telemarketing can do the trick.

Telemarketing is a cost efficient method of increasing your sales and ensuring that the most number of people are informed of what you have and that they are convinced that they need it. If you don’t have the time or the skills to make a sales pitch on the phone, it would be wise to invest on a reliable telemarketing company. Professional telemarketers understand what’s in a potential customer’s mind and are ready to address their concerns. Not only that, but a telemarketer has what it takes to generate good leads that can lead to closed deal for you.

Once you’ve gotten in touch with one, it would be great if you can give them a clear idea about what you have to offer. It’s also advisable that you pay close attention to the results of the sales campaign. Trends and conclusions not previously visible might turn up. You can use that to change the way your product is presented so that it is more attractive to customers.

Telemarketing is a sure-fire solution for your promotion needs. Not only is it cheap, it also lets you reach out to a larger customer base and form a good relationship with them.

The Upside of Outsourced Telemarketing Services

Telemarketing has advanced in the BPO sector as a leading form of marketing due to its effectiveness and ease of use. The number of companies that have adopted it to develop their businesses have grown rapidly in the last few years. Businesses usually outsource telemarketing services to third party telemarketing agencies. This is because of the fact that outsourcing allows companies to focus on their core competencies while the teleservices agencies manage their phone-based marketing campaigns. One of the major advantages of using the services of professional telemarketing companies is their competence in handling both simple and complex telemarketing projects. For several companies, outsourcing telemarketing services has been proven to be an intelligent business decision.

There are two classifications of telemarketing: inbound and outbound. A traditional company that offers telemarketing services uses both these forms of phone-based marketing. Other telemarketing agencies offer business-to-business (B2B) telemarketing, business-to-consumer (B2C) telemarketing, and automated telemarketing. Specialized telemarketing services such as lead generation, appointment setting and answering service are the most preferred by organizations that are looking to generate more income and improve customer relations. These services are offered at affordable costs to help businesses save on operational and manpower expenses. Phone-based sales and marketing functions can be delegated to third-party firms for faster and improved results while maintaining the level of professionalism.

Outsourcing telemarketing services has certainly become a necessity in many organizations' sales efforts. In addition to providing exceptional results, professional telemarketing companies have affinities with several businesses for selling a wide range of services and products. The experiences and expertise they have acquired in dealing with different types of clients can be used to effectively market to different regions with varying ethnic populations.

While telemarketing is popular within the business sector, there are many customers who are unhappy about getting telemarketing calls. Customers who do not want to receive sales calls register their phone numbers in the Do-Not-Call registry. Telemarketing companies that continue to call DNC registrants are penalized heavily. This is the reason why telemarketing agencies check their databases against the DNC list to make sure that their telephone representatives do not contact businesses or people whose phone numbers have been tagged as DNC.

Telemarketing elicits distinct feelings from the viewpoints of customers and businesspeople. For companies that engage in telemarketing, it is important to follow state and federal regulations and be responsible in implementing their campaigns. This is the only real way to make telemarketing remain lucrative in the years to come.

Ethical Telemarketing: An Oxymoron?

To some, the mere thought of telemarketing being ethical is as real as lawyers being honest, in other words, the idea is as stable as a three-legged chair. Telemarketers and the telemarketing industry as a whole are expected to strictly follow all of the different laws (The Do-Not-Call list, Telephone Consumer Protection Act, etc) in place, facing stiff sanctions for non-adherence. The Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission are trying to establish a federal do-not-call list where consumers register to block telemarketing calls.

As a rule, telemarketing agents are also expected to be professional, courteous and polite at all times. A single telemarketers infraction, deliberately or otherwise, will merit an investigation of all sorts but when prospects 'go postal' it's perfectly normal and acceptable behavior. Quite the norm nowadays, as being mean to telemarketers is understandable. It's a double standard that the whole industry of telemarketing has to live with on a daily basis.

People in general love to buy things but they hate the idea of being sold to. Sometimes they see the persistence of the telemarketer explaining why they need a particular product or service as beneficial as an invasion and violation of their right to freely choose what they want to purchase.
The root of all the negative reputation telemarketing has been getting isn't so much as the fraud and scams being perpetrated by boiler rooms, it's when legal and legitimate telemarketing companies call illegally. Fortunately for some companies they are able to get away with it simply because the average telephone consumer is unaware of their phone privacy rights. Nonetheless, you also must understand that though prospects may perceive all telemarketing calls annoying, the fact remains that many of the calls they will receive are still within the legally mandated rights of the telemarketing firm.

Telemarketing done legitimately is ethical. It is still a form of business and the means in which they are conducted are still within the bounds of what is acceptable to society and its laws which by the way are in place to ensure that telemarketing companies are expected to follow. Just because it's annoying doesn't mean that it's illegal.