Ask a business owner to name lucrative marketing channels, and they’ll reel off an array of answers. You’ll probably hear about social media, email marketing, and other digital strategies. Today’s businesses have a plethora of marketing alternatives to utilize for outreach and growth.
That surplus of choice can lead you to forget about more conventional channels. Telemarketing is an excellent example. The traditional idea of picking up the phone to drum up business is out of fashion. The fact is, though, that when done correctly, telemarketing can help you to grow your business.
You need to look at telemarketing as one arrow in your marketing quiver. If you have a unified communications as a service platform, you have lots of channels at your disposal. You’ll want to use them all in combination and in the most effective way possible.
In the case of telemarketing, that doesn’t mean old-fashioned cold calling. It means taking an intelligent approach to growing your business using the phone. Here are the three significant steps to take to grow your firm with telemarketing:
- Telemarketing to existing customers
- Telemarketing to lost customers
- Telemarketing for lead generation
1. Telemarketing to Existing Customers
Growing your business doesn’t always mean attracting new customers. Achieving superior customer retention can often be a better way to get a leg-up on your rivals. Keeping your customers on board can make more of a difference to your revenue than you’d think.
Telemarketing can aid customer retention in a variety of ways. Customer care or research calls are an excellent example. These instances of outreach show your customers that you care, creating a more positive view of your brand. That makes it less likely that a customer will abandon you for a rival.
Researching with your existing buyers can also help you find new opportunities. Feedback on your products or services can help you fix problems. By talking about the needs of your current customers, you can also identify future paths for expansion.
It’s also worth considering the cross-selling or upselling opportunities of telemarketing to existing customers. If someone already buys from you, they’re more likely to be interested in other products or services. That’s because they have first-hand experience of the qualities of your firm and products. Likewise, existing customers via telemarketing are more likely to answer the phone.
2. Telemarketing to Lost Customers
Your next step when trying to grow your business via telemarketing involves those customers you’ve recently lost. By that, we mean customers who bought from you before but haven’t done so for a while. That might be as they haven’t felt a need to purchase or could be because they’ve moved over to a rival.
It may surprise you how successful reaching out to lost customers can be. Getting in touch can help to jog their memories as to how useful your products or services are. What’s more, it shows them how much you value their business. Calling and speaking to lapsed customers can rebuild their relationship with you as a brand of choice.
Even if you fail to win a customer back, speaking to them can give you invaluable insight. If you’re able to learn why they left you, you can make it less likely to lose further customers for the same reason. That will aid your customer retention and thus help keep your business growing.
3. Telemarketing for Lead Generation
Lead generation is what most people think of when they consider telemarketing. Cold calling a defined list of prospects is an effective way to warm those prospects up. You’re looking to set an appointment or pass a lead on to sales staff. You don’t necessarily want to think about selling to a prospect via only one phone call.
Telemarketing for lead generation isn’t as popular as it once was. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. How you should think about it, though, is as a part of a broader strategy. Try to tie in lead generation calls with other marketing channels. Think about calling prospects who you’ve reached out to via email but from whom you’ve yet to get a response.
Don’t Discount Your Desk Phone as a Means of Growing Your Business
The business world is always evolving. You can’t rely on the same marketing methods and practices of ten or even five years ago. It’s down to you to embrace new channels and new consumer preferences, but you should still keep in mind more conventional channels, like telemarketing.
As part of a broader strategy, telemarketing can help you grow your business. There are three main steps to using the channel effectively. Those are to reach out to existing, lapsed, and then prospective customers. Do all three well, and you’ll be adding extra support to your other efforts to keep your company progressing.
Guest post courtesy of Sam O'Brien
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