Boost your email marketing results with telemarketing

Does your performance measure up?

With email marketing being used more widely and increasing in popularity, particularly as an integrated B2B platform it’s good to check your results and see if you were better than the average or below it.

Based on an analysis of 2.8 billion emails sent during 2010 (which is a big number whichever way you look at it) the results were:

• Delivery rates averaged 95%. Up from 2009.
• Open rates were 15%, down from 26% in 2009.
• Click rates remained steady at 3%.
• Bounce rates were 5%, besting 2009’s 7% bounce rate.

Apart from the open rates (and there were specific reasons given for this fall) the results are positive and demonstrate how email marketing is improving and being used more widely.

But if your email marketing isn’t measuring up, or delivering poor results, then telemarketing can boost your performance and improve your email campaigns.

Boost email delivery rates
If people don’t receive your emails they can’t act upon them. Every bounced email represents a lost opportunity to sell your products or engage with customers. Data cleansing is proven to boost email delivery rates by contacting your mailing database and establishing the correct email address for each person.

Keeping emails relevant

The report concluded that the drop in open rates between 2009 and 2010 was attributed, mostly, to a change in the emphasis of emails. Previously marketing emails tended to be customer service based delivering content that was relevant and matched the needs of the client. More recently companies have started to use email marketing as a sales tool to attract more customers using content that was focused on encouraging them to buy more products – simply put many people did not like this approach and this is show within the results of the survey.

This change in emphasis was the reason that open rates fell dramatically, as people have turned away from this type of marketing and simply ignored all the messages. Marketers now know that it’s time to take it back to basics and uncover how people want to receive your message and an easy way to find out is to call and ask them.

A telemarketing campaign to determine what email messages people prefer, and making sure their choices are adhered to, will lead to better open and click rates for emails, and more in-depth engagement with customers – it’s a simple approach but it works.

Integrating telemarketing works

Integrating telemarketing with an email campaign improves your reach and the effectiveness of those campaigns. In addition, establishing and adhering to customer’s contact preferences is an effective part of a relationship marketing strategy, improves loyalty and encourages long-term repeat business which are the key ingredients to a strong sales pipeline.

How can we help?

Our operation is made up of highly skilled telemarketers who display maturity, influencing skills and the ability to hold conversations. Using email marketing as a starting point and combining it with telemarketing to increase your customer interactions, conversations and engagement you will be providing a consistent customer experience. With most of the marketing media discussing the impact your customer has on your bottom line, now’s the time to make their experiences count.

Phonetic can make sure that your telemarketing campaigns integrate perfectly with your email initiatives and that your customers feel more satisfied with their experience than they thought they would.

Source: Harte-Hanks Email Survey Report 2010

How are you delivering customer service?

A Big Lie
The biggest lie today (put about by marketing departments) is that ‘the customer is in charge’
Another Bigger Lie…
… is that ‘customer service is better’…..and if you believe that you will believe anything. It simply isn’t true. Anybody can tell you that most customer service is bad, very bad, actually worse than bad, it’s dreadful.

So why do businesses try to put the customer in charge?
The one and only reason to put the customer in charge is simply costs. Financial costs for the business go down and…..perceived service goes up because customers are doing the work themselves. In a world of imperfect customer service, most customers prefer to help themselves (think IKEA!)

Stop and Think!
It’s amazing that as customer we feel betrayed yet an entire business philosophy is so obviously without substance. The majority of businesses are failing to deliver. The customer is not king and is still waiting to be heard.

Reality sets in
It really is dismal….how often in the past month have you been told by the call centre ‘We are experiencing higher than usual call volumes’ or ‘you are in a queue’? But guess what? These statements are always followed by the most irritating comment, ‘We value your call’.

If they truly value my call why do I always have to wait? If they are experiencing higher than usual call volumes then why can’t the customer expect higher than average staffing levels?

Smell the coffee

Some companies are actually starting to wake up to the fact that customers’ opinions are valuable and that customer ratings need to be looked at and acted upon. They are becoming aware that most customers do not feel ‘in charge’ and they realise that if they stand out from the rest and really do put their customers in charge they can be ahead of the pack.

Real relationships blow away the sizzle of institutional hype

There are now huge opportunities for the independently-minded businesses to stand out from the crowd and step away from mediocrity and instead of forgetting about the customer focus on how to understand them more.

The best-kept secret about customer service?
• Customer service tends to be bad because it really is very hard to do.
• The real (best-kept) secret is to treat the customer like you would like to be treated yourself.
• The really hard part of providing excellent customer service is not the service! The really hard part is everything but the service! The hard part is to do with how the company thinks about what they are doing and how they behave as a consequence.

Most airlines offer bad service (and bad food) because they don’t actually think of themselves as service organisations – they see themselves as machines for generating revenue per seat per mile. Banks don’t see themselves as service organisations – they see themselves as an organisation to generate profits for their investors. Insurance companies don’t see themselves as a service organisation – they see themselves as providing a way for people to protect their families, homes, cars.

So how can it change?
While many people will accept and even tolerate the mediocrity that surrounds us. An opportunity exists to beat your competition and get closer to your customers so you can give them a truly first rate service, fill niches and put them back ‘in charge’.

According to research telemarketing remains an important part of the marketing mix. A new survey conducted by B2B Marketing revealed that 70% of respondents regarding telemarketing as either ‘critical’ or ‘very important’. Just under half of respondents 45% said their use of telemarketing has increased during the last 12 months, compared with less than 10% who said their use of it has decreased.

These statistics are no surprise because it is the only medium that enables true two-way dialogue with target audiences. It is the fastest, most flexible and most information rich approach to generating demand, gathering information and building relationships with prospects, customers and partners.

Telemarketing creates huge and diverse opportunities for businesses to reach out and connect with their customers and prospects – but have also produced challenges. Getting it right is the key and treading the fine line between improving customer experience and using it primarily to benefit a business’s bottom line. While customers are now more demanding than ever…the first step in exceeding their expectations is to know those expectations.

How can you make sure that your prospect receives your message?

It’s so simple, pick up the phone and speak to them….telemarketing is great. You get to speak to hundreds (or thousands) of your targeted prospects and communicate directly with the decision maker. So what can go wrong?

Why doesn’t it always work?
Mainly it’s because some key elements of a campaign are not planned properly or may be missed out altogether. We have plenty of experience managing telemarketing and lead generation campaigns and so we’ve put together a quick guide on what not to miss out of your campaigns to ensure you get successful results every time.

Planning
Most businesses plan their telemarketing – at least to some degree. The trouble is it’s always seen as a stand alone activity and not part of the long-term sales plan or integrated marketing activity (see previous blog post: http://wp.me/p1dj1C-3A Using telemarketing as part of an integrated campaign). Whilst telemarketing does work on its own, it’s far more effective when it’s part of an integrated approach and you have the chance to consider all the stages of the sales cycle.

“You know how some telemarketing companies start a campaign without doing a pilot to test out the data, decision contact rate, scripting, approach, call flow and results. Which means that you cannot test their promises. Well what we do is pilot and test all our clients’ campaigns for 6-12 weeks before we start. Which means that you know what you’re going to get and can make changes before a full roll out takes place.”

Data
Good data is the key because it’s very demoralising for either skilled telemarketing agents or in-house teams to be working with data that is out of date, where people have left a company. It’s easy to clean the date first and then you can proceed with confidence and better than average conversation rates.

“You know how some telemarketing companies collect renewal dates but no other information. Which means that you only get part of the picture. Well what we do is collect additional information during the call to check contact details, value of premium and permission for ongoing contact. Which means that you get true marketing insight into your customers up to date details and purchasing choices.”

Objectives
Sales isn’t it? Well yes, but you can’t expect everyone to be at the buying stage right now. So it’s sales now, or in the future – and that means capturing relevant customer insight such as “why not now” and “when might you” and “if not us, then who and why”. A key objective is to turn todays “no” into a “yes please” in the future.

“You know how some telemarketing companies only contact your customers once a year. Which means that you don’t know what’s relevant to them. Well what we do is deliver integrated keep warm strategies to touch points at various stages throughout the year. Which means that when it’s time to talk about the matter in hand your brand is firmly in their mind.”

Training
The trouble is with telemarketers is that they come… and they go. This means that regular training is crucial to the team’s success. Training about products, sectors, markets and insight into types of businesses and individuals is a key part of getting it right. A council is very different from a mobile phone company. A Financial Director is very different from a Marketing Director. They all need to be contacted at different time, on different days, in different ways.

“You know how some telemarketing companies employ temporary staff who are highly commission driven. Which means that the quality of contacts and conversations to your clients/prospects may suffer. Well what we do is only employ salaried staff who have been recruited for their B2B aptitude. Which means that they are confident having decision level conversations at all levels of the organisation.”

Objections
Plan to receive rejections – because a major part of telemarketing planning is not about getting the objections but how to deal with them. Often to an inexperienced telemarketer they’re viewed with fear, but actually they should be welcomed. Why? Because you cannot make a sale without objections they are a natural part of making a decision and objections often mean that someone is interested and wants to know more, or is seeing how you behave and how you handle their objections. Welcome them and plan for them.

“You know how some telemarketing companies take ages to feedback what’s happening on a campaign. Which means that you can’t react as quickly as you’d like. Well what we do is feedback quickly and amend the campaign with updated information in real time rather than waiting for review dates. Which means that we don’t waste a minute of your calling time getting it wrong

We believe that telemarketing is not a job that simply starts and finishes with someone (anyone) talking on the phone, we know that it involves sophisticated market analysis and target profiling, expert data sourcing, results focused analysis and reporting and more importantly a team who have telemarketing in their heart to consistently deliver your message to the right person, at the right time and in the right way.

Using telemarketing as part of an integrated campaign

Why Integrate?
Contrary to popular belief telemarketing remains an increasingly important part of the marketing mix. Companies that achieve good results through their marketing activity will admit that they utilise different channels of marketing to achieve their results. This combination may be advertising, internet marketing and telesales, or a combination of any other form of marketing.
It makes sense to realise that the more forms of communication you use, the more the likelihood that your message will be heard. Getting through to high level decisions makers is challenging. Getting a positive response from them is even more challenging. Carefully timed multi touched campaigns are much more effective than single isolated campaigns.

Proactive marketing works
Telemarketing is probably the most versatile of all the marketing services simple because it can be used to achieve a wide range of objectives from market research, sales appointments, data capture such as renewal dates and contact information, new product entry and even seminar attendance and follow ups the list is endless. This versatility means it can be integrated with many other services. A proactive telemarketing call can turn a good email marketing campaign into an excellent one. Ringing the responsive recipients of an email marketing campaign (the ones who click through and open an email) can increase the leads many times over with relatively small costs.
Similarly direct mail campaigns also benefit massively by using telemarketing for example responses may be difficult to gauge because call to actions are not as easy as clicking through a link so a proactive telesales call is useful for encouraging a more immediate response.
Telecleansing can be used after sending out any email or direct mail to address any hard bounces and correct email addresses can be checked and cleansed to ensure the database quality for future campaigns, a follow up campaign can then be sent to these corrected contacts.

Flexible and versatile
Because we are so flexible at Phonetic we can provide integrated, multi-channel approaches built to maximise ROI with “keep-warm” strategies and with flexible commercial models designed to drive down costs which means that you get the benefits of an experienced and reliable partner who is used to working with national blue chip companies.

We currently provide a wide range of services to integrate into most marketing plans including:

• Datebase building and cleansing
• Marketing research, follow up and insight gathering
• Renewal date collection
• Hotkeying
• Appointment setting
• Cross-selling and up-selling
• End-to-end sales

Opinion and advice
If you’re looking for a company who understands telemarketing and has years of experience or just want to chat, we’re always happy to help. We can provide opinions, advice and demonstrate a proven track record delivering quality results consistently. We have a wide range of telemarketing models that deliver across a multitude of product sets and we’re FSA authorised. Adding well-executed, integrated telemarketing campaigns to the marketing mix can help any business move beyond traditional marketing strategies and traditional earning potential.

7 Tips for Telemarketing Success

Outbound telemarketing is a key aspect in most B2B marketing plans. Done well it is a cost-effective, measurable and scalable activity; done badly it is one of the surest ways of alienating your prospects and ruining your brand.

Sadly, too many companies do it badly. They employ untrained staff, equip them with a telephone and directories, some mumbled advice and no planned training schemes, and then wonder why they have no sales leads and disgruntled telemarketing agents.

Running telemarketing campaigns takes time and effort and the first step is getting the basics right, such as saying the right thing to the right person in the right way – sounds simple but it’s amazing how many businesses get it wrong. So here’s some easy ways to make sure you get it right (and you can always call us if you need some help along the way)

1. The Right Message
It’s essential that you brief your telemarketers on the product or service you want them to sell. Just giving them a script is rarely enough. Most professionals agree that reading from a script will not return the results you will be looking for and reduces the effectiveness of any campaign.

2. The Audience
It’s possible to spend a lot of time trying to sell your product to the wrong person so before you even pick up the phone make sure you have targeted the right person or department. People frequently change job titles so bear in mind that a list that’s older than 12 months will contain a lot of redundant data. It’s also important to cross check all the data to ensure that no one is included who has asked to be removed from call lists.

3. The Medium
B2B telemarketers have very different skill sets from those who work on consumer marketing. Your team needs to be responsive to what your prospects are saying. Forcing people into appointments wastes time and ultimately damages your brand.

4. The Delivery
Everyone has an individual style, but there are some fundamental rules. Successful telemarketers work hard to get gatekeepers (receptionists and PA’s) on their side. They are prepared, confident and always polite.

5. Timing
The best time for making calls varies and can depend on what campaign you are running. Many argue that Friday afternoons are a bad time to call people, but others point out that it can be a good time to catch prospects in a receptive mood, relaxing down into the weekend. Persistence is the key to getting through to your prospect.

6. Motivating Staff
Outbound telemarketing is a tough job that requires a thick skin and an ability to persevere in the face of initially poor results, so it’s important to be able to motivate staff and this will take more than a trip to the local under the guise of ‘team building’. Motivation requires clear, realistic targets and rewards for reaching them and not forgetting support and training which is essential especially if targets are not reached.

7. Getting Help
This advice all sounds great, but the reality is often very different and so it is unsurprising that many companies prefer to bring in external specialists and if you are considering doing this we can help you get the results you need.

We specialise in B2B telemarketing with a large team of highly trained resource specifically recruited for their B2B aptitude, compliant training programmes and agents with years of B2B experience. We can provide smart account management so you get advanced marketing insight backed up by recommendations for enhancement and improvements.

We’ve a proven track record and delivery top quality results consistently with multi channel approaches built to maximise your appointment volumes and sales results over the long-term with popular ‘keep-warm strategies’ to keep your customers focused and engaged with you.

With a strong pedigree and impeccable reputation you’re in safe hands right from the word go with a start-up process that includes pilots projects to make sure your telemarketing experience will be a journey to higher profits and cost savings.

If you need help give us a call, we make telemarketing better, it’s what we do.

Cold calls – how to make them work for you

There’s no doubt that cold calling has not enjoyed the best of reputations over the years. A badly executed cold call, at best can be irritating to the recipient. At worst, it can end in an abusive interaction by both parties and a slamming down of the telephone.

Done correctly though, cold calling is without doubt one of the most cost effective and profitable ways to find new business – fast.

You can build excellent relationships and find companies who are looking for your products or services every day. It is perfectly possible to speak with 25 decision makers in one day and make qualified appointments with up to 10% of them. Imagine what that could do for your business?

Scripts

Scripts don’t work and that’s a fact. A robotic set of words spewed out to anyone who will listen – and then expecting to get a ‘yes’ at the end, is the practice that gave cold calling a bad name years ago. A bad script works on the principal that – ‘A stopped clock tells the right time twice a day’ and cold calling is just a ‘numbers game’.

By contrast, you know an approach that’s working when someone says “I’m really glad you called”, or “thanks for your call” at the end of a conversation.

The alternative to a script is a call guide that allows the person placing the cold call to have a logical conversation with the receiver, allowing them to participate fully. It is vital to gain rapport quickly and to ask pertinent questions that the recipient recognises may help solve problems that they have. When a call goes in this direction, very profitable relationships can begin to develop, which then turns into very profitable business for you.

Objection handling

‘Objection handling’ is a term that is used to describe how a cold caller deals with an objection raised by the recipient of a cold call.

This practice involves argumentative exchanges of views between the cold caller and recipient – usually ending in the recipient becoming annoyed and putting the phone down.

Objections happen when a cold call has been made using a rigid script or a poor approach. The recipient raises an objection because he/she cannot see that they have a use for the product of services that is being pitched on the call or they are not finding the call interesting enough to listen to.

An interesting approach is the call guide, which involves highlighting the unique selling points of your companies’ products or services plus asking the right questions to unearth needs and provide solutions will win hands down and create the right environment for the recipient of the call to say – ‘ you called at just the right time’.

Removing the mystery about marketing integration

What is Marketing Integration?

Marketing integration is simple…it’s joining up your marketing processes. It’s about joining up your database, direct marketing and digital marketing with the rest of the company, and of course with the customer. The results will be:
• Faster time to market for products, offers or incentives
• Greater relevancy and engagement with your customers
• Marketing efficiency and accountability.
According to research 69% of companies are currently allocating additional resource to understanding and implementing the areas of database and analytics in order to bring them closer to their customers.

Building a Platform

To succeed you need an integrated platform that supports your entire business process including:
• all marketing disciplines
• integration and collaboration
• strategic planning
• accountability
• measurement
“83% of marketers agree that marketing needs a more comprehensive and integrated application suite in order to improve its effectiveness.” The Forrester Wave, Suresh Vittal

Using Partners

Businesses need as much help as they can get to not only reach customers who are increasingly tuning out of communications, but also to help transform brand perceptions and make your business stand out against your competition.
It makes sense to use specific expertise and partners who understand the market and can deliver cost effective and efficient solutions because it is their area of expertise; it’s what they do.

You need to know what you know

“In God we trust; all others bring data” Barry Beracha, Sara Lee
There is a huge amount of value locked up in your databases and you need to unlock it so you can use this valuable resource for marketing purposes. Those who fail to segment, mine, model, plan, optimise and test will be overtaken by their more informed competition who have had the foresight to understand the value and behaviours of their customers.

Understanding customers as people

“70% of our decision to buy is based on how we are treated as people,” John McKena, The Centre for Information Based Competition
The way a customer is treated by your organisation will affect how likely they are to recommend your product or service. Customers are your biggest salesforce for your brand yet often they are actually overlooked and their opinions never asked. You can make the move from mass marketing to mass personalisation and become more relevant, anticipate what a customer needs and be in a position to meet those needs in an informed way.

Starting point in database marketing

Customer database management, segmentation, campaign management and closing the loop through feedback are fundamental aspects of successful direct and database marketing. If you aren’t already doing this then get a makeover from someone who knows that they are doing. If you are, why not try your hand at contact optimisation, it can increase campaign success rates by you to 50%.

How can we help?

Our strength is in the B2B market. The vast majority of our experience has been built up dealing with businesses large and small. Our operation is made up of a highly skilled workforce recruited primarily due to their suitability for the B2B markets. We employ a broad mix of team members who display maturity, influencing skills and the ability to hold conversations with business owners and influencers at all levels. Our campaigns are mostly all multi-channel integrated, and we believe these technologies support our ability to have the highest quality voice interactions with your customers. We can provide intelligent data analysis designed to get to your target market in the shortest time possible whilst reducing your costs.

It’s all adding up to growth for you!

The integrated nature of our campaigns allows you to integrate data marketing into your overall marketing strategy with ease. We can start your journey or solve a specific challenge by providing an integrated, bespoke and flexible solution. You can be confident that working with us will reduce any risk associated with outsourcing the areas of database and analytics. With an increase in customer interactions, conversations and engagement you will be providing a consistent customer experience, so stop creating a noise and start creating a symphony.

It’s a fact outsourcing is growing

Why outsource telemarketing and lead generation processes?
The number of organisations using outsourcing is on the increase, particularly for their telemarketing and lead generation processes. The Annual PricewaterhouseCoopers CEO Survey found that many top executives believe they gain major advantages from outsourcing. Benefits such as mitigating complexity, reducing transaction costs and gaining a competitive edge were all identified.
Outsourcing is an established business strategy evolving and growing to deliver value over and above cost savings. Outsourcing your telemarketing and data collection can provide you with loads of benefits including:
• Avoiding the overheads of an internal call centre
• The capability to handle very high peaks and low troughs
• A business model that allows agents to be switched between campaigns as demand allows, removing staffing issues
• Potential to increase quality, while lowering costs
• Streamlined customer processes delivery bottom line savings and a more reliable service.
What are the benefits of outsourcing?
To stay ahead organisations are seeking new and more efficient ways to cut costs and improve services and the overall added value that outsourcing can provide should not be estimated. Values such as:
• Gaining insight into your customers and getting expert feedback
• Quick expansion and growth
• Enable change quickly through flexibility and scalability
• Utilise outsourcers best practice and innovations
• Tap into tried and tested methods that have already delivered results
• Gain access to great people and experienced skill sets.

Why use Phonetic?
Finding the right outsourcer to work with can be a challenge so we work hard with our clients developing trusted relationships and we are sure that our wide range of telemarketing models and multi-channel approach built to maximise lead volumes over the long-term are the most advanced proposition of their type in the market.
We have worked tirelessly over the past 9 years to enhance, refine and improve the models in partnership with our clients’ marketing teams to provide an integrated solution. Smart account management means we find the clever solutions to set you apart from your competition.

Minimising the risk
Telemarketing and lead generation outsourcing is an efficient way of increasing your business’s productivity but using these simple tips you can minimise any risk when choosing your outsourcing partner and ensure a smooth transition:
• Create a business case analysing expected cost savings and other financial operational benefits of the initiative
• Know what your end goal is and be realistic about it
• Negotiate a contract that captures the needs and expectations of both parties and addresses compliance and risk factors identified
• Monitor the on-going performance according to the contract and service level agreements.

Checklist…What to look for in an outsource partner
Outsourcing releases significant cost savings in the process as well as adding value to your relationship with your customers and great benefits can also be achieved as long as you select your partner carefully. Here are some tips on what you should expect from your outsourcer:
• High quality service delivery and shared commitment to delivering quality output
• Expert industry and process knowledge
• Highly trained agents specifically recruited for their B2B aptitude
• Strong financial footing with a stable financial future and strong cash flow
• A partner who can help you become more responsive to changing customer demands
• An outsourcer with a proven track record and the ability to adapt and improve on existing processes.
• A management team with decades of experience who understand the market in detail.

Source: http://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-survey/index.jhtml?WT.mc_id=syndication_01-11_ceo-survey-media-box-gx_ceo-survey-hp

Could your database be making you more money?

A carefully tended database should be a fantastic marketing tool for a company. Laden with prospects in the pipeline, contract renewal dates coming up or at least a great foundation for a regular mailing to potential clients – does that look like your database?

How healthy is your database?

Sadly many companies never update or cleanse their databases. In the latter part of 2008 for example, according to statistics from the government’s insolvency service, company liquidations were up by 15%. This, together with company merges and buyouts means that your data is going out of date faster than any other time, and if you are relying on this data for mailings and other marketing activity, this could be costing you thousands of pounds with diminishing results

Telephone calling to update your databases

One of the most efficient ways of updating your database is to call it. A good telephone call can at least knock out those dead, gone away companies and sort out basic details like the correct postal address, decision maker contact and any other pertinent, valuable information that you might use as part of your marketing strategy. Take care that your data has been TPS screened before you call.

Enriching your database with lead generation

Basic details to update your database can be found at the switchboard level of a company. If you need to generate cold leads from your database, it’s only an extra few moments to speak with a decision maker – with the right approach any of your marketing staff could undertake this work which will pay dividends.

Towergate advices businesses to check their insurance!

Towergate Insurance has urged businesses to review their insurance coverage in the light of the recent shocking bouts of looting to afflict London, and other cities across England.

Last night the capital saw fewer and smaller disturbances, but other cities (including Manchester and Nottingham) saw violence flare up.

Businessmen are being advised to ensure they have adequate commercial and personal insurance coverage so that they are financially protected should they be hit by looting.

Jonathan Walker, Towergate Insurance Retail CEO, recommended that businesses get in touch with their brokers without delay and check that their coverage is sufficient.

In most instances the insured peril of Riot and Civil Commotion will cover damage caused by riots.

Yesterday the ABI offered guidance to those affected by the riots, indicating that fire, looting or damage should be covered by home insurance, with many policies also providing compensation to those unable to remain in their homes.

Businesses will be in most cases be protected against damage to their premises, and the interruption to trade ensuing from the situation