Good and Bad Lead Generation Using Telemarketing

We've all had the unwelcome lead generation phone calls from people and companies we've never heard of (and never want to). We've joined all of the do-not-call lists and screamed at the computer voices that keep coming back to haunt us. Telemarketing enjoys the same reputation as e-mail spam and dog catchers, but is it deserved? Are all telemarketers bent on destroying your peace and quiet in the interest of their favorite charity or internet startup? No, not quite. There is a brighter side. Let's compare the two types of telemarketers.

Bad Telemarketer

Calls you day or night regardless (of anything)

Good Telemarketer

Calls only on opted-in people on a well-researched list. Only people who are interested and available are called.

Bad Telemarketer

Sounds like a robo-marketer reading from a boring script. Doesn't listen and is very pushy.

Good Telemarketer

Highly trained in building relationships via telemarketing. Asks if it is ok to speak right now. Is polite and listens to what you have to say. Attempts to help you solve problems that are relevant to your situation.

Bad Telemarketer

Attempts to mislead you into buying - tries to get the sale at any cost. Refuses to take no for an answer.

Good Telemarketer

Wants to work with you and is willing to be patient. Understands the buy cycle and seeks to build trust first, answer questions and qualify you as a customer. Not necessarily trying to close today, but if the opportunity is there, will handle it professionally.

Bad Telemarketing

Bad telemarketing is all about noise - getting people's attention by disrupting their daily lives. Bad telemarketing is universally frowned upon and in many cases, it's illegal.

Good Telemarketing

Good telemarketing is a proven way to generate high probability sales leads and assist in increasing sales revenues. Good telemarketers know about the dark side and work hard to earn the trust of the people they call. Good telemarketing works because it's a one-on-one, personal connection, even for a few minutes. A good caller works hard to help you rather than sell to you.

How Will Mobile Impact B2B Lead Generation?

In a recent survey by Forbes Insights, 73% of C-Suite executives use their smartphone as their primary communication device. How can modern sales and marketing teams adapt to this new mobile world to generate sales leads effectively?

Where the C-Suite Lives

If you believe in "fishing where the fish are", B2B sales and marketing strategies must be adapted to the new mobile reality. Telemarketing and telesales teams will find it increasingly difficult to contact decision makers via their traditional channels. Calling a business number and expecting to make a live connection is rapidly becoming an anachronism. If you don't know an executive well enough to get on his or her mobile speed-dial list, your chances of getting through are slim at best.

Since direct access to C-Suite mobile devices is challenging at best, what other strategies can inside sales teams employ to make a connection? Let's start by thinking about what people are doing with smartphones. Chances are, they are moving between meetings inside and outside the office or in transit between home and work. They are browsing for information or perhaps catching up on work via mobile apps. We can start to get their attention by thinking small, for example:

• Mobile websites designed with the small footprint of mobile phones in mind
• Mobile content that loads quickly, is easy to read and doesn't take long to complete and understand
• Photos, videos and podcasts that can be viewed quickly or even consumed while driving (in the case of podcasts)
• Mobile apps with a well-defined function that would appeal to a C-Suite executive, for example real-time news and quotes for a specific industry

Change is Good

A good first step is building a mobile website that boils down your business message to its essence, delivers your unique value proposation in a compact way and makes it easy for interested parties to contact you, for example with click-to-call links and interactive location maps. You can also take advantage of location-based services, such as Foursquare or Gowalla, to advertise your business directly to the mobile marketplace. The key is to provide enough value in your mobile site or app that you attract interest from busy executives and entice them to call you, text, e-mail or fill our a lead generation form.

There can be little doubt that the business world is rapidly migrating away from the traditional office setting and forms of communication. To be successful, B2B sales and marketing professionals need to adapt to the new norms, and companies need to embrace the new strategies.

B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales - What's the difference?

B2B telemarketing and B2B telesales are often used interchangeably, but their distinctions are important. While both terms describe activities via the telephone to increase sales, telemarketing is a broader function than telesales. Telesales is more targeted with a specific mission, while telemarketing has several goals and methods. Let's examine these differences.

B2B Telemarketing

B2B Telemarketing is a suite of services designed to increase brand awareness and to discover new leads and opportunities via direct conversations with potential customers. Telemarketing has outbound cold calling in common with Telesales, but each call can have multiple purposes including:

• Lead generation, qualification and segmentation
• Appointment setting for inside sales teams
• Market research and polling
• Customer feedback and retention
• Turning leads into opportunities

B2B Telesales

B2B Telesales is much more focused than B2B Telemarketing. The mission is simple - convert leads into sales. Telesales professionals, at least in principle, receive qualified sales leads from telemarketers and other marketing channels and proceed to close them via outbound calling. The most effective telesales people are usually experienced telemarketers who can move leads down the "sales funnel" towards a sale as needed.

Which One Do You Need?

The decision is rarely a simple either-or choice. A B2B Telesales cold calling campaign without effective upstream lead generation will generally suffer from low conversion rates, while a great B2B Telemarketing campaign without Telesales follow-up and closing may yield poor sales results and negative ROI. A well-planned outbound campaign will combine both disciplines, with excellent collaboration between telemarketing and telesales teams. Even better would be an integrated campaign involving traditional marketing and PR, online marketing, telemarketing and telesales. While potentially expensive, the integrated approach has the best probability of reaching and nurturing the highest number of qualified leads and producing the highest conversion rates.

Why B2B Telesales on a Per-Lead Basis May Be a Formula for Failure

One of the unwritten rules of B2B telesales campaigns is that compensation should be on a per-lead basis. Most companies performing B2B telesales offer per-lead campaign pricing and most companies requiring telesales look for those plans. As cost-effective as this approach may seem, there are hidden costs that you should consider.

#1 - Lead Volume Does Not Necessarily Equal Lead Quality

We tend to think in terms of numbers of lead generation and conversion rates to predict sales performance based on telesales campaigns. Think about motivation and incentive instead. On a per lead basis telesales people are motivated by and compensated by lead volume and number of appointments set. It takes time to make calls, and the volume-motivated caller will likely try to spend as little time on each call as possible. In an abbreviated call will he or she work hard to qualify the lead, determine precise needs and set expectations properly? If speed is the primary ingredient, probably not.

#2 - Prospecting is More Than List Building

A volume-based approach would be to purchase or cobble together a list of industry leads, then call as many as possible each day. What about the quality of the list? How much time is wasted calling people who no longer work at the listed company or tracking down people with new phone numbers or e-mail addresses? If your telesales team is motivated purely by numbers, will they take the time to obtain and update the best possible list of prospects?

#3 - Does Your Telesales Team Collaborate With Inside Sales?

What's the outcome of your telesales campaign? Is it a list of appointments handed off to your inside sales team? There may be some notes associated with each lead, but how effective will the appointment be if the inside sales person must re-discover the lead. How many will be put off by having to repeat the information they gave to the telesales person? If your telesales and inside sales teams work closely together, you have a far better chance of building on the initial relationship and moving towards a buy opportunity.

So the question becomes, how do you get your telesales and inside sales teams on the same page, working together towards the best possible sales performance. By giving them different motivations and compensations, you may actually be preventing them from collaborating. Consider an alternative compensation scheme that eliminates the "numbers game" and focuses the efforts of your telesales team on high-quality results. The best approach may be a retainer with bonuses and retention based on sales performance instead of lead volume.

Targeting CEO's With B2B Telesales

Smart companies use inbound marketing and outbound activities to fill their sales funnels with leads, but these methods are seldom targeted at CEO's and other C-Suite executives. Inbound marketing invites the whole world in to read your blogs and white papers, while outbound marketing reaches a large number of people with hopes of interesting a few. B2B telesales, on the other hand, starts with a smaller, targeted list of well researched, high profile leads, each with a relatively high probability of converting to a sale. Instead of building a large, generalized pipeline, you are developing a focused group of potential customers and reaching out to them directly.

Why are inbound and outbound marketing so prevalent?

Marketing is especially useful for finding prospects that you can't find by any other means. By developing your brand and participating in both online and offline channels, you have the opportunity of spreading the word about your products and services by word of mouth, even going "viral" for the most compelling kinds of content, such as humorous videos on YouTube. But marketing is notoriously weak at finding high quality leads in certain domains, such as boardrooms and corner offices. C-Suite executives are hard to reach, since they often rely on assistants to "filter" their e-mail, direct mail and phone calls. Most CEO's have neither the time nor the interest in "hanging out" on Twitter and Facebook.

The advantages of B2B telesales

While no sales and marketing approach is guaranteed to get the attention of CEO's, B2B telesales has some unique advantages, if done right:

• B2B lead generation research should identify prospects with a specific need for your products and services
• Experienced telesales reps know how to "get in the door" to speak to a decision maker
• Well prepared telesales reps know exactly what to say to interest an executive and get them to commit to a sales appointment
• The telesales call is quick and to the point - doesn't require much time or follow-up.
• The successful telesales call makes the recipient feel closer to the solution to a real problem - something that marketing can never accomplish
• Once appointments are set, leads quickly become opportunities, avoiding the need to "nurture" a lead over a long period of time

Not all B2B telesales calls will be successful, but the conversion rates are typically higher than either inbound or outbound marketing due to the targeted nature of telesales campaigns and the direct communication between prospects and sales reps. The best approach is often to use both marketing and telesales, marketing to elevate brand awareness and reach "hidden" prospects, and telesales to capture the "low hanging fruit". In either case, your message must be strongly aligned across both sales and marketing, and you must find the best people to fill both roles.

What is Sales Pipeline Development?

In the sales world Pipeline Development refers to all of the activities an organization performs to manage potential clients and encourage them to become loyal customers. One of the most important steps is creating a sales and marketing process that your staff follows from initial contact through closing and repeat sales. A top performing sales and marketing team knows this "game plan" and executes it consistently. A key component of any successful sales pipeline is providing software tools for tracking leads and updating their status from various conversion events. Let's talk about these two important elements.

The Game Plan

Your sales process should be designed, not inherited. Yes, each sales rep is an individual with his/her own "style", but you will have no way of monitoring and improving sales performance if there is no system in place for managing accounts. Some crucial elements of your sales process should include:

• How are leads distributed to your sales reps?
• How are leads evaluated as they enter the pipeline - who is responsible and what criteria do they use?
• Once a lead is assigned, how and when should a sales rep contact the lead?
• What information does the sales rep have about a lead? Is this information available via a web or mobile app for convenience and rapid response?
• Do your reps have up-to-date information on your products and services, and what message should they use to inform and interest leads? Is their message aligned with marketing?
• Assuming first call success, who and what does the first appointment involve? Phone call, meeting, presentation? What criteria do you use to decide?
• What responses work best for overcoming objections and delaying tactics? Are your sales reps trained in best practices for winning sales?
• What about pricing and delivery scenarios? Are your reps up to speed on those? Are there discounts or other offers available? How and when do you inform your sales team about them?
• Assuming success, how does each rep close a sale and collect payment? What happens next?

When you create and manage an effective sales process, you have a much better chance of improving sales performance and losing fewer opportunities due to inefficiency, poor communication or timing issues.

Sales Force Automation

Arming your sales team with CRM software helps them to stick to your sales process or "game plan" and helps you to monitor progress. You can anchor each step in the pipeline development process to specific actions, for example updating lead status and documenting phone calls, e-mails and meetings. Most of the leading CRM's can be updated via smartphones, so your reps can stay in touch and update their accounts in the field or after hours. This keeps your sales team agile and ready to respond in an instant.

Top 5 B2B Lead Generation Strategies

There are many ways to generate qualified sales leads, but some are more effective than others. As social media appears to dominate marketing these days, are offline lead generation strategies becoming obsolete? We don't think so. Here are our top 5 B2B lead generation strategies.

1. Business Referrals - your clients are your best source of new business. They know you and how well you perform. They have used your products and/or services and are familiar with both the benefits and perceived weaknesses. If you have paid attention to their needs via customer service and stayed in touch on a regular basis, you stand a great chance of gaining new customers and repeat business. Some good ways to nurture your client base include sending monthly newsletters, blogging on a regular basis, participating in forums and social networks and hosting client events or user group meetings.
2. Professional Networks - face-to-face meetings are still one of the most effective ways to sell. Participation in industry and community networking events, both online and offline is a great way to spread the word about your business and find new customers.
3. Inbound Marketing - regularly blogging and producing other relevant content for your industry can establish you as a thought leader and attract regular visitors to your website. You can capture them as sales leads via sign-up forms for free downloads and webinars. You can measure the effectiveness of different offers and target specific verticals or regions.
4. Cold Calling - still a very effective method if used right. Your inside sales or telemarketing team can research you target market and find decision makers, then set appointments for sales calls. This approach can be very effective at finding qualified sales leads and reducing the time wasted on unqualified leads.
5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - the modern day equivalent of the Yellow Pages. If people are searching for your products or services, chances are they are perusing the first Google search results page. Combined with effective content marketing, SEO techniques can help your company to climb in the rankings and improve your visibility online.

There are other tried-and-true B2B lead generation strategies, including forming business partnerships, direct mail and e-mail marketing, media advertising and participation in trade shows, but the above 5 have been shown to have the highest lead conversion rates and the lowest cost per lead.

What Do B2B Inside Sales Reps Think About Lead Generation?

We read an interesting blog post by the Bridge Group recently. They have conducted a survey of over 1100 B2B inside sales reps, asking them what they thought about the sales leads they were getting from their company's marketing and lead segmentation efforts.

Question 1:

"What percentage of your marketing generated leads do you feel fit your sweet spot?"

Answer:

B2B sales reps reported that nearly 70% of the leads they received have a low probability of purchase.

This is a huge red flag for any sales/marketing organization. Clearly sales and marketing are not on the same page. B2B Lead generation efforts are going after the wrong target market and/or attracting leads with the wrong bait. Marketing methods and content need to be fine-tuned to target high probability buyers with messages that resonate with them. The right mix of online and offline, demographics, competitive intelligence and marketing strategy need to be updated to optimize lead generation and conversion.

Question 2:

"If your company scores leads, how accurate is the lead scoring system?"

Answer:

Nearly 70% answered that lead scoring was either "not at all accurate" or "somewhat accurate".

Back to the drawing board on lead scoring to maximize the success of your sales force. Many companies do not even practice lead scoring, and many more have inadequate systems in place to automate lead segmentation and lead scoring processes. Revisit your lead generation methods and take a hard look at the questions you need answered in order to qualify leads. Are they included in your sales scripts and lead conversion forms? Once the data is collected, how do you process the information, segment and assign leads and notify the appropriate sales reps?

In order to correct these issues you may need to evaluate your entire sales and marketing process, better align your teams and invest in marketing automation and CRM software. Many companies recognize the value of outsourcing important parts of the process, including B2B lead generation and B2B inside sales, since they can virtually eliminate the evaluation and onboarding process needed to improve sales performance.

4 Keys to a Successful B2B Inside Sales Team

You're building a b2b inside sales team to improve overall sales performance or expand into new opportunities. Where should you start, and what are the possible pitfalls?

Quality of Employee

When recruiting for B2B inside sales professionals, most call centers hire entry level applicants. Turnover is high and the ramp time to be a high volume producer is quite long. Hiring seasoned sales professionals with years of executive level sales experience is what sets the truly successful inside sales organizations apart. Build a dynamic team that will reduce attrition and offer consistency and high levels of service to your clients.

Strategic Account Mapping

Strictly adhering to a call list is not enough these days to be a leading telesales organization. Companies that use other means of researching an organization are the ones that achieve higher levels of performance. The typical trend is to simply move down the call list to the next contact. If you provide research tools to your team and set expectations that they will dig deeper into an account, the results will speak for themselves, increased meeting volume and  higher quality of meetings that will lead to more revenue while increasing efficiency. Tools including marketing automation, contact management and CRM are readily available to support your team.

Industry Focus

It's difficult to be a quality solution provider in telesales if you spread your industry coverage too thin. Variety of industry is of course necessary, but the organizations that stand out are those that specialize. For example, you wouldn’t want a company known for selling retail based products to be your appointment setting partner when you focus on C-level executive in High Tech. It requires a different focus and a different level of sophistication to reach these executives, and experience certainly counts.

Communication

Any telesales engagement requires a commitment from both sides to understand and clearly define expectations. Open lines of communication between clients and sales support is critical if the relationship is to be successful. The inside sales company should be proactive more than reactive to be able to adjust messaging, change value propositions, re-focus on industry targets, etc. As a critical component of an organizations sales operations, the inside sales company shouldn't wait to be told what to do. They should consult and advise as to what they see and hear from the field and quickly get that information into the hands of their clients.

Following these guidelines should help you build a more effective inside sales team and accomplish the business goals of your sales strategy. A piecemeal, reactive approach is far less likely to succeed.

Is B2B Lead Generation by Phone a Thing of the Past?

According to an Econsultancy study last year, 81% of all sales leads were generated through various online methods, such as search engines, e-mail marketing and social media. Despite the trends, B2B demand generation by telephone is still alive and kicking. When was the last time your CEO participated in Twitter or opened his/her own e-mails? Are they likely to search for your products or services in Google, or is that someone else's job? There are still important business niches that are resistant to Internet marketing and may require the personal touch of a phone call to generate leads.

Example niches best approached by telephone:

• C-suite executives and busy business owners
• Government services employees and executives
• Companies where social media is banned or restricted
• Industries, such as healthcare, governed by strict online policies
• Foreign companies sensitive to language and customs

Consider also the ubiquitous smart phone. Everyone has one and everyone is connected by phone 24/7. This means that decision makers may catually be more available by phone than by any other means.

With the goal of reaching out to prospects and setting appointments, B2B demand generation by phone can be more effective than internet marketing provided that a good niche is targeted and that:

1. An experienced team of telemarketers is assembled
2. A high quality list of prospects is procured or researched
3. An effective script is prepared stating the value proposition
4. A CRM system is in place to document calls, capture leads and set appointments

When it comes to sales and marketing, there is no single solution that works best in all cases.

Despite the trend towards online methods, B2B lead generation by phone still has a place in your sales strategy. Knowing your market and the habits of decision makers should determine the appropriate mix of online and offline tactics.

Our Demand Generation program allows our team to conduct a one-of-a-kind outbound campaign on behalf of your organization. We will assign inside sales resources to supercharge your pipeline and quickly identify and develop qualified opportunities that meet your unique criteria.  Contact us to see how we can drive demand generation for you.