B2B telemarketing is one of the most efficient and cost-effective marketing tools for businesses across the world. Marketers use telemarketing because the response rate is higher compared to other direct marketing alternatives, along with a fairly low cost.
However, while business-to-business telemarketing can be a great sales method, it all depends on how you execute your campaign objectives. The difference between a successful telemarketing exercise and a failure rests in the planning and goal setting. That’s why it’s critical you understand the nitty-gritty before you dive into the telemarketing business.
What Is B2B Telemarketing
As the name suggests, B2B telemarketing is business-to-business marketing of various products and services through calls. Telemarketing can be either inbound or outbound. Inbound telemarketing deals with incoming calls that may have resulted from email campaigns, direct mail campaigns, or any other channel.
On the other hand, B2B outbound telemarketing, also referred to as cold calling, requires well-trained and experienced personnel to call prospective customers and introduce your solutions.
Benefits of B2B Telemarketing
There are numerous benefits. B2B telemarketing is a cost-effective solution to generate leads, raise awareness about your brand, build credibility with existing and prospective customers, identify new business opportunities, and create relevant dialogues with partners. Although most marketing managers recognize its effectiveness as a marketing tool, here are a couple of facts to further validate the effectiveness of B2B telemarketing, despite the emergence of countless progressive sales channels.
- 84% of companies that have CRM, including telemarketing, as part of their direct marketing campaigns, have a lead scoring process in place to determine the quality of leads. (Source: Direct Marketing News)
- The most essential B2B lead generation telemarketing tactics are inside telemarketing, sales executive events, conferences, emails, and tradeshows. (Source: Marketing Profs)
5 Golden Rules for B2B Telemarketing Success
Before you go full throttle on your outbound telemarketing B2B campaign, here are 5 essential rules to follow. Depending on how well you use these tools will determine how successful your B2B telemarketing sales turn out.
Have Clear B2B Telemarketing Objectives
What is the end goal? Is it to gain more customers? Is it to increase the ROI?
Whatever the objective is, it must be clear, both macro and micro. You and your team, if you have one, need to know what each objective is leading up to the overall objective. It will give you all a direction and an understanding of the expectations to reach the goals.
For more insight on setting goals and defining the telemarketing campaign objective read: ‘What Makes a Telemarketing Campaign Successful?’
Align B2B Telemarketing With Your Marketing Strategy
The marketing strategy goes hand-in-hand with the B2B outbound telemarketing strategies. Not only does the sales team need to know what platform/methods are best for selling, but the marketing team also needs to know what the goals are for the products or services. Having constant communication with the marketing team will help both teams align their strategies to work cohesively.
Use Valid KPIs
Implement the right KPIs, such as:
- Dials/Hours
- Lead or Sales/Hour
- $ in Sales/Hour
- Conversion Ratio (-Bad Sales)
- % Good (vs. Bad) Leads or Sales
- Not Interested/Hour
- Bad Numbers/Hour
- Pending/Hour
In our article ‘3 Focus Areas to Ensure B2B Telemarketing Success’ we discuss why using KPIs is helpful to improve your overall success AND overall ROI.
Build a Solid B2B Telemarketing Database
Invest some time and resources in building a solid database for your sales representatives. Your sales team will have a better selection of leads and that will be able to narrow down the leads who are ready to purchase from those who need more time. Having a reliable database will ultimately determine the value of the data to your sales reps.
Retest Your B2B Telemarketing Strategy
Test, retest, and analyze the success rate of your telemarketing strategies to find the best ones. With every campaign comes a new learning curve and a chance to improve! Your campaign will never be perfect, BUT with careful tracking of data, analyzing of reports, and comparing campaigns, you will be able to gather information on how to do even better in your next one.
Avoid The Common B2B Telemarketing Pitfalls
The better you understand the pitfalls of B2B telemarketing, the better you will be in avoiding them! Listed below are four pitfalls that are all too common in telemarketing, however, we didn’t leave it at just that. Of course, we have also given solutions.
Good Data, Bad Data
When executing a B2B telemarketing campaign, make sure you have accurate database research of your target audience. If you do not have the resources required to generate an accurate database of prospective customers, you can always procure the services of a reputable phone data provider.
We recommend you research your database using these 3 critical areas:
- The Target Market
- Data Quality
- Market Selection
- Competitor Analysis
- Data Composition
- Job Role
- Referral Opportunities
- Value Proposition
Keep It Calm and Dial On
Telemarketing B2B campaigns often require some time to pick up the pace. Moreover, you need to give time to unavailable numbers, re-directions, and callbacks. Also, the sales personnel, if new to the trade, will need time to become experts in engaging and converting prospective customers.
The benefits of an automated dialer are endless. With all the time it saves you, you or your sales team will have your valuable time back, so you can call back, redirect, etc., without worrying about wasting time.
Remember the Law of Averages
On average, it takes about 80 calls to generate a lead for a B2B initiative. This value, however, varies depending upon the proposition, market segment, product or service value, and target audience. Knowing the stats on B2B telemarketing, keep encouraged and persistent so you can build those relationships and make the sales!
Train and Engage Your Telemarketing Team
The proficiency of your sales team plays a pivotal role in deciding the outcomes of your telemarketing for B2B. The more relevant and convincing they are, the better will be the yield from their efforts. Therefore, make sure that every sales rep you employ receives intensive training.
According to Gallup, 63% of employees are “not engaged.” That is a shockingly high number and this statistic is likely to affect your company as well. Take a look at some of the employee engagement tactics we have found to be effective.
Improve Your B2B Telemarketing Efforts
Although digital marketing is relatively inexpensive, it may not produce the same results as other direct-to-customer methods such as telemarketing, especially in B2B arenas. That is the reason why despite the development of countless new avenues for client acquisition, a large number of B2B telemarketing companies continue to employ this age-old strategy of driving conversions.
However, to make the most of the option, you need high-quality B2B telemarketing lists and a team of skilled sales representatives equipped with all they may need to guide your prospects to the end of the conversion funnel.
Get started on the 5 Golden Rules by getting a B2B telemarketing list!
Work Cited
Brandon, L., 2021. 3 Focus Areas to Ensure B2B Telemarketing Success - Blog TelephoneLists. [online] Telephonelists.biz. Available at: https://www.telephonelists.biz/blog/3-focus-areas-ensure-b2b-telemarketing-success/ [Accessed 27 March 2021].
Montgomery, J., 2021. Guide to Telemarketing Business | TelephoneLists.Biz. [online] Telephonelists.biz. Available at: https://www.telephonelists.biz/telemarketing/the-complete-guide-to-telemarketing-business/ [Accessed 29 March 2021].
Brandon, L., 2021. Tips for Acquiring New Leads | Sales Lead Generation Techniques. [online] Telephonelists.biz. Available at: https://www.telephonelists.biz/cold-calling/acquiring-new-leads/ [Accessed 27 March 2021].
Brandon, L., 2021. 3 Critical Research Areas for Your Telemarketing Database - Blog TelephoneLists. [online] Telephonelists.biz. Available at: https://www.telephonelists.biz/blog/3-critical-research-areas-telemarketing-database/ [Accessed 29 March 2021].
Brandon, L., 2021. Telemarketing Guide for Employees | Telephonelists.Biz. [online] Telephonelists.biz. Available at: https://www.telephonelists.biz/blog/employee-engagement-tactics-that-actually-work-a-guide-for-b2b-telemarketers/ [Accessed 29 March 2021].
