Month: September 2019

It’s no surprise that when clients begin working with us, and throughout our partnership, their top concern is leads and building a strong pipeline. Even though leads are important, they are only worthwhile if they are of good quality. So, whilst businesses may want to generate leads as quickly as possible and build that pipeline over a short period of time, at Air our top priority is reminding prospects and clients that this takes time. Quality leads don’t appear overnight.

Definition:

When a client begins working with us, the first step is to put a defined strategy in place, including an in-depth criterion which highlights what a quality lead looks like to the client. Ultimately, we can sit and dial as many people as a prospect would like us to, but if we don’t fully understand their target audience and we therefore ring unqualified data, the leads won’t convert – they may not even appear.

In order to help both us and our clients fully understand what defines a quality lead, we’ll sit down and discuss the target audience. There are a number of defining factors we would look at to qualify leads, including:

• Budget
• Contract Length
• Seniority of Decision Maker
• Geography
• Industry
• Company Size

Training:

In order to make sure that the defined lead qualification criteria are adhered to, we implement various processes following on from our initial conversation. Perhaps the most important one being training.

Training is central to everything we do at Air, as we understand that by investing time into growing the overall knowledge of our team, we will produce higher return for our clients. Each individual has the same access to training on a client campaign and an individual training budget for anything else they feel they need, whether that’s confidence, gate keeper or closing training, for example. With everyone working from the same level of training, we know that understanding is uniform, and leads are quality guaranteed.

For general campaign training, we welcome input and love for our clients to visit the office and get involved – after all, if you want leads for your business, no one has more insight than those within it. From initial campaign training, to on-going training provided by our Account Directors and Executives throughout a campaign, we know that it is vital that everyone is on the same page, understanding exactly what qualifies a lead and ensuring that the correct channels of communication are in place if any changes arise.

Transparency:

From the get-go, we are transparent. You know exactly what stage we’re at and how your campaign is performing. We know that this is key to providing you with quality leads as you are able to provide us feedback throughout the campaign and work to fully optimise your results. In the same vein, we can also make suggestions as we go along and develop a strong, beneficial, two-way relationship that will provide you with a pipeline of quality leads. If you feel that you need help building and maintaining a strong pipeline of quality leads, get in touch today. Our expert team will work with you to fully understand your business before implementing a quality focused campaign. Call: 0345 241 3038 or email: contact@air-maketing.co.uk

Dependant on your business and the goals you want to achieve, there are a number of things to consider when running a successful telemarketing campaign. We’ve complied our top 10 tips for successful telemarketing below, with links to our blog archive for more information.

1. Understand Your USP

Today, very few businesses are totally one-of-a-kind. So, it is vital that you develop a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) to help you to highlight what makes you a little bit different and stand out amongst the crowd. It helps if you can encapsulate this in a snappy slogan:

FedEx Corporation

“When it absolutely, positively has to be overnight”.

A strong USP will:

• Make the customer feel valued: what pain points can you solve for them that others in the industry can’t, or simply don’t look into?
• Avoid the superstar effect: don’t simply claim to be the best. Companies often strive to be the best, but the first thing your USP should strive for is a point of difference.
• Help to sell your product: it’s a form of differentiation that needs to be built around selling more products and services, not just to make your business a quirky brand that stands out but can’t get traction.

2. Know Your Audience and Utilise Market Segmentation

A simple and effective way to build a trustworthy brand is by implementing a segmentation strategy, however 20% of respondents to an Avention survey felt that segmentation was one of the biggest challenges facing their organisation. Segmentation is a tried and tested means of delivering results to your customers. We only have to look to email campaigns, where Mailchimp showed that clicks are 74.53% higher than non-segmented campaigns, to see this.

3. Gather Quality Data

The simple truth is that we are only as effective as the data that we use. It is our job to understand who we are calling and to establish a need, all culminating together to create a lead or opportunity for our client. Understanding the target market, key message and goal for our clients will help us to gain the correct data. With data that has been cleansed, we are able to do this in an efficient manner.

4. Place an Importance on Ethical Selling

At Air, we are honest and transparent, we never sell to a prospect who we know we can’t deliver for, whether that’s based on their budget or our capabilities, and this should be universal. Sales people often end up being tarred with the same brush, of being arrogant and pushy, driven by commission and not caring for their clients.

Businesses who demonstrate a clear focus on working with their clients for the long-term and help them to make smart business decision, will fare far better than those who are pushing for a one-off sale, clearly without taking into consideration the needs, values or constraints of the potential client. 

5. Hire Strong Telemarketers

Selecting the right telemarketer for your campaign is vital. Get this wrong and you’ll see potential leads deteriorate, your business reputation plummet and you’ll miss the full potential of ROI. Your team need to be able to:

• Absorb campaign training and fully understand the product they are selling.
• Stop talking and listen to what the prospect is saying. They may have the ‘gift of the gab’ but if they aren’t able to fully understand the needs of the prospect, they won’t be able to sell to a truly qualified lead.
• Lead intelligent conversations, ask questions and delve a little deeper. Those that give up at the first gatekeeper or objection will hinder campaign progression.
• Put mind over matter. Many of their conversations will end in a no, but if they let this wear them down, their motivation will fall and that golden opportunity may just pass them by.

6. Clearly Communicate the Value of Your Product

An inability to communicate their Value Proposition is one of the biggest inhibitors to businesses when looking to attract new customers and reach sales targets, with only 24% of organisations agreeing on the definition of their target audience. So how can you avoid that and make your value known?

• Make sure that you and your team fully understand your offering before you sell.
• Be customer-centric, demonstrate that you know your market and their needs.
• Hire professional sales people with experience in your industry.
• Use the human voice and make use of those telemarketing calls – don’t use automated systems.

7. Invest in Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is a great way of introducing your product or service across multiple touchpoints, over a variety of different platforms which include direct mail, email marketing and telemarketing to name just a few. When delivered tactfully this marketing tactic will:

• Help you build relationships with new customers using personalised and targeted messaging.
• Test the appeal of your new product or service.
• Take your prospects or current customers on a brand journey that appeals to their own values.
• Measure and advise you on which marketing platforms connect with your target audience best.
• Provide customers with compelling content that will help nurture them through your sales cycle.

8. Be Transparent Throughout Your Customer Journey

At Air, we provide our clients with live time reporting through a client portal so that they can see campaigns unfold to the minute and all call recordings. In doing this, we are able to build a relationship based on trust and accountability, and we encourage our clients to extend this to those that they on board through us. At the end of the day, in sales trust is key. People won’t part with their money if they don’t fully buy into both you and your product/service.

9. Manage Your Growing Pipeline

When developing your sales pipeline, it is essential that you have a definitive sales process. A few basic steps to follow when implementing a sales pipeline are:

• Clearly outline the stages your sales process will follow.
• Define the number of leads that you require to reach your sales target. From there, work out your average conversion rate. This will then allow you to outline how many leads you need to generate to enter this process in order to hit your target.
• Analyse what all of the converting leads have in common – how were they generated and converted which includes the activities of your marketing team, the actions your sales reps take and the feedback from your prospects, to help you shape future work.

10. Listen to Customer Feedback

Listening to customer feedback is especially vital for telephone-based sales professionals who are representing start-ups, businesses choosing to release a new product or service, and those marketing an existing product or service to a new audience. Asking customers, or potential customers, for their feedback is a key step in the process of reaching a sale, enabling you to assess your product/service, refine its offering and match to the customers’ requirements.

If you feel that you could use our help implementing and conducting a successful telemarketing campaign, get in touch. Our expert team have years of experience across a range of industries and we will be able to help you reach your business goals. Call: 0345 241 3038 or email: contact@air-marketing.co.uk