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Category: Sales

Why is market segmentation vital to your business?

Posted on by Doug Roots

In the era of GDPR, unwarranted contact should be a distant memory. To be truly business savvy is now, and always should have been, demonstrated by a company’s ability to target customers based on their wants and needs, not your own. Sales are increasingly determined by the trust that a customer has for a brand, if you are honest and transparent with them upfront they are more likely to buy into you as a brand. People value a brand they can trust.

A simple and effective way to build a trustworthy brand is by implementing a segmentation strategy – it shows that you have taken the time to understand the various groups within your target market. We’ve created the infographic below to highlight 5 key reasons to segment your data and customers:

But many businesses are still failing to hit the mark, with 20% of respondents to an Avention survey feeling 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 these results.

By taking the time to highlight the different needs and barriers that may be important to your potential clients, you will be better able to sell to them. Not only will it allow you to understand them, but it will allow you to forge personal relationships with them through meaningful interactions – which is essential in the telemarketing industry in particular. So, how can you segment your customers?

However, it is important to remember the earlier point about customer trust. With increasingly personalised sales and marketing materials out there it isn’t enough to take your data and simply spilt everyone into superficial segments. You need to gain insight into the people behind the numbers, otherwise your will simply be working from conjecture.

To gain insight and create genuine, informed personas for these groups, it is vital that you demonstrate a desire to know more when in conversation with your prospects. It is with this in mind that the scripts used by TeamAir are only there as prompts, we encourage our BDEs to engage in meaningful, personal conversations when on the phone. This helps us to nurture a sense of human connection whilst carrying out the vital research that is needed to lead a successful campaign and enrich the data that is held.

If you feel that you could benefit from working with a reputable, award winning telemarketing company, who work with a customer-centric focus, get in touch. You can call us: 0345 241 3038 or email: contact@air-marketing.co.uk.

Hunting Down Leads for your Sales Pipeline Using PPC

Posted on by Doug Roots

Photo by Javi Lorbada on Unsplash

However your sales team operates, there’s a place in their work for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. A properly constructed PPC account will act like a pack of automated hunters, sniffing out potential leads from every search anyone does on the internet, and chasing them into your website. The trick is to train these hunters to bring those potential leads into your existing pipeline as seamlessly as possible.

Singling searchers out to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time involves planning your strategy in advance and then adapting it to the data you acquire. Too many PPC accounts simply show the same message to everyone who searches for a vaguely relevant keyword (or an overly specific keyword). You need to understand the mindset of a potential lead and learn how to recognise their intent from what they type into that search engine. Once you’ve learned this, you can herd them into your existing sales pipeline at the point it matches their decision-making process and significantly increase your chance of converting a lead into a sale.

Fitting Leads into Your Pipeline

If you sell office equipment and someone types, “office equipment,” into Google’s search box, then you can be fairly certain they’re close to the beginning of pipeline. They know they want office furniture and they’re seeing what’s out there. These are the people you can flag your services to, let them become aware of what you have to offer. If you’re in a complex industry where public perception is lacking, you can use this opportunity to become the voice of authority to them, increasing the chances they will come back to you when they are closer to making a final decision. These people are those you fit into the top of your pipeline.

Longer, more specific searches tend to come after someone has been thinking for a while or has a definite and often immediate need. If someone types in, “adjustable height computer monitor bracket,” it’s fairly likely that they need an adjustable height computer monitor bracket and they need it soon. These people come in around the middle of your pipeline.

The longest tail keywords are from those searchers who need to be herded towards the bottom of the pipeline. “Brand-X Model-Y monitor bracket next day delivery,” is about as specific as it’s possible to get. You know this person has made the decision of what they are getting, they are just looking for where to get it from. They’ve even included a handy USP that you can hook; “Next Day Delivery.” These are the people who you can drop exactly what they want into their lap.

Getting the right message to these people requires having your PPC account structured correctly. For the broader searches you have to use broader messages. As the user intent becomes more specific with longer tail search queries, you can narrow down the message you convey (both in the ad copy and on the landing page the user is directed to). At every stage it doesn’t hurt to have the user get in touch; a simple call back form is ideal, the shorter the better, just a name and a phone number is all you need – once you have those you have far more control in the sales process.

Matching Tactics to Intent

Unfortunately, it’s not always this simple to slot searchers into their correct slot on the funnel. Although it’s safer to assume that they’re higher in the funnel, the broader search terms make it harder to infer the true intent of the person typing it. The best you can do is give them options: Sitelinks on your ad allows you to link people through to other pages which might be of interest. These sitelinks give the user the opportunity to find their own place in your sales pipeline.

For example: If someone searches for, “office equipment,” you can show them a link to your home page, which is broad enough to have something of relevance to them on it. But on top of that you can have links to your products catalogue, to your most popular lines, and to your services/FAQ page which explains that you offer not only next-day delivery but a free installation service as well. And again, give a quick and simple means for them to give you their contact info at every step.

The Remarkable Power of Remarketing

Another tool in populating your sales pipeline from PPC is remarketing. Targeting specific ads to people who have already seen your website, or a specific page on your website, or performed certain actions means you can recapture their attention. This is a balancing act, you have to have an audience of sufficient size to guarantee anonymity.

Typically, the best way to accomplish this you need a single list of everyone who has visited your website, which you can then break down into progressively smaller groups based on the user action – the first tier may be all those who have visited any page in a particular category, and then those who have looked at more than one product. By creating progressively more targeted audiences you always have a working audience to work with, but if you have sufficient traffic for the smaller audiences you can use more carefully constructed messages. More carefully targeted messages always perform stronger.

 

Exactly how you integrate PPC into your existing sales pipeline does depend greatly on your own procedures, but the potential value is universal. The real knack lies in picking the best targets out of the herd of online searchers and potential customers. Only a small segment will match as a lead, and sorting these out to determine their place in your sales pipeline can be tricky, but very rewarding. Get it right and you’ll fuel your sales pipeline with a regular stream of leads across all stages – that’s enough to keep any sales team happy!

 

Guest Blog written for Air by Aquamarine Search and Social Agency

Quality Assurance, a New Year’s resolution to stick to!

Posted on by Doug Roots

A renewed focus on Quality Assurance (QA) should be at the top of everyone’s resolution list this year. In the telemarketing industry small issues within company processes can often snowball and result in bigger, damaging issues if not nipped in the bud quickly. By implementing a QA system, you can make sure that best practise is followed by your team in every aspect of their calls – from introduction to close.

At Air, we rely on our QA system to maintain our reputation in the local and wider areas. We have taken many learnings from our system and this has allowed us to make sure that our services are of a high standard in a highly competitive market. Our focus on quality is what has allowed us to disrupt the industry and bring business to Exeter, rather than it being focused purely in London.

We want to distance ourselves from the traditional telemarketing reputation that telemarketing companies have of offering low quality services. We achieve this through our ability to be transparent. Part of our QA system is regular ‘calibration’ sessions with our clients, in which they have the ability to listen to our calls and offer training to ensure that we are delivering their brand message the way it should be.

From the outset of a client’s journey with us, QA is at the top of our priority list. Within our initial meetings we outline our typical sales cycle and method, allowing them to get involved and adapt it where they see fit. From there, we introduce their dialling team and we encourage them to discuss their product and services in as much detail as they can so that everyone has a thorough understanding of the offering and industry they will be selling in. We then set up a script and pitch for our diallers which provides them with a guide for their calls. Our scripts are important, offering company USPs and common objections, however, we don’t hire robots and we don’t want our calls to sound scripted, so we allow our expert diallers to tailor them as they see fit.

Once the diallers have made their calls, they then go through the next phase of our QA process – call screening. This involves us randomly selecting calls from each campaign and grading them against Air’s call framework, which is adjusted to suit each client. Owing to our transparent approach, clients can have as much involvement with this as they would like, for example one client calls us every Friday to catch up with the campaign and compare call notes. To follow up on these discussions, we then have a debrief with the dialler who’s call has been selected to ensure that they implement any feedback going forwards.

For us, QA helps us to meet our clients demands and expectations. By continuously offering services of a high quality, we build strong trust with our clients. It also allows us to save us and them costs, as we can pin point issues before they become damaging. Investing in QA is indispensable in many industries today. It is most effective when it’s in place from the start. When Quality Assurance is done right, confidence is guaranteed.

Opinion Piece by Jo Marshall, Quality Assurance Co-ordinator

Understanding your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Posted on by Doug Roots

Today, very few businesses are one-of-a-kind. So, what makes a customer choose your company’s product or service over your competitors?

The truth, it’s not necessarily what you’re selling that sets you apart and grabs a customer’s attention, but the messaging you choose to focus on.

This can be achieved by implementing an effective sales strategy around a “Unique Selling Proposition” that differentiates your business and resonates with your desired customers. When your company goals and values match those of your desired customers you can bet your last penny that they will buy into your business over your competitors.

 

So, what is a USP?

A Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is a statement that describes how your product, service or company is different and hopefully better than your competitions.

Historically, global brands have presented USPs in their slogans or expressed them in their positioning statements to make themselves more valuable to their customer group. You may have heard of theses famous examples:

Rolls Royce

“Trusted to deliver excellence; like nothing else on earth”

FedEx Corporation

“When it absolutely, positively has to be overnight”

TOMS Shoes

“We give a new pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair you purchase”

 

How do you establish yours?

Being ‘unique’ is rarely a strong USP and rarely true. Therefore, you must put your focus on an aspect which your desired customer cares about, otherwise your messaging won’t be nearly as effective. A compelling USP should:

  • Focus on the values of your ideal customer: Your desired customer must feel that you truly understand their needs and are therefore the best company to offer them the solution to their problem.
  • Assertive and defensible: Create a USP that encourages a consumer to make a case as to why they shouldn’t choose your competitor.
  • Leverage your industries reputation: Position yourself as the game changer in your industry. For example, the telemarketing industry struggles with a lingering reputation for being disruptive in favour of generating dishonest profits. However, knowing this about our own industry, Air have created a platform where our clients can see exactly how much time we spend on their campaigns minute by minute. This platform is truly transparent and shows us to be a collaborative partner who delivers exactly what we have promised our clients. By creating a USP that has changed the game of our industry we are now considered one of the leading telemarketing companies in the UK.
  • Avoid the “superstar effect”: A great USP is not claiming that your business is the best. How many times have you gone to a new city and seen “Best Restaurant” plastered on the doorway of multiple businesses? Companies often strive to be the best, but the first thing your USP should strive for is difference.
  • More than a slogan: While a slogan is one way your USP can be communicated, it’s also something your organisation should embody in other areas of your businesses. Don’t talk the talk if you can’t walk the walk.

 

Remember you’re still here to sell!

Just as Relationship Marketing is as much about the marketing as is it about the relationships, the same applies for creating a Unique Selling Proposition; it’s a form of differentiation that needs to be built around selling more products and services, not just to make your business into a quirky brand that stands out but can’t get traction.

  1. Remember each piece of marketing material or conversation must say “Buy this product or service, for this specific benefit.”
  2. Your proposition must be one that your competition cannot or does not offer; It must be unique either to your business or in a claim that your competitors have not made themselves.
  3. Your proposition must attract new customers and be created with the intent to sell, not just stand out.

 

Would you like more help establishing your USP? At Air Marketing Group we help our clients form and execute USPs that really resonate with their desired customers, deliver rewarding ROI and differentiate their business in the market place. To get the most out of your USP contact our experienced team today: contact@air-marketing.co.uk or phone 0345 241 3038.

How can you keep your sales momentum going over the festive period?

Posted on by Doug Roots

The lead up to Christmas is a fun and festive period. The office is draped with tinsel and twinkling lights, the team are adorned with Christmas jumpers and the Christmas tree is waiting in the door way to greet clients. But what about sales?

Whilst this time of year is fun, it is also stressful and a little tiring. With most people fixated on getting the perfect present, sales can often feel a little harder to win. So how can you keep the momentum of your sales and your team going over the festive period?

  1. Embrace it

This is one is simple but effective. Have fun, it’s Christmas! Your team have been working hard all year and, whilst sales are important, their happiness comes first – happy team = happy clients! Now, this doesn’t mean you need to have an office party every day of December, but the odd bit of festive fun wouldn’t go unappreciated. Throw in a Christmas jumper day, some mince pies, after work drinks and maybe even the simple pleasure of an advent calendar. They’re all little things but they’ll make your team feel valued.

  1. Be personable

Don’t just embrace the festivities with your staff, extend this to clients. Ask people about their festive plans, you may not want to talk about their child’s starring role as a donkey in their school nativity, but it is important to them and therefore important for your business. You could also employ a festive social media campaign, take photos of the office fun and share it with your clients – let them see the people behind the products and they’ll more than likely buy into your warm company climate.

  1. Build your pipeline

Whilst people may not be looking to buy new products right before, or right after Christmas, it doesn’t mean you can’t work to build relationships with new and existing clients so that you can start strong in the new year. Many businesses will slow down all together during this time, so make the most of the quieter market and get your foot in the door. Implement a gentler nurture email or social media campaign so that prospects know you’re there to help but don’t feel overwhelmed at a busy time of year.

  1. Take the time to re-strategize

A slower sales period isn’t always a bad thing. It can give you back some much-needed time to sit back and re-evaluate what went well and not so well over the year. By focusing on finding out where your efforts best lie, you can come back stronger in the New Year with ideas ready to go and a team who know what they are aiming for.

  1. Team initiatives and incentives

Engage with your team, make sure they know where they are headed and what you expect of them over this period. If they generate strong leads or close a certain amount of sales by the end of the week then reward them, have buzz meetings where you shout about their successes. Include them in meetings or catch up with them where you can to cultivate a transparent and honest culture.

  1. Set a theme for the New Year

Looking back on the year, set a theme or goal for the New Year and get your team to begin working on this in December. Do you want to better your sales techniques, customer service, team culture or client relationships? Tell your team that this is what you’re looking to work towards and get them to implement this in their day to day activities.

Team Air hope you have a merry and successful Christmas period. If you feel like you could benefit from any of our services, then why not get in touch to see how we can help you in the New Year? Call: 0345 241 3038 or email: contact@air-marketing.co.uk

 

Time management is vital to business – how can you better yours?

Posted on by Doug Roots

We’ve all had those days where we come into work and just don’t feel up to the day; tasks have been stacking up for days, deadlines have been pushed back and our workload just seems to be taking over our lives. And on days like these we often don’t help ourselves. Instead of tackling the more pressing tasks, we chose to do admin and smaller jobs which don’t take up as much of our time. Of course, this doesn’t solve the issue and we continue to get increasingly behind on our work and become even more stressed, leading to poor mental health – 1 in 6.8 people experience mental health problems in the workplace.

I know it’s sometimes easier said than done but in business we just need to grab the bull by the horns and take on the tasks that we don’t always feel up to – only 37% of teams in the UK report completing their project on time. An easy way to balance our workload is to simply invest proper time management. By effectively managing our time we reduce stress and increase productivity.

 

My top tips for time management:

Wind down and plan

Allowing yourself 15 minutes at the end of your day to wind the day down and go over the tasks which need focusing on the following day will allow you to create a structure to follow when you get in.

Book it in

Use your calendar – it’s right there to remind you to do what you need to do! By booking tasks into your calendar you will basically have a virtual PA which nudges you when it’s time to wrap up a task and move on to the next.

Eliminate distractions

Put your phone back in your bag (on silent), pop in your headphones and turn off anything that will distract you. This includes team chat notifications and emails, sometimes you just need to cut yourself off and work for an hour.

Colour code it

Sit down and work out which jobs are high priority and which jobs can be left for a while – then flag them with a colour code, ranking them in order of importance.

Training

Make the most of training opportunities available to you. Sometimes sitting down with your team and/or a trainer and discussing various techniques which other people implement is a great way of making your day, and the business, run more smoothly.

 

My favourite Time Management concepts:

Follow The Pareto Principle

I am a strong believer in this time management concept – it’s tried and tested, based on the work of the Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, in 1906.

To put it simply, 8/10 tasks on your daily to do list are as important as your top 2.

So, take your daily to do list and write down 10 things that you want to achieve today. Of these 10, select the 2 that are most important. Make these your priority. Work towards these throughout the day, resisting the urge to procrastinate and take up smaller tasks.

In working towards your 2 most important tasks, you know that the key tasks can be crossed off and time can be given to the smaller tasks when you have the capacity to fulfil them.

Implement The Eisenhower Matrix

This concept was born from Dwight Eisenhower’s famous quote, “what is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important”, and again it’s pretty straight forward.

The basic premise is that some tasks are simply more important to a business than others. Often it pays to be able to delegate, if you have an assistant (or a colleague with a lighter work load) then hand it over and save yourself the time to work on your more important tasks.

 

There really is nothing worse than coming to work and feeling like you can’t face the day. So, if you’re feeling a little snowed under, why not implement these hints and tips?

 

Opinion Piece by Nicolette Karides, Learning and Development Coordinator, Air Marketing Group

 

 

Morning Buzz Meetings – Demotivating or Motivating?

Posted on by Doug Roots

Motivation can be difficult to achieve in an office environment; hard work can often go unnoticed and the constant pressures of a competitive environment can begin to wear employees down. Research has shown, each day, 10% of employees are absent in call centres due to the lack of appreciation felt in the workplace. This research alone highlights the need, especially in my industry, for touchpoints which allow managers to show their appreciation to their staff, highlight individual achievements and deliver motivational objectives. In this blog post, I will share my experience and tips for achieving the above in one morning meeting.

So, how do you maximise your morning buzz meetings to encourage individuals and create high performing sales teams?

  1. Strategise

43% of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least once a week, however, employee reviews should be happening more often and take less time.

There’s nothing worse than a long-winded ‘motivational’ meeting that is set to demotivate from the offset. It’s therefore important that you plan and prepare; effective buzz meetings should be concise and last no longer than 15 minutes, be armed with your objectives, focus on team wins and pinpoint your collective areas of learning.

  1. Set the tone

Our physical behaviour influences our mental and emotional approach to the day.

Think of ways to get your team moving, have a walking meeting, introduce a quick-fire game or play uplifting music to get the blood pumping. Increased blood flow creates a positive mood, resulting in employees being more equipped to handle objections, take on new challenges and meet personal milestones.

  1. Spotlight success

69% of employees say they would work harder if they felt their efforts were better recognised.

This is the perfect opportunity to feature the activity which you want to encourage. Celebrate your teams wins, even if they don’t lead to a direct sale and avoid focusing on losses. Recognising individual and team achievements has become my common practise, as I know this makes the individuals in my team feel more confident and in turn, pushes them to set bigger targets.

  1. Support and encourage

41% of companies that encourage colleagues to support one another experienced a significant increase in customer satisfaction.

If you want to create a great support network and boost team morale, encourage employees to praise fellow team members, this assures no one’s hard work slips past management and brings the team closer together. If your team is feeling positive it will show in their client conversations, resulting in better relationship building, more sales and higher ROI for the company.

  1. Strengthen from learnings

92% of employees agree that negative feedback, if delivered appropriately, is effective at improving performance.

Remember, the key for creating a great buzz meeting is positivity. Take negative feedback from the day before and turn it into takeaways and learnings for the team to overcome together. If a client isn’t happy with an element of your team’s performance, encourage your team to think of tactics that will better engage them and the people they are selling to.

  1. State the day’s focus

90% of business leaders believe that an engagement strategy could positively impact their business, yet only 25% of them have a strategy in place. It’s therefore no surprise that only 40% of employees are well informed of their company’s goals, strategy, and tactics.

It’s time to hit the reset button and introduce a new action plan for the day. Ask each individual team member, “what do you want to achieve today?” I have found that when the whole team acknowledges personal targets, that individual immediately feels more accountability to meet their goal, success is more likely to be achieved and goals are more likely to align to the company’s bigger picture.

 

At Air Marketing, we have experienced great success from our initiative to focus on our internal company culture. Achieving £18 for every £1 our clients invest, we are performing higher than the industry’s £11 average. I personally believe this success is down to the time we take out of selling to promote appreciation, individual achievements and team objectives. The culture at Air is one that I haven’t experienced anywhere else, our team’s positive and supportive nature is infectious, thanks to our daily buzz meetings we continue to deliver fantastic results for the companies we support.

Opinion Piece by Annie Blundell – Account Director, Air Marketing

It Wasn’t Always a Piece of Cake – The History of Telemarketing

Posted on by Doug Roots

When we think about telemarketing and telesales our minds predominantly envisage a masculine environment where characters from Wolf of Wall Street relish in their ego fuelled boiler rooms. Aggressive cold-calling practices, fraudsters, scam artists and relentless robocalls have made our history stand out. However, the industry started very differently and has overtime grown into one of the most transparent and profitable means of marketing used by sales professionals today.

Once upon a time, there were no high-powered men to see here!

Despite the stereotype that’s been created for us, telemarketing came from humble beginnings and was first achieved by a group of women. The women, who were originally housewives, came together with a shared interest in baking and a desire to make their own money.

At this stage no one was a ‘professional’, but not so dissimilar from today, the ladies trialled different conversation techniques to sell.

Overall, this approach proved a success and the women continued to bake, using telemarketing techniques to make connections and build their fortunes.

Thanks to the worlds love of baking, telemarketing was born, and success tasted sweet to those who began utilising it!

In the 1900’s the first ‘lead list’ promoted more ‘quantity’ over ‘quality’

Today marketeers understand the importance of gathering quality data which is going to produce a return on investment for their clients. In the early 1900’s, when the Multi-Mailing Co. started compiling and selling lists from local phone directories, its first ‘lead list’ consisted of 600,000 numbers which spread across multiple cities. At that time, the newly developed telephone system gave the callers access to richer members of the community. These people were considered ‘quality’ prospects, this was mainly due to their worth, regardless of their need or interest in making an investment.

In 1957 the first telemarketing firm dialled out

The first call centre, DialAmerica, began operating with only two calling stations, one inbound station and one outbound station, resembling something similar to traditional telemarketing.

For them, success came in the booming post-war economy. Today, DialAmerica is one of the largest operating call centres globally, making a 100 million calls a year and on average delivering 100,000 phone hours a week.

The switchboard 60’s

In the 1960’s Private Manual Branch Exchanges (PMBX) were invented. These giant switchboards were operated by receptionists who manually connected calls to the correct extension.

The switchboards were used by companies to bring communications in-house and save money rather than outsourcing to third-parties.

At this time the industry was still heavily populated by women, thought to be due to their warm approach, likable nature and cheaper wage.

The 1960’s also introduced the Bell Telephone, a computer system which could dial numbers using tones instead of a rotary dial. It was this invention which paved the road to Interactive Voice Response (IVR), the automated service that was about to fuel the rage of a nation.

The 1970’s and the year of the robot

During the early 1970’s telemarketing began enjoying mainstream success, however even the most experienced sellers were only dialling an average of 100 numbers a day, in comparison to today’s average of 200 plus.

With the growth of sophisticated technologies, the need for operators to manually transfer calls was eliminated. IVR was deployed and the automated service was taking off, despite its complications, expenses and limited computer vocabulary which started to trigger the public’s distaste for telemarketing.

Telemarketing, as it has come to be known, began in the 80’s

In 1981, total business expenditures for telemarketing exceeded the spend on direct-mail advertising for the first time.

In this decade several trends continued to contribute to the growth of telemarketing. These included:

  • High cost personal sales calls, making telemarketing more attractive in this show off B2B era
  • Advances in telecommunications, computers and database management, decreasing costs and increased efficiency
  • Consumer acceptance of 0800 numbers
  • The growing success of inbound and outbound telemarketing campaigns which encouraged more companies to try the phone as a sales tool

Scam artists in the shape of sales agents

Despite the industries progress, by the late 1990’s it looked like the end was near for outbound telemarketing. Annual fraud costs exploded, prompting the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission and Watchdog organisations to strengthen regulations to protect customers.

The DMA telephone name removal list grew from 900,000 to 2.5 million names in less than a year and by 2000, the number had increased to 3.2 million.

In 2003, the National Do Not Call Registry was launched by the Federal Trade Commission and had more than 50 million phone numbers registered before the start date.

A time of transparency and professionalism

An industry once deemed annoying to those it came into contact with has turned itself around, with business managers now agreeing B2B telesales calls are the least annoying form of advertising.

Today, the telemarketing industry is more transparent than ever before. In the EU, new GDPR regulations monitor the way personal data is held, used and shared, whilst the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (CTPS) gives corporate subscribers the right to be added to the Central Opt-Out Register. This means they have the right to choose not to receive unsolicited sales and marketing telephone calls to all their organisation’s telephone numbers, or to selected numbers.

The industry revolves around being personable and a telemarketer’s ability to build strong, honest relationships.  Scripts are used to help remind sellers of USPs but also that there’s no room for sales robots in this industry. Every sales agent must have initiative to get past the gatekeeper, identify pain points and deliver personal conversations that position them as the expert in each individual client’s product / service.

Telemarketing is an extremely lucrative industry which requires a lot of skill if your agency wants to match the industries average return of £11 for every £1 a client invests, at Air we proudly return £18 for every £1 spent.

To find out more about the campaigns Air Marketing run and the companies we help, contact us on 0345 241 3038 or contact@air-marketing.co.uk

Is your sales strategy focused on your business or your customers?

Posted on by Doug Roots

The first rule of customer service is that the customer is always right. Right?

 

With this in mind, shouldn’t all good business strategies place the customer at the heart of the campaign? Whilst this may seem to be true, it appears companies can sometimes find themselves strategising solely on where the business can go, as opposed to what the business can also do for its customers.

 

In 2018, 90% of adults in the UK defined themselves as recent internet users, up from 89% in 2017 (Office of National Statistics). Due to the developments in digital media, a customer has everything at their fingertips to make a decision about you before they have even spoken to you, as this information can now be found on social media posts, peer reviews or elsewhere on the internet.  It seems that it is no longer always essential for customers to go through sales teams to make a decision on whether or not they want to invest in your product or service. It is therefore essential that when your sales team do engage with your pipeline, they are providing an outstanding experience which focuses on the customer, optimising sales and productivity.

 

Increasingly, marketers are implementing sales strategies which place their customers at the centre of their business plans, something which is highly recommended by Air. A study by Cap Gemini found that returning customers bring a 23% increase in profits and revenues. It also showed that returning customers spend an average 67% more than a new customer. For this reason, it is essential to create a strategy which better allows you to retain customers as well as encouraging new sales.

 

It is key to know as much as possible about the behaviours, needs and desires of your business’ customers. When marketers listen to this information they can complement your business strategy by creating customer-focused initiatives which will boost value and profits.

 

At Air we understand the importance of keeping clients happy and from our initial conversations with clients we get the ball rolling. Our first step, once they decide to go ahead and work with Air, is a strategy meeting which ensures their expert knowledge is kept at the forefront of their campaign; this meeting also enables us to present campaign concepts to reach the best solution for their objectives before we begin dialling. From the outset we want our clients to be happy, confident and informed on what we are doing for them. This level of clarity continues throughout the process, as shown by our client portal. Unique in the industry, the portal allows our clients to track their campaigns in live time providing them with the ability to watch the reactions their prospective customers are having to their products.

 

Transparency and engagement are essential concepts within our business strategy, as they allow us to maintain trusting relationships between ourselves and our clients. Cap Gemini found that disengaged customers cause a 13% fall in profits. At Air we foster engagement by encouraging our clients to use our office spaces as a base, or to pop in or call and chat with us as and when they feel the need to.

 

Our client-focused business strategy allows our business to function like a friendship, if we extend a level of familiarity to our clients they will reciprocate by continuing to work with us and in turn referring others to do so too. Receiving recommendations is a key part of our business strategy as future customers are more likely to trust a brand backed by an industry equal or someone they know.

 

We encourage our clients to leave us testimonials in order to reach out to their community. By allowing our current customers to have a voice and input to our brand it shows prospective clients that we value the opinion of those we work with and want to create strong relationships with them.

 

For us it isn’t all about the money, it is about the people. To find out more about how we engage with you, your business and your customers please contact us via phone: 0345 241 3038 or via email: contact@air-marketing.co.uk.

 

 

 

 

 

Are you struggling to execute a rewarding telemarketing campaign?

Posted on by Doug Roots

We know there’s nothing better than building a healthy sales pipeline, and one of the most effective methods of doing that is by making calls and starting conversations with your key target market.

Implementing a successful telemarketing campaign is a process that many businesses struggle to achieve. A telemarketing campaign can often be seen as complex, time-consuming, or outdated. To eliminate this misconception, Air ensures all clients follow a campaign process which will lead your business through an achievable, step by step process, designed to deliver rewarding results for your business. Take a look at our Air process here