Does Telemarketing Still Have a Place in Lead Generation?

1. Generating leads is one of the most vital functions of any business team. New leads are the life- blood of a company’s financial growth as it ensures a solid flow of new clients. New clients mean more growth for the company and all the stakeholders involved in it. These days’ businesses have so many different channels for lead generation. Some are tried and tested; others are more experimental but give good results. One of the tried and tested ones is telemarketing services. For decades, businesses have relied on telemarketing as one of its key tactics to reach out to new and existing customers. It could be to convert them into leads, close sales or up-selling to current customers. Either way, telemarketing has worked or that is why even decades later it continues to be used. However, with so many different methods of generating leads, do people still respond to telemarketing as they did before? That is a tricky question to answer. Let us look at some of the arguments for both sides. a) People are busy It’s that simple sometimes. Telemarketing is considered as interruption marketing where you are interrupting someone when they could be in the middle of work or something personal. Today’s generation of customers has a very high sense of personal space that they believe telemarketers invade. This creates a negative mindset which makes them not respond to telemarketing calls.

2. b) Call blocking apps There are several apps available both in Google’s Play Store and IOS’ App Store that help customers block telemarketers. It makes reaching customers that much difficult. Once your numbers go into the database of any of these apps as spammers, your calls are automatically rejected by these apps. c) Do Not Disturb Every country in the world has its version of the “do not disturb” or “do not call registry”. This is a government-led initiative that lets customers opt their phone numbers out of marketing lists to officially state that they do not want any spam calls or messages. Numbers that are added in this list are potential customers that business losses. a) Essential for Maintaining Personal Touch Even with all the different methods of lead generation like email marketing, SEO and social media, you still need to communicate on a human level to close the deal. This is truer in B2B markets where long term contracts are signed. No company ever does a deal with another without talking to a human being on the other end of the phone. This makes telemarketing still a vital part of lead generation. b) Important for Lead Nurturing Let’s say you generate leads using various other methods mentioned before. You still need telemarketing to nurture those leads. Again the emphasis is on human contact. Through telemarketing, you can reach out to your leads, understand their requirements, do regular follow-ups during the important stages of conversion, and then finally close the deal by taking the customer across the finish line. c) Telemarketing has evolved Telemarketing has grown beyond just calling and selling products. It has become about creating brand awareness, getting customer feedback, enhancing customer experience, improving customer engagement & loyalty and increasing customer retention. This new and evolved telemarketing will always have a place in the modern business world.

3. Telemarketing as a concept may seem simple enough but in today’s complex business world, it needs to be merged with a larger lead generation strategy. We need to bring today digital marketing, offline marketing, and telemarketing together to create a customer acquisition roadmap. Many companies choose to outsource either their entire lead generation or outsource telemarketing services to expert BPO companies that can help them get the most results and increase their overall revenue. By leveraging this outsourced telemarketing, companies can focus on the larger strategies while letting a dedicated team of telemarketing professionals helps convert their leads. In the end, it leads to better synergy in the entire conversion process.