A Successful Software Telemarketing Campaign Equals Success for a Software Firm

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Telemarketing is a marketing strategy that has been around since very long ago. Time and time again, telemarketing has proven successful and has worked for many types of businesses that employ it to make more sales, or to use it for other services. One this is certain though, that telemarketing is effective and works marvelously when it comes to being used by B2B companies. In this day and age, telemarketing remains as popular and effective as it was back then and is still employed by many all around the world. As for software firms, they have something called software telemarketing which they can make use of in order to make more software sales.

For a software company that is new to the concept of how software telemarketing works then it would be important to know a lot about it and what they can do to achieve an effective software telemarketing campaign. The first thing to be decided upon is how they want telemarketing done for them. There are two ways to acquire telemarketing: outsourcing or starting your own in-house call center. Both of these, of course, involve spending of resources. However, in-house services aren't recommended for software firms that are already having constraints on their allotted budget when it comes to these things. For these firms with constraints, outsourcing is the best choice. Rest assured though, outsourcing won't make your campaign any less effective. Rather than that, you can look forward to working with a software telemarketing firm that takes pride in having professional telemarketers onboard.

Now let us assume that outsourcing is what you have chosen, let us proceed to what software telemarketing can do for your software firm. First of all, you must already know the importance of software leads when it comes to doing business. Software leads allow for you to be able to locate your prospects and clients that would be looking to do business with your company. If your firm is into the development of ERP software then software lead generation done by telemarketers should suffice in bringing in the needed ERP leads. Securing software leads should be your first step in running your software telemarketing campaign as these leads will be very important to you, and to your chosen telemarketing firm. This is because aside from just lead generation, you can also have your software telemarketing service provider do software appointment setting for you.

Software appointment setting is exactly as what the name already gives you an image of; it is done to set business appointments for software related sales and business. For a software firm that thrives on B2B transactions with others, this can become the best way to achieve more software sales appointments with your clientele. Software appointment setting however is only effective when software leads are available. That is why for software firms lead generation is the first step, and this, can become the second step to having a successful software telemarketing campaign. High-quality software leads and software appointment setting go hand in hand after all and with this, software telemarketing can become the best thing that a software firm can have in achieving their success.

Claire Hansen works as a marketing communications program manager. She is inviting you to visit http://www.erpsoftwareleads.com/ to learn more about lead generation and appointment setting for the software industry.

Cold Calling Success By Design

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AppId is over the quota

Many (many!) salespeople and entrepreneurs would rather visit their dentist for a root canal than spend an hour or so on the telephone cold calling.

Why?

The number one reason is a previous uncomfortable cold calling experience, which happens when we:

1) call outside our target market, bothering people with a message that doesn't apply to them; or

2) call the right potential customer, but use the wrong approach.

Once you put the necessary research into identifying your target market, ask these questions to design a successful cold calling campaign:

1. Can your message be delivered whether or not you speak directly with a specific contact?

If you can answer "yes" to this question, your campaign can be built around the easiest of cold calls.

For example, you might be inviting a large number of people to an event and you already have their email addresses. Simply compose an energetic, detail-filled message that can be left on voice mail and include a promise that more information is on the way.

The call might sound like this - "Hi Joan Smith, this is Dave Jones calling from ABC Company. I want to invite you and a guest to our incredible launch event tomorrow night which includes some well-known comedians, fabulous food and the chance to win one of several exciting prizes. I do have your email here, so I'm going to take the liberty of sending you an invitation with all the details. Of course don't hesitate to call or write with any questions or comments. All of my contact information will be in the email. I do look forward to seeing you at the launch!"

These are fun calls. They can be made quickly and when done with an energetic, welcoming voice, they always produce results. Not only that, by including a promise in your message (to send email), and then keeping it, you build trust.

2. Does your message need to result in a face-to-face meeting?

These calls are challenging because you have to reach someone in real-time, you must highlight the benefits of your product or service very quickly before asking for the meeting, and you must get the meeting organized in the first conversation. Approximately 50% more prospects will say "yes" to a meeting during a well-designed first call than in follow up conversations.

For example: "Hi Joan Smith, this is Dave Jones calling from ABC Company. The reason for my call today is we work in your industry providing tax advice that saves our clients as much as 15% on their tax bills each year. What I want to do today is organize a brief 20 minute meeting between you and our senior tax analyst to investigate the possibility of saving you money in this tax year. Would Tuesday or Wednesday of this week work for you?"

When asking for a meeting it is important to suggest specific dates. Everyone we contact today is busy, overwhelmed. When we ask the question "When can you meet with me?", it draws the prospect's attention to their entire calendar which is crowded with appointments and deadlines; it increases the likelihood of their responding with "Send me some information and I'll get back to you."

When you ask about specific dates, it narrows their focus, and helps them to see half-hour possibilities that allow for the meeting.

3. Does your message need to educate your prospect about your product or service?

This is the most difficult of cold calls - when your product or service is so unique or complex that a detailed conversation is needed in order to build your customer base and motivate people to find out more about you.

These calls require specific scripting and it is best to do some role playing before picking up the phone. You are designing a type of verbal choreography where you will use open-ended questions to inspire conversation and raise the interest of your target market.

These calls must also have excellent support materials that can be sent out by email and a commitment from all the salespeople to follow up diligently.

Selling magazine advertising is a good example of this type of call. Salespeople need to inspire conversation about the publication's circulation and its connection to the potential advertiser's target market. They need to send out links to the magazine online or a copy by regular mail, a rate card and testimonials. And they need to follow up faithfully in order to make the sale.

Increasing revenue through telephone sales is a valid option for a wide-variety of products and services. Success is in the details. Before putting salespeople on the phone, take the time to design your campaign so that your approach suits both your product and your audience.

Designing a cold calling campaign can be made easier with help and insight from someone with experience. I've spent 25 years calling companies both large and small, in North America and overseas, connecting with managers and CEOs. Please don't hesitate to contact me to discuss how I can help you create a cold calling strategy that will result in more sales and more customers. maryjane@thephonelady.ca

Methods to Improve the Success Rate of Your Telemarketing Campaign

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Most of the things in this world cannot improve on just by using one single tactic. Take for instance race cars; if a race car driver were to only focus on improving the performance of their engine and ignoring every other part of the automobile, then the driver would only attain one step in taking the lead in the race. Other race car drivers that have improved on the performance of the entirety of their vehicles will have a higher chance in reaching the checkered flag first.

Now if one were to look at this understanding in a business owner's point of view, there are many ways for them to improve upon their telemarketing campaign. As such, there is not a single, most absolute way of improving the entirety of this type of marketing campaign. Business owners should apply multiple tactics in order to benefit the campaign as well as improve the chances of increasing the business' return of capital.

Let us take a look at some of the more important tips on how business owners can totally improve their telemarketing campaign.

Use an effective calling script

If for instance the sole purpose of the telemarketing campaign were to gather fresh sales leads, then a good calling script should always be used. It is highly known that the most important part of the call starts at the greeting. As such, if the script does not utilize a friendly yet powerful greeting, everything else within the course of the call may fall apart. If this happens, the business may become one step behind within the competition.

As much as possible, sales representatives should avoid fillers when talking to prospects

Those "uhhs" and "umms" that people use when talking are called fillers. Sales representatives that use these all the time during the course of their call will have a lesser chance in catching the interest of their prospect. The main reason is because when a potential client or customer hears a ton of these during the call, their patience will drop significantly and their faith for the company that contacted them may be lost.

Use an up-to-date telemarketing list

Telemarketing calling lists are now being offered by numerous lead providers around the globe. These lists contain quite the number of fresh sales leads that businesses can contact for their benefit. These types of leads are those that have not yet made any sort of transaction from a business that is of the same nature as the one doing the telemarketing campaign. Using an up-to-date list guarantees the business of these fresh leads which can ultimately lead to the firm's financial success.

The tone of voice matters, a lot.

Imagine a sales representative that relies solely on the telemarketing script that they forget one important thing: they are still human. This is because if an agent were to rely on the script the tendency is that they will sound totally robotic over the phone. This provides an even lesser chance of them piquing the interests of their prospects which may lead to the campaign's downfall.

Experience brings forth good fortune for the campaign

Lastly, it is important to never underestimate the power of acquiring experience. A lot of people know that experience is the greatest teacher known to man and this thought does not escape a business' sales agents. Once a sales representative has gathered enough experience from hundreds of calls that they make, they can readily and easily adapt to any kind of circumstance that may befall upon them during the call.

Belinda Summers works as a professional consultant. She helps businesses increase their revenue by lead generation and appointment setting services through Telemarketing. To know more about this visit: http://www.callboxinc.com/