December 2016 | Blue Donkey

5 easy steps to power up your telemarketing

Posted on 20 December 2016 by bluedonkey

Telemarketing is a powerful business tool and an important element of any comprehensive marketing strategy. However, though many companies use telemarketing in their market research, lead generation and networking campaigns, many don’t make the most of the medium and even fewer are able to really harness the full power of telemarketing. So to help you improve the quality of your calls and unleash your business’ potential, we’ve put together five of our top tips for powering your telemarketing calls.

1. Measure what you do and benchmark your progress

Not only is monitoring your progress a good way to stay motivated, it’s also important when analysing your telemarketing success and devising future campaigns. Set clear goals for yourself and your team – hourly goals are better than daily or weekly benchmarks as they’re easier to keep track of – and be disciplined about how you achieve them. Measure your rate of success as well as important factors like the number of times you reach and engage with a decision maker.

2. Be clear about what differentiates you

Before you make a telemarketing call, take some time to think about the product or service you’re promoting. Ask yourself what makes the product or service special, how you can make a difference to the people you’re calling and what sets you apart from the competition. By keeping these ideas in your mind when you speak to a decision maker, your enthusiasm will spill over into the conversation, making your call even more persuasive.

3. Be authentic

If you try to adopt a phone persona when making a telemarketing call, the person you’re speaking to will be able to tell immediately. In order to really connect with the people you’re calling, you need to be authentic and use language that comes naturally to you. If you use too many buzz words or exaggerated expressions, you may well come across a little robotic and insincere.

4. Get to the point

Your opening line is incredibly important. Most of the people you’re speaking to will be busy and won’t have the time to listen to long, rambling pitches. Keep your introduction to the essential facts: who you are, where you’re calling from and the reason for your call. Cut this down to 15 seconds for maximum impact.

5. Get people talking

The sooner you get people talking, the more chance you’ll have of engaging them in the call and really grabbing their attention. Once you’ve introduced yourself, ask a well thought through opening question. This will help to create a dialogue and build a rapport, something that’s guaranteed to give your call a better chance of success.

To find out more about our intelligent telemarketing approach, or to discuss a telemarketing project of your own, get in touch with a member of our team today.

Simple but stunningly effective B2B lead generation techniques

Posted on 13 December 2016 by bluedonkey

Lead generation is an incredibly important part of business, without it, many companies would fail to secure new clients and few businesses would be able to grow. Done well on the other hand, lead generation can propel a business to new heights, driving sales, boosting profits, and helping it to build a solid customer base that will support it for years to come.

As lead generation is so crucial to business success, it’s important that businesses are good at it. At Blue Donkey, we know a thing or two about lead generation. Over the years, we’ve developed a range of stunningly effective practices that are guaranteed to boost results. To help you achieve the success you’re looking for, here are a few of our favourite B2B lead generation techniques.

Focused blogging

Blogging is a fantastic lead generation tool. If you post an engaging piece about your specialist area, businesses searching for related services are more likely to come across your site. When they see that you’re an authoritative figure in your industry they will be more inclined to get in touch and use your company. Focused blogging is also great for SEO and can be shared on social media, boosting your company profile and helping to spread the word about your business. When planning titles for your blogs, think about the questions that you’re most often asked by other businesses. When other companies search for these queries online, the link to your blog should appear.

Build a social network

Social media is a powerful lead generation tool, even when you’re dealing with other businesses. In fact, according to The Content Marketing Institute, 93% of B2B marketers use social media, making it the most common B2B marketing tool. Of those, 54% said they’ve generated leads via a social media platform.

When building a network on social media, it’s important that your company is an active participant. Share content, like content and interact with businesses in your network. This will ensure that yours is the first company businesses think of next time they need your products or services.

Telemarketing

Done well, telemarketing is an incredible efficient method of lead generation. A good telemarketer won’t just be able to deliver a powerful and engaging sales message, they’ll also be able to address concerns, collect valuable data and build a positive B2B relationship. However, it’s important that businesses use a skilled and experienced telemarketer, like Blue Donkey, as a less competent telemarketer could damage your reputation and put off potential customers.

Great telemarketing does more than just generate meetings and sales opportunities. It’s a long term solution for business growth. To begin with, intelligent telemarketing can be used for investigating and capturing the names of key decision makers within your target sectors. Getting past gatekeepers to have an intelligent conversation with those decision makers is a vital next step. Using powerful open question techniques to get them talking about their needs and how your product or service will fulfil those needs, in addition to gaining opt in, and gaining commitment to the next step in building a firm relationship.

In some instances, this can all happen in a single call, in others, systematic cycles of intelligent telemarketing will generate it over time.

By setting yourself up as an authority in your industry, connecting with other businesses on social media, and following up your good work with some powerful and well placed phone calls, you can dramatically improve your lead generation success rate. If you’d like to learn more, take a look around our site or contact a member of our team.

How sales and selling has evolved over the last 50 years

Posted on 8 December 2016 by bluedonkey

Over the last 50 years, the sales industry has experienced a number of dramatic changes. From the rise of telemarketing, to the advent of the internet, salespeople across the world now have a number of powerful tools and techniques at their fingertips. As a result, the sales industry has become a lot more complex. The methods employed by salespeople are now informed by huge amounts of research, allowing them to better understand the needs, concerns, and buying patterns of customers, as well as helping them to get the most out of every contact.

The team at Blue Donkey is continually working to improve its techniques and make calls as productive as possible, we’re a driving force in the evolution of sales techniques. Our intelligent approach allows us to use technology to make a personal connection, transforming standard sales calls into powerful selling opportunities.

Technology

Today’s technology is unrecognisable to the technology of 50 years ago. According to Statista, just 35% of UK households owned a landline in 1970. By 2000, 95% of households had landlines and today, according to Ofcom, 93% of UK adults have a phone of their own.

This, combined with the 82% of adults who use the internet on a daily basis, has made it a lot easier for businesses to get in touch with their customer base. Companies can now employ sales techniques across a range of platforms; they use a combination of methods to sell to clients, understand their needs, and turn them into loyal customers.

Psychology

Over the last 50 years, there have been countless studies conducted on the psychology of sales and the effects that different approaches have on a sales call. Though some salespeople don’t take advantage of this wealth of research, the team at Blue Donkey use it to their benefit every day. Understanding how simple ideas and approaches can impact on a sales call will help to improve success rates and build stronger relationships between customers and companies.

Communication

Thanks to the prevalence of technology and the advances made in psychology in the last five decades, salespeople are now much better placed to communicate effectively and efficiently when they’re on a call. Good salespeople are also able to treat each and every person they speak to individually, avoiding the robotic, scripted calls that plagued the industry in years gone by.

By approaching each call on an individual level, salespeople can work together with the person they’re speaking with, to understand their needs and offer solutions. By being effective communicators, telemarketers are much more likely to create meaningful contacts and achieve the results they need.

Over the past 50 years, sales techniques have become more intelligent, more personal, and more effective. By learning from this wealth of experience, Blue Donkey can make our sales calls as productive, positive, and professional as possible.

Segmentation

No doubt one of the most profound developments over the last 50 years is the way companies decide which buyers are important to them. Modern marketers learn all about Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP). This clever approach to marketing is where companies group potential customers into segments based on similar needs and buying behaviours. They then evaluate each segment and decide which one is most important to them, usually on the basis of potential spend. Positioning is where companies decide how to position their brand in the mind of the buyer, this could be on price, on the number of features, on desirability, etc.

So, in theory we should only be approached by companies promoting products or services that are relevant to us to a greater or lesser extent.

Data

Data and data collection methods have also become one of the big innovations of our time. Now every time you tick a box for information, accept a free gift, or make an online purchase you find yourself on a database that is likely to lead to further contact. The ‘Internet of things’ takes this even further, so your mobile phone, your fridge, and any number of devices can tell the world something about you.

Numbers game

One of the many repercussions of this is buyers now have less tolerance for mass messages, or limp messaging which doesn’t stand out as unique in some way. So, far from the old adage that marketing is ‘a numbers game’, we can safely say the better your list the more marketing success you get.

Furthermore, lots of competing products and services vying for our attention as well as our pounds and pennies tells us that most markets are saturated. So, in a world where there is no such thing as a USP anymore, organisations are having to work harder, smarter and more intelligently to secure that loyalty and spend of buyers. This is especially true in B2B environments where successful companies are linked more and more to good service. And ultimately service comes from people.

In the telemarketing world, this boils down to an increased demand for intelligent calls, made by sensitive, intelligent and commercially savvy individuals. The impact of the first impression has never been more important. Talk to Blue Donkey today about how we can make your impact compelling.

Are you more left brain or right brain?

Posted on 6 December 2016 by bluedonkey

Home to everything from our imagination and memories to our sense of empathy and reason, the brain is a truly remarkable organ. One of the most fascinating things about the brain is that it’s split in two. The right half is thought to primarily control our creative side, while the left half is said to be responsible for logical thought such as understanding facts, science and maths.

Though we don’t realise it, many people rely more on one side of their brain than the other. Many modern jobs encourage left brain activity, with data, metrics and facts all important in the world of business. Here at Blue Donkey, we believe that engaging both sides of the brain makes us better communicators and better marketers. Allowing us to apply creative ideas to our rational process, it’s just one of the things that helps us to stand out from the crowd.

Left brain/right brain

Although scientists aren’t sure why we’ve evolved to have two such distinct hemispheres, a lot of research has been carried out into identifying the individual functions each half of the brain is responsible for. This has suggested that, as well as managing the right hand side of our bodies, the left hemisphere is where logical, sequential, rational, analytical and objective thought takes place.

The right hemisphere, as well as managing the left hand side of the body, is thought to be in charge of random, creative and subjective thought. It’s where our intuition comes from and it’s the area of the brain that allows us to take in the bigger picture and come up with imaginative solutions to a problem. However, the two halves of the brain are not independent of each other and we of course need to draw on elements of both hemispheres for creative and analytical thought.

Using the whole brain in telemarketing

Although many people who work in business rely heavily on the left side of their brain, engaging the right side can do wonders when making telemarketing calls and connecting with clients. By using our intuition, imagination and creativity, as well as our logic and reasoning, we can bring a holistic approach to telemarketing and get great results in the process. Being creative and imaginative on the phone, also helps us to get more from our interactions by allowing us to be more sensitive to buyers’ needs.

Right brain marketing techniques

One of the techniques we use when making telemarketing calls is ‘visualisation’. By using your imagination to ‘see’ the person you’re talking to in your mind’s eye, you can overcome some of the communication barriers talking over the phone can present. Many of our highly skilled telemarketers also use the right side of their brain to help them paint pictures with their words and bring a product or service to life.

Another technique we use is the ‘benefit star’. A useful way to map the attributes of a product or service, the star works out from open questions at the centre, to key features and benefits relevant to what the decision makers have told us are important or unique to them. Conversely, when we try to help people grasp the intricacies of a new product we use facts, numbers and proof points. Drawing more on the left hand side of their brain, this analytical approach helps to give prospects the full picture.

By using both sides of the brain in our telemarketing calls, we’re able to better empathise with buyers. This helps us to understand their mood, their needs and their motivations, something that’s crucial for a successful telemarketing call.

By using all of the tools available to us, we’re able to employ a comprehensive approach that uses the best that the left and right sides of the brain have to offer. To find out more about our training, techniques and high quality services, take a look around our site today.