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Monthly Archives: December 2019

B2B telephone market research

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B2B telephone market research

Market research is a key component of any successful business. Understanding what clients think and need, not only helps cement lasting relationships, it informs product development, service enhancements, and the broader marketing mix. In fact, market research helps companies ensure they are making the right products for the right people.

For organisations selling to other organisations, b2b telephone market research is usually the preferred method for collecting new insights from clients and potential clients. This is because the phone offers some unique opportunities to gently probe and tease out the right kind of information to enable marketers to gain information that is reliable, valuable, and as informative as possible. However in b2b, telephone, like all other areas of telemarketing you need to be asking the right questions.

Demographic

One of the most essential things you’ll need to learn from a market research telemarketing call is whether the contact is from your selected demographic. If the business you’re talking to falls outside your target criteria, any information you garner during the call will be largely irrelevant and won’t help to inform your campaign. It also puts your product development cycles at risk of responding to the wrong demands. The list used for b2b telephone market research needs, therefore, to be carefully profiled and homogeneous – this means buyers will typically have a similar type of requirement and will fit your target group closely. Of course, it’s still important to ask the right qualifying questions to ensure the person you reach is the best person to gather views from if you want to ensure your outcomes are reliable and robust enough to shape your future marketing investments.

Demand

In some cases, the main purpose behind a telemarketing market research campaign is to understand whether there is demand for a new product or service, and the price that would make it useful or attractive to potential buyers. Your telemarketers will need to be able to explain the concept behind your product or service succinctly and clearly. They’ll also need to be able to interpret various responses in order to distinguish between polite interest and genuine enthusiasm. As all business leaders know, conducting market research during the development of a new product or service is essential, especially if you want the finished product to appeal to the right target audience.

Needs

B2b telephone market research offers telemarketers an opportunity to learn more about the people they’re speaking to. By asking insightful questions, listening to the answers and getting a conversation going, your telemarketers can get under the skin of the people they’re speaking to and get a real feel for their needs and requirements. Have your telemarketers tailor a mix of open and closed questions to find out how the products and services you offer fit in with the specific needs of the prospect. The more they can learn about the requirements of the business, that can be supported with a mix of numerical and anecdotal feedback, the more it will enrich and inform your marketing progress.

Appeal

As well as ensuring your business is meeting the current needs of your target audience, you need to know how you can improve the service you offer in the coming years. Even if you’re not planning to expand your operations in the near future, understanding where you can improve and diversify the products and services you offer will stand your business in good stead for the future.

To learn more about b2b telephone market research, or market research and telemarketing techniques, take a look around our site or get in touch with a member of our expert team.

How your b2b telemarketing agency will get motivated this January

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How your b2b telemarketing agency will get motivated this January

January is a notoriously difficult month for many of us including the typical b2b telemarketing agency. Long days, dark skies, cold weather, and credit card bills from the Christmas hangover take their toll on workers across all sectors. For many, January can be less productive than other months as employees struggle to find the energy to start new projects or drive plans forward.

The only way to counter this New Year malaise is to get motivated. With a little effort from managers, most employees will find the extra energy they need to knuckle down and get 2020 off to a cracking good start. To help managers get their workforce back on track, we’re sharing some easy and effective motivational techniques used in our b2b telemarketing agency to boost productivity and improve office morale in no time.

Herzberg’s theory of motivation

Frederick Herzberg was an American psychologist who became one of the most influential names in business management in the 20th century. Known for his two-factor theory of motivation, his book ‘One more time, how do you motivate employees?’ sold more than 1.2 million copies when it was published in 1968. Although his ideas may now be half a century old, they still hold true for managers looking to inspire employees and boost productivity in the winter months.

Two-factor theory

Herzberg didn’t work in a b2b telemarketing agency, alas, but he believed that in most kinds of organisations, motivation was influenced by factors that fell into two broad categories. These are motivators and hygiene factors. Motivating factors are the features of a workplace which actively encourage morale, happy factor, or a better rate of work, and which give employees the energy and the drive to make the discretionary extra effort. Without motivators, employees would struggle to put 100% into their work all the time.

Hygiene factors, on the other hand, won’t necessarily motivate workers to be more productive simply by being present, but their absence could demotivate workers, and therefore reduce productivity. These are things that we would expect to have in our places of work such as training, support, a warm clean environment, and proper working support systems. So, where hygiene factors are the must-have components of the workplace, motivators are the optional extra features that make a business and workplace desirable, such as free fruit, or hot drinks, easy parking, attractive buildings. Ensuring the presence of both hygiene factors and motivators, therefore, is crucial if managers want to get the very best out of their workforce.

Motivators

There are a number of motivators that Herzberg identified in his theory. Chief among them was the belief that by giving workers increased responsibility, meaningful and fulfilling work, and increased autonomy would improve motivation levels and give workers a sense of pride and satisfaction. These days we refer to this as creating meaning in our work and we are all too aware of the impacts of not doing so, not just on mental health and wellbeing, but also on the bottom line, as the notion of happy workers is now inextricably linked with happy customers and bottom-line profit.

He also encouraged managers to reward achievement and recognise hard work among their employees. According to recruitment experts, Morgan Mckinley meaningful and challenging work scores No.1 in the things that motivate employees, at No. 2 is that companies should seek to improve the lives of workers, and No. 3 was that companies should offer recognition and praise for a job well done.

Hygiene factors

In Herzberg’s theory, hygiene factors are basic provisions that can demotivate a workforce by their absence. These include adequate pay, good working conditions, and fair and appropriate supervision. Although the presence of these important factors won’t necessarily motivate a workforce, their absence will significantly hinder productivity and sap employee morale in the process, especially in an environment such as the busy sales floor, customer service team, or b2b telemarketing agency.

A two-pronged approach

Managers looking to boost motivation this January should, therefore, take a two-pronged approach if they want to improve productivity for good. Looking at both motivating factors and hygiene factors will help company bosses to provide the best conditions possible for their workers and increase motivation levels across the board.

If you’d like to find out more about boosting motivation and improving the quality of your workforce, explore the information on our site or get in touch with a member of our team.

Appointment making experts capture attention in 10 seconds or less

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Appointment making experts capture attention in 10 seconds or less

Appointment making experts must capture the attention of the person they are calling in the first few seconds of engagement. If you can do this, you’ll have a much better chance of achieving the objective of your call. If you find you sometimes struggle to capture attention, take a look at the tips below for grabbing a prospect’s attention quickly and effectively.

Stand out from the crowd

One of the best techniques appointment making experts use to capture attention quickly over the phone is to create original sounding calls. By giving buyers something authentic you will disrupt their routine and ensure their focus is entirely on you. Work on effective opening techniques so the start of your call is original, informative and captivating. Your call should always begin with who you are, where you’re calling from, and the reason for your call. This should be short, original, and informative. Then ask an open question that draws the person into your call in a relevant way – so no questions about the weather please!

Get personal

If your telemarketing calls sound scripted, generic, or irrelevant, it will repel your buyer, making them unlikely to pay attention. If you can tailor your call, make it personal to them and their business, you’ll be able to demonstrate not only that you care about their needs and requirements, but also that you’re sensitive to the demands of their industry and that you’ve taken the time to think about their needs. Appointment making experts will generally find that if the chemistry is right in the first few seconds of a call, they are more likely to win face-time with their potential buyer.

Be positive

We tend to overestimate how many calls buyers get these days. One of the worst things you can do when starting a conversation with a target decision maker is to give voice to your insecurities with statements such as ‘I’m sure you get many calls like this’ or ‘I know you must be very busy’. The implication with such sentiments is that you believe they won’t want to speak with you. And if you feel that way, guess what happens? Being positive in your outlook will help you sound inviting, compelling and like you can make a difference to that person’s work in some way. After all, you wouldn’t have them on your database, or be calling unless you had already established that you have a good reason to speak with them.

Simple is best

Few things can cause a telemarketing call to wither and fade faster than technical jargon and business speak. Appointment making experts will generally avoid the use of business jargon, its outmoded and irrelevant for most professional situations. Instead of trying to impress your contact with buzzwords and long, complex phrases, keep your conversation simple. Use short sentences and reference proof points or examples, and use dialog that’s accessible to anyone. That way your call is easy to digest and builds bridges in your communication, not barriers.  Besides, there is nothing more embarrassing or cheesy than using a piece of jargon incorrectly – cringe!

Pay attention please

If you want your buyer to give you their complete attention, you need to do the same. Make sure you don’t become distracted during your call, and this is so easy to do when you’re nervous because you are tuned in to your own feelings and emotions, rather than those of the person you’re communicating with. Try to make sure you listen carefully to their answers, instead of attempting to think ahead to what comes next. Seeing a person in your mind will help you do this.

Appointment making experts learn to build rapport by carefully listening to the person they’re speaking to, using complete attention to gain valuable insight into their needs and requirements. This also serves to help the appointment setter’s job become more worthwhile and meaningful so they are actually doing something with a social purpose, to help someone else. According to wellbeing experts at Rescuetime.com meaning in the workplace is one of those things that is hard to define, but once discovered has far-reaching benefits.

Capturing someone’s attention quickly and effectively is an essential telemarketing skill. To find out more about useful telemarketing techniques, take a look around our website or give us a call and speak to one of the friendly members of our team.

Negative impacts that b2b telemarketing companies try to avoid

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Negative impacts that b2b telemarketing companies try to avoid

A negative brand impression can be hard to recover from, particularly where it’s the first impression a potential client gets about a business. For b2b telemarketing companies, this is an important consideration and one that means we spend a lot of time crafting calls that resonate in a buyer’s mind positively. Telemarketers are often the first contact a company has with new potential clients so making sure your team know how to make a good impression is essential if you want your telemarketing campaigns to succeed.

Pushy!

As all b2b telemarketing companies know, if there’s one thing that decision makers dislike more than anything else, it’s callers who come on too strong. Diving into a sales patter before you’ve taken the time to build rapport or warmth with the decision maker will make your telemarketers seem pushy and ham-fisted. This could easily lead someone to a negative impression of your brand. According to CRM software experts Hubspot “there’s this notion that to grow a business, you have to be ruthless. But we know there’s a better way to grow. One where what’s good for the bottom line is also good for customers. We believe businesses can grow with a conscience and succeed with a soul”. Hubspot maintain that respect is key to success in today’s markets, and say that customers don’t want to be harassed by salespeople, they want to be helped, and so presenting information in a way that’s both respectful and intelligent will protect the integrity of your brand and give your teams a better sense of meaningful work.

Questions questions

Asking questions is an essential part of building a positive brand impression not just for b2b telemarketing companies but for anyone using the telephone to engage with clients or potential clients. If your team fails to create an authentic two-way dialog, they risk alienating decision makers, burning through precious data or simply becoming disillusioned with their lack of positive achievement. In addition to creating a productive conversation, asking questions gives telemarketers an opportunity to uncover more about the prospect and demonstrate that they have their interests at heart.

Gently does it

Good connections and a strong product or service offered to the right organisation and buyer will help influence people to act. So b2b telemarketing companies will always seek to ensure that where a potential buyer isn’t ready to take the next steps, there is a default objective to gently gain consent for another call at an agreed time. It pays to have patience and build the relationship around the potential buyer’s needs and objectives, not our own. In the short term, setting aside the desire to generate a lead, in favour of managing the relationship for some point in the future, when there may be a decision pending, or a new budget coming up, is a better experience for all involved. If the data is properly selected and the call is strong, you can usually expect to generate a positive outcome, but that may not necessarily be a lead, it may be an opportunity to speak again. For b2b telemarketing companies, it’s mission-critical to be mindful that the most valuable relationships invariably take time to nurture.

Knowledge

Ideally, telemarketers need to be able to answer questions that decision makers may have. This means they need a good working knowledge of your company, your products, and your services, so they can discuss the benefits of what you offer and make a compelling case for why you’re the best option out there. Outsourced b2b telemarketing companies may not always know everything about a clients’ product or service offering, in which case they won’t blag, pretend, or swerve the question.

Instead, it’s much more satisfying to simply say ‘that’s an interesting question, I don’t know the answer, is there a particular reason why that’s important to you?’ Turning the challenge into an opportunity to be honest and open up the discussion, is far more rewarding than putting up a pretence or allowing ourselves to feel deflated by the failure to know absolutely everything.

Find out more about improving the quality of your telemarketing calls by taking a look around our website or getting in touch with a member of our expert team.

Open questions for b2b lead generation

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Open questions for b2b lead generation

The best telemarketers have a clear sense of what they need to do for effective b2b lead generation to happen. It starts with finding the right key buyers, engaging them in a two-way conversation using open questions, uncovering a need that they can fulfil, and closing for an appointment or desirable next step. Understanding the psychology behind these steps can help you to improve the quality of your calls and give your telemarketing the best possible outcomes.

Open questions

Open questions for b2b lead generation are ones that can’t be answered with a simple yes, no or single response. Open questions usually begin with the words Who, What, When, Why, or How. Closed questions are usually answered with a yes or no and typically used to gather particular items of information rather than paint broad pictures. Closed questions have their place in telemarketing but they are usually used to confirm or move the conversation to the next stage of action.

Open questions, on the other hand, require more design and thought. They often need more than simple or single sentence responses, so they are the perfect means by which b2b lead generation professionals can get a potential buyer involved and talking. Understanding exactly how an open question can impact a conversation and benefit a call can help you and your team to get more from sales and marketing campaigns. If you’ve ever been in therapy, you have probably noticed that your therapist asks lots of open questions designed to get you to offload, and according to the top 5 health publisher Verywell, the principle of asking open-ended questions versus close-ended questions can be used by anyone trying to get a conversation going.

Developing knowledge

Since open questions can’t be answered with a yes or know, they are great ways to uncover information about a business, its needs, and what’s important to decision makers in that business at that time. By beginning a call with an open question, telemarketers enable two-way dialog that helps provide a valuable opportunity to find out where they may be able to meet the needs and requirements of the buyer. It can also help the telemarketer to begin to build rapport with the prospect and create a beneficial business relationship.

Develop interest

When you ask an open question, it shows that you’re interested in finding out more about the person you’re speaking to. Rather than just ticking facts off a list or rushing the conversation towards a sale, you’re taking the time to really get to grips with the specific needs of the company you’re connecting with. As well as helping your conversation to get off on the right foot, this can also help your telemarketing call to stand out from the crowd, and unlike the transactional nature of selling to consumers, the most successful organisations selling to business know that b2b lead generation is all about relationships.

If you need help and advice on b2b lead generation or improving the quality of your telemarketing calls, we can help. Contact a member of our team today to find out more.