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IIP standard-setting for B2B Telemarketing Agencies

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IIP standard-setting for B2B Telemarketing Agencies

So who ever said they want to be in telemarketing when they grow up? Not many of us probably, it’s a tough gig, hard work and relentless. But if you need to be challenged, and you want to use your brain, if you enjoy the sheer diligence of speaking to decision makers with diverse business interests all day every day, there’s nothing to beat B2B telemarketing, provided you choose the right company. Therein lies the rub – how do you know? Whether its telemarketing or something entirely different, finding the right employer, that sets itself apart as a people business is not always easy.

Investors in People, or IIP, is a popular quality standard used for excellence across people management. It’s a recognised accreditation system, across 75 different countries that highlight organisations who embrace and champion high standards for the development of their most valuable assets, their people. Established over 28 years ago as a government project, IIP set out to help companies achieve differentiated service quality, something that’s especially valuable for industries like B2B telemarketing where competition is high. Now an independent not for profit organisation IIP has already helped thousands of companies raise their game to become more competitive in their respective markets.

From a people perspective, a key benefit of gaining IIP accreditation is that it helps to attract the best quality B2B telemarketing talent since most of us would choose to work in an organisation that cared about its people, enough to invest in systems, processes and feedback models designed around the needs of its workforce. Indeed, a company that takes pride in its people will deliver a sense of pride to its customers and market. For companies that have IIP accreditation, there are a number of different initiatives that bring together employees from different functions of the business, with the objective of making work more enjoyable and satisfying for staff. It’s also widely accepted that happy staff makes happy customers so not only does IIP build a cohesive and productive workforce, it helps create a business that customers want to be a part of too.

IIP standards

The Investors in People standard is based on three core areas: leading, supporting and improving. Each of these categories is then further divided into subsections, giving business leaders a clear framework on which to build. As companies work to incorporate the specific ideas and criteria of the IIP standard into their business practices, they will receive accreditation from the governing organisation. The highest level of accreditation is Platinum followed by Gold and then Silver.

Leading

The ‘leading’ element of the IIP standard is divided into three areas: leading and inspiring, living the organisation’s values and empowering and involving people. Where the organisation is in B2B telemarketing or something entirely different, incorporating these ideas into a company’s everyday operations will help the leadership to make the organisation’s objectives clear, inspire their workforce to deliver and create a culture of trust within the organisation.

Supporting

Creating a supportive environment is essential for businesses that want to get the best from their workforce. The IIP standard outlines three core areas that are key to achieving excellence in the area: managing performance, recognising and rewarding high performance and structuring work. When workers feel supported, they’re much more likely to commit to an organisation, come up with innovative ideas and work effectively with other members of their team.

Improving

As all successful business leaders will know, organisations that want to succeed and to grow need to be constantly looking for ways to improve. Within the IIP standard, improving is divided into building capability, delivering continuous improvement and creating sustainable success. Creating a culture in which constant improvement is expected and encouraged is essential for businesses that want to achieve their potential.

IIP standards and your workforce

The IIP standard gives organisations a clear and practical framework on which to build their management structure. Employing these standards, and working to reach the highest possible level of accreditation, can help companies of all sizes to boost morale, get the very best from their employees and build a workforce to be proud of.

To learn more about B2B telemarketing or getting the best from your team, or for more information on practical and effective management techniques, explore our site today.

Personality types and B2B telemarketing (are you bovvered though?)

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Personality types and B2B telemarketing

For many years pushy sales techniques were as popular in B2B telemarketing as they were in other areas of sales. The term ‘hunger’ was often used to describe unyielding and headstrong personality types that were deemed advantageous to sales success. These personalities were often ‘not bovvered’ about the negative consequences of hard-selling for those on the receiving end of their transactions, and chose instead to focus on the delivery of results. Extremely successful in its day, this notion of single-minded selling was used around the world for decades.

Fortunately, the modern sales landscape is changing and a new more caring approach has become mission-critical for sales professionals who expect to win career-long relationships and networks with the community of buyers they connect with. Indeed, buyers are now pickier about who they buy from, making an inextricable link between caring people and a reputable brand. What’s more, professional B2B telemarketing operations now have a low boiling-point for pushy salespeople. They know that short term selling can lead to long term reputational damage and pain. So yes, they are definitely bovvered, and no they are not likely to hire a personality that refuses to associate with the needs of others.

There is a lot of fascination around personality type and suitability for certain roles, and much has been said about introducing the right personality types to a sales team. According to psychometrics experts Personality Growth, there are 8 Jungian Cognitive Functions that make up Myers Briggs personalities, so where some people excel at being a salesperson, others hate the job based largely on personality type.

Problems with pushy ‘foot in the door’ selling

Pushy selling techniques where a salesperson persuades someone to accept a modest request (the foot in the door) before getting them to agree to a much larger one are still used. However, buyers see past such attempts now. Decision makers tend to respond poorly to these kinds of techniques as it implies there’s some deception going on. No one likes to feel like they’re having the wool pulled over their eyes. Using ‘foot in the door’ can also compel decision makers to buy products or services they don’t really need. This can damage the relationship between the salesperson and the prospect and can limit their future business interactions.

The ‘carer’ personality type

Instead of working a call to suit their objectives and goals, intelligent telemarketers are placing the prospect’s needs and requirements at the centre of the conversation. Rather than making the call solely about closing, B2B telemarketing involves talking to decision makers, finding out about their specific requirements and tailoring services accordingly. By genuinely caring about clients, and by listening to their queries and objections, sales professionals can build trust and lay the foundations for a productive business relationship.

Benefits of the ‘carer’ personality

In the long run, this approach can be far more beneficial than the pushier ‘foot in the door’ technique. By caring about prospects, working to meet the needs of a decision maker and listening to objections, queries and questions, salespeople can begin to build a trusting and productive business relationship. These types of relationships often last longer than those built on ‘foot in the door’ sales calls. This means that over time the prospect may become a more lucrative lifetime customer.

Using a caring personality in sales calls is often more beneficial to the telemarketers as well. Rather than forcing them to sell, sell, sell, it allows them the time and the space to properly connect with the prospect and to adjust their sales approach accordingly.

Revising tried and tested techniques, innovating on familiar methods and staying up to date with changing trends are vital in telemarketing. To find out more about modern approaches to telemarketing or for more advice on getting the most out of your telemarketing campaigns explore our site today.

Quality Management System ISO:9001 in B2B Lead Generation

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Quality Management System ISO9001 in B2B Lead Generation

B2B Lead generation has increasingly become more complex and specialist with influences such as GDPR and CTPS making successful telemarketing trickier than ever. Quality management systems (QMS) have always had a big role to play in defining the specialness of a business, but today more than ever, a good QMS can be the difference between success and stagnation, particularly in B2B lead generation where output can be so variable.

History of QMS

QMS first emerged at the time of the industrial revolution, when consumption habits changed and work typically went from simple subsistence methods to large organised factories and places of work. 19th century pioneers such as Frederick Winslow Taylor, best known for his remarkable innovations in the early manufacture of the Ford motor car, designed a system that took the production of the Model-T Ford from an artisan creation which took a matter of weeks per car, to the production of a vehicle in a matter of days. Essentially Taylor removed the variability of output, so there was a ‘best way’ to do everything, and then he modelled all the processes around this ‘one best way’ hence the birth of the production line and all modern manufacturing. Coined the father of scientific management Taylor emphasised standardisation of design, to ensure a consistently high quality product was produced in the most efficient and effective way to ensure satisfaction, and price was optimised.

ISO 9001

As they did then, todays managers working on creating and implementing quality management systems, need to look at their different functions and decide on the best way to create the desired output. ISO 9001 is probably the most popular QMS in the services sector but there are others such as Kaizen, which is typically used in manufacturing. ISO: 9001 is an internationally recognised quality management system, based on eight quality management principles. These principles cover all areas of management including customer focus, leadership, continual improvement, mutually beneficial supplier relationships, and fact-based decision making. By adhering to these principles, organisations can ensure they’re constantly improving and driving standards ever higher. Defining a QMS can also help business leaders to focus on their company as a whole and move the entire organisation forward.

For any business looking to achieve excellence, not just in their B2B lead generation, but across all their routines and processes, a sound QMS is possibly the only way to sustainable growth. According to experts if a company is looking to strengthen its processes, increase customer satisfaction and grow revenue, ISO certification is a sound investment because it’s the brand potential customers recognise and trust.

The very basis of developing a quality management system is that it offers a business the opportunity to define what exactly it is that differentiates it and model a cycle of continuous improvement around those attributes

Developing a detailed QMS approach gives business leaders the opportunity to think carefully about the different elements of their organisation and how these come together to form a successful unit. Although the same basic elements are applied in each QMS, the way they’re implemented in each individual organisation will be unique. For example, a business that relies heavily on skilled, highly trained employees will respond differently than a business that works in tandem with its suppliers.

The process of examining every aspect of a business, and the way the QMS is implemented following development, helps business leaders to define what exactly it is that makes them unique. Understanding this in more detail can help managers to get the best out of their business model, their employees, and their suppliers.

To learn more about getting the best out of your business and maximising your organisation’s potential, explore our site or give us a call and speak to one of the expert members of our team.

B2B lead generation language faux pas

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B2B lead generation language faux pas

Few things expose a person’s lack of experience or preparation more quickly than cheesy language or jargon. Clichéd, repetitive and often meaningless buzzwords and jargon are irritants to senior executives’ who would far rather speak to people that are authentic and genuinely interested in them. We all have our own selection of irritating euphemisms, idioms or buzzwords, so we thought we’d name and shame some of the worst offenders currently doing the office rounds in B2B lead generation circles.

Win-win Situation (Sorry Mr Covey)

Annoying ‘management speak’ is often deployed in B2B lead generation by those attempting to impress. The Plain English organisation are campaigners for clearer communication. They say that apart from the usual business jargon and gobbledygook, offices up and down the country, and indeed across the world, resound with corporate ‘management speak’, or ‘marketing speak’. Last year, a survey revealed that many staff who work for big corporate organisations find themselves using management speak as a way of disguising the fact that they haven’t done their job properly. Their favourite examples included ballpark figure, a win-win situation, and take it to the next level – pass the bucket!

Think outside the box

According to a recent survey by the Institute of Leadership and Management, 57% of executives find the phrase ‘thinking outside the box’ to be the most infuriating of them all. A fairly unconstructive way of telling people to come up with a new, unique idea, the phrase should have been ditched from the B2B lead generation dictionary years ago.

Going forward

The survey showed that the next most annoying phrase was ‘going forward’ with 53% of respondents ranking it as an irritant. Though it may seem fairly inoffensive at first, repetition has made the words two of the most hated a B2B lead generation professional can hear (or use).

Touch base

A favourite phrase of networkers and people trying to show a light touch in management, ‘touch base’ has been winding up senior executives for a few years now. It’s recently been joined by the even more unnecessary ‘touch base offline’ which is a roundabout way of asking someone to meet face to face.

Reach out

A lot of people in the B2B lead generation business seem to think the phrase ‘reach out’ is friendlier and less intimidating than ‘contact’, ‘get in touch’ or ‘call’. This has led to the phrase finding its way into countless marketing dictionaries. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before it finds its way out again.

Idea shower

You’ve heard of a brainstorm, well, now it’s time to have an ‘idea shower’. Some managers believe this is a less threatening way to ask for input from their team. The fact that it doesn’t offer us anything new hopefully means it won’t be around for long.

Let’s action that

Instead of saying, ‘let’s action that’ at the end of a meeting or discussion – why not just say, ‘that’s what we’ll do’?

Synergy

One of the most meaningless buzzwords out there at the moment: ‘synergy’ seems to have a huge number of meanings in the world of business. From ‘balance’ to ‘combination’ and ‘collaboration’ to ‘cooperation, the word is thrown into the mix whenever someone wants to sound like they know what they’re talking about.

Going forward, whenever you touch base or reach out to your customers, you’ll be able to action removing buzzwords and jargon from your sales pitch. This should help to create synergy and allow your idea shower to flow freely. Now that is a win win situation.

To find out other ways to improve your communication skills, explore our site, or contact a member of our team.

B2B sales nurturing

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B2B sales nurturing

B2B sales nurturing and relationship building is key to sustainable growth. Organisations that systematically invest in identifying, nurturing, and growing the right relationships with their potential buying universe can expect to be rewarded with increased brand awareness, improved market share, and long term survival against the competitive forces in their particular market.

Ask the right questions

Most of us know that while B2B sales nurturing is important, calling clients and potential clients is heavy on resources, whether it’s done in-house or outsourced to reliable partners like Blue Donkey. The demands of the job mean it takes highly skilled people, time, and excellent infrastructure. It’s a sad fact then that so many organisations haemorrhage resources by taking the trouble to call the decision makers on their database but neglect to ask the burning questions. Instead, they share a few moments of friendly dialog about the product or service, ask a few rudimentary questions about the business, but completely fail to reach the nub of the matter. If nurturing the sale means asking about timing, we need to ask the question ‘when will you be making a decision’, if cost is a consideration, we need to ask ‘what is your budget’, and where we are concerned about the competition, asking the question ‘how close are we to winning this order’. Only by being brave and confident enough to ask the right questions can we adapt to meet the needs of, and win the custom of a potential new client.

First impressions last

It may sound obvious to some, but the basis of many strong business relationships is a good first impression. The initial contact between a company and a prospect should be friendly, professional and mutually beneficial. Like other areas of life, B2B sales nurturing needs to take in the fact that first impressions last. This will help the prospective client trust the business, value the communication, and it will make them more inclined to work with the business in the future.

According to start-up advisers First Business, the phrase: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression” is one that you will hear frequently in the business world; if you want your venture to succeed, it is essential that you take the time to get it right in the first instant. After all, a bad impression can seldom be remedied. A business runs on personal communication as much as it does on money, and if you want to be successful, it is vital that those who have cause to connect with you receive the very best impression from the outset.

Inform

In most cases, prospects will want to know more about a business, their people, and their products or services before wanting to work with them. After the initial contact, telemarketers and their marketing colleagues will need to work together and drip-feed information about the business to keep themselves front of mind.  Speaking to their prospects regularly means your sales team can answer questions and deal with objections as they occur. This conversation is an important part of growing a business relationship in the B2B sales nurturing process as it offers telemarketers the opportunity to demonstrate they understand the needs and requirements of their potential buyer. This stage also provides telemarketers with the chance to learn more about their customer base, something that can be invaluable when it comes to tailoring products and services and developing new lines.

Communication

Once a prospect has turned into a client and has begun buying from a business, it’s up to that business to ensure they’re meeting their clients’ needs. The most effective way to do this is to develop clear and convenient lines of communication. If clients know that they can contact a business with a query and that the business will be friendly and informative, it will aid in growing the relationship and building trust. Not only does maintaining communication help clients to trust suppliers, it also helps businesses to create personal relationships and be more than just an email address or a logo. After all, happy clients who enjoy good relationships with an organisation will become advocates, and far more likely to recommend the business to their peer group and friends.

Effective B2B sales nurturing in the form of telemarketing campaigns can be used to maintain communication with customers and keep brand awareness high. Every telemarketing call should be seen as an opportunity to nurture the relationship between a business and its customers. This will help buyers to feel invested in the brand and valued by their supplier.

Find out more about developing long lasting business relationships by exploring our site or talking to a member of our expert team.

Lifetime value in B2B sales and marketing

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Lifetime value in B2B sales and marketing

How do we know whether a particular B2B sales and marketing activity is worth doing? Some managers will judge based on sales metrics following a campaign, others on how many new clients or customers were added to the pipeline. These barometers are often based on short-term impacts, such as, did the company hit targets following a telemarketing campaign, or which group of customers responded to certain key messaging. While these statistics are important, they don’t always paint an accurate picture of whether something in marketing is worthwhile.

To get a clearer understanding of the value customers bring to a company, and to improve customer loyalty, B2B professionals will need to look at the lifetime value created by customers that choose the business over their competition as a result of a particular B2B sales and marketing activity. The Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) metric is usually defined as the revenue that a business will generate from each particular customer over the length of their relationship with the company, considering the cost of acquisition and retaining that customer.

Why is it important to calculate the LTV of a customer?

Calculating the lifetime value of a customer (or LTV) gives us some unique insights about the average value generated for the business by a certain customer over the course of time. Not only does this create a picture of what satisfies certain customers, it also helps with decisions about how much it’s worth investing to ‘win’ and manage customer relationships.  This can help inform marketing campaigns in relation to target segments, choice and cost of channel, and customer profiling, especially when it comes to high-value sales, and long service commitments.

LTV calculation

The formula to calculate the LTV of a customer will vary depending on the business and the products and services they offer. Often, marketers use a formula like this:

(Average Value of a Sale) X (Number of Repeat Transactions) X (Average Retention Time in Months or Years for a Typical Customer).

According to growth experts Business.com the LTV metric can also be split into actual and potential to illustrate possible growth dynamics of a relationship. As it is about predicting future earnings, it belongs to predictive analytics that forecasts the future value of any particular customer relationship. By definition, LTV can’t be a constant, hard number, and different businesses are likely to adopt different variables for its calculation. Hence companies need to analyse their own customer base in order to create calculations that provide insights about their customer spending patterns.

What to do with LTV calculations

A good reason for calculating LTV is that it offers marketers guidance about where and how much to invest in different areas of their B2B marketing. Often, high ticket sales involve a significant investment, so a company will need to be confident that winning key clients is worth the investment required. Analysing LTV allows marketers to more carefully guide budgets and helps them invest in the areas that bring the biggest results. For example, the cost per lead may be higher using a certain type of high-quality marketing. However, if it brings in several high-ticket sales and long service commitments, the investment will be well worth it over time.

Improving LTV for B2B marketing

There are a number of ways to improve the LTV of the average customer. Targeting companies that are similar in type or size to their biggest customers will certainly help. Alternatively, marketers can increase customer spend using devices like volume agreements or customised offerings, or they can simply work to secure larger numbers of high-value B2B customers by doing more to penetrate their markets systematically. All of these techniques require excellent customer service and communication as well as a comprehensive marketing strategy.

To find out more about improving customer communication and boosting business, explore our site or contact a member of our team.

Telemarketing selections

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Telemarketing selections

Identifying the best companies and buyers to target your message to is one of the toughest gigs in telemarketing. At Blue Donkey we’re a little intimidated by projects where clients say, “we can sell to anyone”. In such circumstances, our sage advice is always: let’s find the ones who will spend more, will be happiest, or that you can convert in the quickest time possible!

Which one’s your favourite favourite?

Even a talented and passionate sales team won’t have much success with a telemarketing or lead generation campaign if they’re targeting everyone, or simply the wrong group of prospects. You need to ensure you’ve done enough market research. It’s important to have clear goals and reasoning about which selection suits you. If your criteria is simply too vague, you may not have a clear enough idea about who your customer is, what they want, and what you have to do to survive competition in your market. In such circumstances, your telemarketing campaign may not achieve its full potential. Yes, you may get sales, but they will cost more and take longer than they might otherwise.

Choose the right potential client selection on the other hand, and your campaign should see real results. Every call your team dials will secure a greater chance of growing your sales pipeline, and they’ll be more likely to connect with companies and individuals who have a genuine interest and want to talk about what you’re offering. Additionally, the companies you target will be appropriate buyers who are able to make the required investment.

Marketing Strategy

Identifying and selecting the right customer segments to target, is core to a good marketing strategy. In turn, if you know exactly what you want to achieve from your telemarketing campaign because it’s consistent with your company’s marketing strategy, it will be easier for you to decide exactly which demographic or segment is most relevant for your call list. Decide if you’re trying to raise brand awareness, create lead generation, or develop existing relationships; think about the needs of the businesses you’re contacting and make sure everyone on your team knows exactly what your goals are and what metrics will be required to reach them. According to Cranfield University, a clear marketing strategy focuses on the customer. Unlike a business plan, it will help you to clarify who you should sell to, what you should sell them, and why they should buy from you rather than a competitor.

Database

Your database should be reliable and complete with the information needed to make a value judgement and set targets around potential conversion rates. If your database has been carefully put together and your sales team has taken the time to keep adding or appending up to date information, it should be infinitely possible to build a target call list using relevant selection criteria. As the database will form the foundation of your telemarketing campaign, ensuring the information you’re using is up to date, well put together and correct is essential. If you don’t think your database is up to scratch, it’s well worth investing time and resources in bringing it up to date. To make the best use of your database, we can help you to refine it and make it work for you.

If you’d like to find out more about choosing the right customer selections, or if you want to know more about market research, we can help. Give us a call today, to speak to one of the expert members of our team – or take a look around our site.

Meeting needs in B2B lead generation

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Meeting needs in B2B lead generation

It probably goes without saying that buyers are important to every company. Understanding and meeting their needs is, therefore, one of the most important aspects of sustainable business, especially now when most markets will have some level of saturation. Only those organisations that can get to the heart of what their customers want, will survive the often aggressive market forces trying to steal their revenues away. In turn, by continually working to improve buyer experience and meet customer needs, companies can grow their market share and ensure their customer base is as loyal as possible. To help organisations get the most from customer relationships, we’re sharing our most important insights on meeting buyer needs.

Communication

One thing that’s crucial to meeting buyers’ needs is good communication. Buyers want to know that they can speak to someone directly when they’re buying, or when they have queries. What’s more, good communication will help to develop your relationship with your customers – give them a good impression of your company and help give your business a personality.

To ensure your company is able to communicate efficiently, your inbound call handling needs to be just as good as your outbound telemarketing. No matter if you’re getting 5 or 1,000 calls – your team needs to be able to answer them all consistently, but treat each call individually. For example, calls should always be answered within 3 rings, customers should be asked what they would like (as opposed to being told what will happen) and companies should be prepared to flex around an individual’s needs. If your company doesn’t have the resources to handle the volume of calls you receive, it may be worth investing in a third party company to manage your inbound communications or simply take overflow calls, but do insure your brand is communicated to the same high standard.

Expertise

When buyers have a query or a complaint, they want to know that the information they receive is accurate and reliable. The better trained your staff are and the more familiar they are with the service you offer, the more likely it is they’ll be able to offer customers the information they need. If you don’t feel like your team is currently able to offer the standard of service you’d like, it’s well worth investing in extra training to bring them up to standard.

Happy makes happy

Many workplace experts and academics have found an important link between the notion of External customer satisfaction and Internal customer satisfaction. They maintain that where Internal customers (they mean your staff) are happy and engaged, External customers will be better served and therefore happy. According to analysts Emerald Insight “In the Eighties, U.S. business learned important new skills for identifying and satisfying external customers. Inevitably, this experience led to a recognition that the needs of internal work processes and internal customers were critical to external service delivery.”

Know your buyers

The better you know your buyers, the more able you’ll be to meet their needs and offer them the service they really want. As far as it’s possible to do so, try to familiarise yourself with their buying process, their business requirements and their industries. If you have the time and the resources, talk to your existing customers about how you can improve your service and how you can make their lives easier. Commissioning Market Research by professional researchers like Blue Donkey will provide you with a detailed analysis of what your clients or customers consider your strengths and weaknesses, and their unique experiences of your brand.  By making your company as customer-focused as possible, you can help to make your company one of the most attractive and approachable around.

To learn more about Market Research, or improving your communications, contact a member of the Blue Donkey team today.

The good B2B telemarketing database

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The good B2B telemarketing database

The database sits at the heart of any successful B2B telemarketing campaign, not to mention the general mission-critical role the company database plays in generating new business and developing existing relationships. A well-managed and maintained database can deliver impressive growth outcomes and a community of happy, satisfied clients and advocates.

In order to get the most from the B2B telemarketing database, organisations need a carefully managed set of disciplines to ensure the unique potential of each database or record is fully exploited. The team at Blue Donkey has clocked up an impressive 22 year experience of working with databases. From identifying the best target decision makers to understanding what messages resonate with whom, we’re able to use our skills to refine a database and ensure we get the most out of it. Keep reading to find out more.

What’s a database?

According to tech specialists Lifewire “on the surface, a database might seem much like a spreadsheet; it has data arranged in columns and rows. But that is where the similarity ends because a database is far more powerful.”

In B2B telemarketing, the database is the comprehensive store of information you hold about potential and existing clients. Usually this will contain basic details such as company names, job titles, address details and telephone numbers for each business – as well as the name of a relevant contact. Ideally, the database should also include information on industry and any relevant areas each business is involved with. If companies have purchased products or services from the business in the past, this information should also be contained in the database.

Data should be gathered, added and appended as part of the normal cycle of marketing activities. Therefore, when a particular company contact is spoken with, pertinent details of that dialog should be gleaned and added to the database record to form a growing body of reliable insight about the decision maker, the business and their needs and preferences. Some database providers can offer you a ready-made list, or like most companies you can put your own database together by compiling information on prospects, and mining insight that’s specifically relevant to your sales operation.

Categorisation and targeting

A key part of using a database effectively is knowing how to categorise its contents and what headings should be managed. So an insurance broker, for example, may want to gather information on risk profile, or the number of sites, as well as existing insurer and policies held by a potential client. Headings and fields can be built into a database to contain this information, and provide a method of quickly searching and selecting the records for targeting. Where companies know there are key sectors that can benefit from their products or services, the database offers the opportunity to group and select based on these factors. This allows for certain messaging to be targeted at the clients and prospective clients that will find them the most attractive and who will be more interested in what they have to say. By focusing on targets that have the greatest propensity to produce results, you can minimise the time and money you spend on your campaign while maximising on results.

Defined criteria

When planning your telemarketing campaign, it’s essential you have a clear idea of what you hope to achieve. If you know exactly what you want from each call, it will help you to create defined criteria. You can then use these criteria to help refine your list and make your telemarketing campaign more effective.

Names, data, insight

Adding a little more information to your database can reap big rewards. Where records don’t already hold a contact name, taking the time to find out the name of a key decision maker, any other relevant stakeholders or key influencers, or simply checking the information held is still relevant and correct can make the difference between getting past the gatekeeper and getting knocked back at the first hurdle. Use the phonetic alphabet to ensure accuracy especially with the spelling of people’s names and avoid assumptions about the spelling of names like Steven and Stephen or Iain and Ian.

Make every dial count

In telemarketing, we spend a lot of wasted dials trying to get through to the right people, this time can be effectively used to check address and postcode information. Get the company’s website up as you’re dialling, check if there is an item of information that can be qualified with the person answering the call, and added to the database. This could include important details that might not otherwise have emerged in your discussions, such as the number of sites. Making the best of every dial will help build your database into a powerful body of information that can support company growth for years to come.

By building a comprehensive database, and learning how to use it, you can ensure your telemarketing campaigns are as productive and successful as possible. To find out more, contact a member of our expert team.

 

Growth strategies in B2B marketing

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Growth strategies in B2B marketing

A growth strategy is a set of principles companies use to increase their market share. A good growth strategy not only gives a company direction, it helps focus employees so that everyone in the business is united around the same goals.

Creating a coordinated and fitting growth strategy is, therefore, an important part of business. So what options are there and what do different strategies tell us about businesses and their goals?

Different growth strategies

Broadly speaking in B2B marketing, strategies for growth fall into two main types, Inorganic growth which usually involves partnering with another organisation to ‘get bigger’. Or Organic growth where companies work to increase market share by selling more. According to the business website Study, companies will invariably select from 4 strategic approaches in B2B marketing to grow their sales.

  1. Market penetration is increasing sales of current products or services to existing markets
  2. Market development is increasing sales into new markets using current products or services
  3. Product development is increasing sales by adding new products or services
  4. Diversification is entering new markets with new products or services

The Telegraph states that today, 60 percent of start-ups fail within 3 years and 20 percent fail within just 12 months. Of course, there are many factors that impact the viability of a new business, not least market forces, but one of the things that can make or break a new venture is choosing and expediting the right growth strategy.

What a growth strategy tells us

The path a company chooses will depend on the type of growth they want to achieve and this can tell us a lot about their long term goals and ambitions. For example, a business that wants to appeal to a broad swathe of customers may opt to diversify its product line, increasing the variety of services offered so they have something for everyone. Alternatively, a company that wants to earn itself a reputation as a specialist within its industry may focus on product development in the hope that they’ll create products that offer the consumer something different.

The growth strategy a company chooses tells both its customers and its rivals the direction in which it intends to go. Analysing the different directions that competitors have taken should give business owners an idea of their long term goals and could also inform a business’s own growth strategy.

How to develop a growth strategy

Almost all growth strategies rely on customer interaction and market research in one form or another. In order to develop new products, move into new areas and boost brand awareness, businesses need to understand their market base, communicate with their customers and listen to feedback.

The most effective way to carry out this research, and keep lines of communication open, is to invest in a telemarketing campaign. A fast and reliable way of gathering important information and boosting brand awareness, telemarketing can help you to achieve your long term growth goals.

To learn more about growth strategies, or to find out how telemarketing can help your business to achieve its goals, contact a member of our team today.