A few years ago, digital marketing was lauded as the strategy to end all other B2B lead generation efforts. Many marketers believed that email newsletters, social media and other digital marketing efforts would eliminate the need for traditional lead generation. As the strengths and weaknesses of digital marketing were discovered, it became clear that marketing will likely never transition to being completely digital.
A recent article in Business 2 Community addressed this tension between digital and traditional marketing, noting that the best solution is a combination approach. Social media and email are ideal partners for traditional marketing methods, such as live events or telemarketing.
As companies settle into using digital methods, in many cases they’re finding that the pairing of digital and traditional methods make the most sense for B2B lead generation. Here are a few reasons why it makes sense to include traditional methods, and particularly telemarketing, in your strategy:
It’s budget friendly. Using telemarketing takes the pressure off your field reps, allowing you only to hire field sales when it’s necessary, and saving your traveling team for when it’s time for an in-person consultation or to close a contract. Telemarketing is superior to social media communications, where you may be forced for comments to post and you have to analyze the behaviors or someone that clicked on your email newsletter. With telemarketing, you receive immediate feedback during the conversation.
You can respond immediately. Telemarketing makes it possible for you to answer questions as they’re being asked. When using digital marketing methods, you may receive a question through the comments, but without any context for that question. While telemarketing allows the question to happen within the natural flow of conversation, social media forces you to answer a question you’re not sure you understand, and your conversation is happening in the public eye.
If you have a strong focus on customer service, telemarketing helps you receive feedback from your customers and address any concerns right away. You can follow up on a customer’s experience on the same day as delivery and if something has gone awry, you can remedy the situation before they post a public complaint on your social media page.
You’ll have a finger on the pulse of your leads. When you use telemarketing, you’ll have a better sense of when a potential customer is ready to convert and it’s time to send in a sales rep. Paired with your sales teams’ pipeline reports, you’ll have a better idea of new business potential.
If your company is focusing on inbound sales, you’ll find that including telemarketing in your strategy provides the opportunity for a highly personalized experience for your leads. You’ll know more details about their purchasing process and what’s important to them through personal conversations.
You can easily scale up or down. While it’s pretty tricky to hire someone to handle your digital marketing on an hourly basis, it’s easy to tailor your telemarketing to your exact requirements. You can use telemarketing campaigns as a way to boost your other marketing strategies.
It easily transfers for B2C sales. If you’re typically focused on B2B, but a few of your products are also marketed directly to the consumer, you’ll find that telemarketing is an effective tool for connecting with those customers as well. B2C sales requires different techniques, but the tools of telemarketing stretch across both types of sales.
Are you putting together your B2B lead generation strategy? At Protel BPO, we tailor our services to your exact requirements, so no matter how you’re planning to use digital and traditional marketing to generate leads, we can serve you! Contact us today to learn more.