Learn how you can benefit from a new breed of TMs...
By Elias Ek

The typical telemarketing firm charges millions of dollars for massive numbers of calls. Large corporations like banks, phone companies and publishers use telemarketing as on of their ways to sell credit cards, mortages, long distance phone service and magazine subscriptions. The most common products are consumer commodities, products that have relatively little product differentiation and needs little explanation.

Smaller companies with smaller budgets, more narrow target markets or more complicated products have traditionally not been preferred customers at these large telemarketing firms. The call volume that smaller companies need is simply too small for the telemarketing firms to handle economically since their automatic dialers and massive call centers are dimensioned for large call volumes.

But telemarketing can still be a very valid marketing technique. A new breed of telemarketing firm that cater more to the SOHO/SME market is coming. They can handle call volumes down to a few hundred calls per month.

How to use telemarketing provider
Telemarketing can be used in a number of ways. The most obvious one is to sell products or services directly on the phone. But people have a strong protective instinct against buying something from a telemarketer. It is therefore more efficient to use the telemarketer to pre-sell and provide information. Then you can choose if you want the telemarketer to follow up or have in-house sales people to do that.

Since it is hard for a telemarketer to make a sale over the phone it might be a good idea to ask for something else then a buy; you can invite prospects to an information session or set up an appointment for free consulting etc. The guard is lower and you have more of a chance to the chance to introduce your products.

The next purpose of telemarketers is to simply inform them of changes to your products or services or upcoming events etc. And of course there's the other side of that, collecting information or surveying.

Should you outsource or hire?
The natural question is if you should outsource the calling or simply hire an employee to be your in-house telemarketer. Like with all other outsourcing decisions it comes to an issue of core competencies. Telemarketing is a professional skill just like Public Relations, manufacturing, pizza making etc. It takes time, effort and skill to build up the competence needed to see a significant ROI on the money spent.

If your business is not to be a telemarketing firm, you probably should outsource. If your management do not have extensive experience in telemarketing, you probably should outsource.

A special situation is if you plan to make telemarketing the a pillar of your marketing/sales strategy. Then it might be economical to establish a full telemarketing department and hire an experienced telemarketing manager. But hiring experienced people is very hard and even harder to retain in this industry . And keep in mind that even the largest telemarketing users are outsourcing this function.

Where to find lists
There are several companies in Taiwan that sell lists of people and companies. The better they are, the more specific you can make your search. Your telemarketing firm should be able to advice you on how to get the best list for the task.

How to choose your telemarketing provider
In a nutshell you should look for a company that can advice you on how to best achieve your goal. Since you probably don't need them to call thousands of calls per month, you are looking for a company that are flexible enough to take on smaller jobs and do them well.

This means that the Payment Model is important. Most larger companies will quote you by the person. This means that you are paying them X dollars for having one or more full-time person calling on your behalf. There are no guarantees for how many calls they will make or what kind of results you will get. With a smaller company you can often get a better deal where you are paying for a specific number of calls and get a guarantee for how many decision makers they will reach. This means that you will not be charged for reaching a lot of gate keepers that can't sign a purchase order even if they wanted to.

Expect to pay a set-up fee. It takes time and effort to ensure that your script is good and that the telemarketers have the training and the resources they need to handle your tasks well. This means that a professional telemarketing company will have to charge you a reasonable set-up fee.

Your telemarketing script is incredibly important and one of those areas where the TM companies can really differentiate themselves. You want to look for companies that can demonstrate strong script writing abilities. But they should also be willing to adapt and improve on the script as the results from the calling becomes apparant.

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