Marketing Mirror

Telephone is use as an interactive medium for promoting response also known as teleselling. Telemarketing is a method of direct marketing in which a salesperson solicits to prospective customers to buy products or services, either over the phone or through a subsequent face to face or web conferencing appointment scheduled during the call.

Selling goods or services to customers by means of the telephone or of surveying consumer preferences in telephone conversations is other way of defining the telemarketing.

Telemarketing is a response vehicle, includes inquiries, receiving orders and donation pledges in response to print and broadcast advertising, catalogs, and direct-mail promotions, and also receiving customer inquiries and complaints. It also include recorded sales pitches programmed to be played over the phone via automatic dialing

To identify qualified leads, avoiding travel and other costs associated with personal sales calls, telemarketing is used heavily by business-to-business marketers. One telemarketing call can cost four times as much as a direct-mail piece but can generate as much as two to six times the response. The success of a telemarketing program is measured in terms of contacts made, attempts made, and conversions.

There are two kinds of telemarketing— outbound and inbound. Outbound telemarketing calls are those placed by salespeople to homes or businesses. Inbound telemarketing occurs when customers call in to businesses to place orders.

Outbound telemarketing is particularly appealing to businesses whose salespeople have traditionally made outside sales calls. It reduces the cost per contact, increases the number of contacts that can be made per day or week, and still retains the human element. Computerized databases of prospects and automated predictive dialers can further extend the potential number of contacts a telemarketer can make. Outbound calls can be used to canvass for new business, follow up former customers, and contact new leads.

Inbound telemarketing is also a very efficient marketing approach that also retains the element of personal interaction. Calls are generated by catalogues mailed to prospective customers or by radio, television, or print advertisements. These promotional pieces solicit customers to buy by calling a toll-free number. When customers call in, they may either reach a telemarketer directly or receive an electronic message that gives them the option to be connected to a salesperson. Since inbound callers have entered the buying process when they call in, a customer service orientation is more critical to the success of the telemarketer than sales training.