An inbox full of emails, a steady stream of LinkedIn messages, a barrage of targeted online advertising…it’s easy to assume that the telephone has had its day. It hasn’t.
In our experience, telesales remains one of the most effective ways to create genuine conversations with potential customers, particularly when the aim isn’t to make an immediate sale, but to open the door to a new relationship. The challenge is finding the time and resource to do it consistently.
More than making cold calls
Good telesales isn’t about working through a list of numbers and delivering a scripted sales pitch. It’s about identifying the right people, understanding why they might be relevant to your business and having a conversation that gives both sides a reason to continue talking.
Telesales doesn’t have to start with a cold call. In fact, we often see the best results when telephone follow-up is built into a wider marketing campaign. An email can introduce your business, share a useful insight or put an offer in front of a prospect. But what happens next? Too often, nothing.
A prospect may have opened the email, clicked a link or even read it several times, but that doesn’t mean they are going to pick up the phone themselves. A well-timed follow-up call gives you the opportunity to turn that initial engagement into a conversation.
Email creates awareness. The phone creates the conversation.
That combination can be far more powerful than relying on either approach alone.
Filling the pipeline takes consistency
One of the biggest challenges for small and growing businesses is keeping business development moving while also looking after existing customers.
When things get busy, prospecting is often one of the first activities to slip. The problem is that the impact isn’t always immediate. Stop creating new opportunities today and you may not notice the effect on your pipeline for weeks or months. That’s where outsourced telesales can make a real difference.
At OCTOPUS Marketing, we can provide the resource and consistency needed to keep your business development activity moving. We research and identify relevant prospects, make the calls and have conversations on your behalf, with the objective of creating opportunities for your sales team to take forward.
Turning marketing activity into sales opportunities
The most effective business development strategies rarely rely on one channel. Email, content, social media and telephone activity all have a role to play, but the real value comes when they work together.
A targeted email campaign might put your business in front of the right people. Telephone follow-up can then provide the human connection needed to move those prospects from awareness to action.
Telesales isn’t about replacing your sales team; it’s about giving them more of the right conversations to have. Because sometimes, the most valuable thing your marketing can do is give you a reason to pick up the phone.
If your pipeline could benefit from more opportunities, call us on 01483 345417 or if you’d like to request we call you, send an email to hello@octopus-marketing.co.uk.
(Image by Magnific)
