Over the last decade, we have started to see a shift from the “shotgun” telemarketing of the past, wherein skilled professionals and expensive telemarketers engaged with customers initially using open-ended conversations. This approach is effective provided the salesperson is talking to a fully qualified prospect. If not, it can be a huge waste of time of money. In today’s economy, this approach is not affordable and often yields low results compared to the expense.

This approach is also not very effective for the earlier stages of a sales cycle, or more correctly stated, the customer’s Buying Cycle (from SPIN-Selling). This customer-centric view suggests that “push” model messaging (that drives most telemarketing scripts), is not conducive to the Recognitions of Needs phase. If your optimal prospects are in this phase, versus later phases where they have already defined their specifications (Evaluation of Options phase), or are nearing a purchase decision (Resolution of Concerns phase), then a more effective and economical approach may be as follows:

First, clearly define your target profile. Everyone talks about this, but we rarely see clients take a sales-aligned approach that outlines prospect personas right down to their color of toothbrush. Also, one that specifies situational attributes, problems & implications in the form of questions, and need/payoff solutions related to those questions. Personas should be created for the three primary account roles typically seen in most firms. From here we can create survey questions that fully qualify prospects. Telemarketing and email campaigns can be designed that ask prospects these questions, using an approach that gains high interest and lots of responses. Low-cost telemarketers can be employed here vs. high-cost salespersons. We’re not trying to close a sale at this stage, only qualify and set appointments.

We can now better sort our lists based on tight profiles, rifle shot lower cost telemarketers to qualify and set appointments, and then bring in the big guns. Once appointments are set, more senior-level conversational salespersons (not telemarketers) can engage with qualified prospects to move them to the next step in the Buying Cycle. The advantages are that our marketing costs actually go down and our close ratios go up. Also, we can better “score” our leads, thereby allowing us to effectively measure our marketing campaigns and prioritize our lead lists.

CSO Insights did a survey a few years back and found that while marketing pros think 70% of their leads are good to excellent, sales pros believe that only 1.3% of leads are “world class.” The reason for the disconnect is because all too often expensive and highly-trained salespersons are given cold call lists and asked to become junior telemarketers. Or, their firm has outsourced telemarketing but the leads are not very qualified.

In summary, a demand generation campaign should never be thought of as a tactical program measured by quantity. Instead, these campaigns should become part of an overall strategy that includes sales-aligned messaging, demand creation and lead nurturing measured by quality. We often work with clients and telemarketing firms to do just that using a unique new program called Vector, but there are many ways to accomplish this objective. The proof, of course, is in the results. For our clients, which include many name-brand blue chip firms, we’ve seen response rates go from 1.5% to 3.5%. Fields salespersons and leading resellers/distributors have doubled or tripled pipelines along with enthusiasm and offer praise for the marketing teams. Sales cycles have been cut in half and the amount per sale has gone up.

If these are the kind of results we’d like to see, then perhaps doing things the same old way and expecting different results is not our best course of action. If you agree, we encourage you to learn more about our exciting new Vector program that is driving revenue acceleration for many of our clients.