Top 10 Mistakes To Avoid To Improve Your ROI On Telemarketing Campaigns

By Mike Wallen, CEO, Lead Dogs

Today, B2B sales lead development is often conducted by phone and, unfortunately, a great deal of it is poorly done. When speaking with marketing and sales professionals, they often complain about their previous lack of telemarketing results, and share how they were disappointed in the low ROI. Want to know why ROI is low? Because too many companies are making the following errors:

1. Using the telephone as a spray and pray device.
Yes, the telephone can be a great tool to reach many people, but it only adds value when used effectively. Often times, companies use telemarketing as a mass marketing medium and make "one size fits all" calls to large lists of people. Instead, the ideal approach is to differentiate your call from the masses and ensure every call has a purpose and is part of a systematic sales process when being made.

2. Working with bad lists.
Too many wrong numbers, outdated contact info or poor quality leads are just some of the indicators your list is bad. This is especially common when list purchase decisions are made based on price per name, very simple demographics info, the speed in which it’s needed, etc. Instead, it is much more effective to approach list selection as a critical component of your lead development effort. Invest the time to find higher quality lists, such as those that are targeted around event or organization affiliations. After all, the better the quality of the list you start with, the more likely it is you can uncover qualified opportunities for your company. The ideal sanity check: do your existing customers show up on lists you acquire?

3. Not assuming lists will be bad.
In an ideal world we would always strive to tee-up lists for reps that are inclusive only of contacts that are not only still employed, but also the right contact – but it’s simply not reality. Expect and plan for the worst. We are seeing invalid rates (‘no longer with company’ being the primary contributor) steadily increase as the workforce turnover and consolidation of roles increases. In addition, we’ve always found that lists, to be good, need simply to be directionally accurate in that we are within a degree of separation from the ‘ideal contact’. Referral and replacement contacts are entering our queues at a rate of 12-14%, roughly double 6 months ago. From those, we are seeing results 3-4 times what is seen from contacts supplied on lists.

4. Measuring the wrong metrics.
Common telemarketing metrics, such as "number of dials per day" or "talk time minutes" were derived from B2C boiler room practices. For companies that focus on those type numbers, the results speak for themselves: conversations that go nowhere, low ROI, and high call rep turnover. Instead, companies should focus on quality oriented metrics like measuring average conversation length and depth, how many phone calls resulted in speaking with real decision makers, how many conversations resulted in moving a prospect to the next step in the sales pipeline, like scheduling a demo or a meeting, and advancing measurements.

5. Measuring the effectiveness of the postal service.
Often times, a telemarketing script will include, "I'm just following up to make sure you got our mailing?" Now why would that be compelling to the already busy person on the other end of the line and how is that going to help you? Most likely, they aren’t going to remember your mailing, and all you're really doing is measuring the effectiveness of the postal service. Instead, when you call, your purpose shouldn’t be “to confirm receipt,” it should be a more succinct and compelling message geared to the recipient.

6. Not doing homework before making calls.
I can't stress this enough, but if you're calling B2B decision makers, you have to be prepared. Instead of a telemarketer doing a zombie like recital of a canned call script, you must research the industry and the company to know your target's pain points and speak their language. Additionally, tailoring the messaging to the pains of a specific goal will help ensure early traction in the dialog. If you want to increase marketing ROI, you simply cannot begin a call by mispronouncing the person's name and then barge right into a sales pitch. Instead, you need to have a strategy in place to compel the prospect to have a dialog with you and quickly establish a rapport with them.

7. Trying to sell on the first call.
If you're selling complex, high-end products with long sales cycles, it is a complete waste of time to try and sell someone on the first call. So don’t even try to say “Hey I have this great widget, it is only X Million and how many do you want?” This type of polling approach will net dismal results – especially in this economy. If it wouldn’t work with you, don’t do it. Instead, it would be much more effective to have the objective be around starting a longer term relationship with the individual. An example: "Good morning Mr. CTO. I just read an article about your (initiative) in the WSJ.com and believe we may have a good fit between your initiative and our (product or service). Did I catch you at a bad time?"

8. Focusing on appointment setting with unqualified prospects.
Given the current economy, I’ve seen a big emphasis on “setting as many appointments as possible” for sales professionals. The challenge becomes wasting the salesperson’s time as often the person they meet with wasn’t truly qualified, or when the salesperson shows up the individual has no idea of the purpose of the visit. Instead, it is much wiser to focus telemarketing efforts on uncovering qualified and sales-ready opportunities.

9. Sending materials that weren’t requested or not sending them at all.
Sometimes people send materials that weren't requested in the initial dialogue in order to "push" a sale. Don't do it. People won’t respect that behavior and most likely won’t read it. Also, don't assume prospects are asking for information just to get you off the phone, and hence you don't send anything. Instead, send promised fulfillment within 24 hours with a note on the outside envelope or email subject line: "The material we discussed is inside [or attached]." People often ask for information to be sent because they want to look it over at their convenience, and giving them this information promptly is a good first step towards building a relationship with them. Treat it as homework by agreeing to a time in advance to hear their reaction of what they will review.

10. Not having a systematic sales approach that moves prospects through the buying cycle.
In B2B lead development, each conversation has to build on prior conversations in order to move a prospect along the sales cycle. Moving telemarketing call reps from one account to another or failing to keep track of conversations in a CRM system all lead to poor conversations. Instead, you should ensure all communications are documented so a sales rep can review the history of an account before reaching out to them again.

Mike Wallen is CEO of The Lead Dogs, a lead development and sales outsourcing company working with today’s top business to business sales and marketing professionals to drive revenue by finding, developing and closing complex B2B sales deals. He can be reached at 512.990.2000.

Adding Revenue Contribution To ROI Measures Connects Marketing to Real Dollars

By Chris Frank, Director of Marketing, TreeHouse Interactive

There’s an old saying about marketing: “Marketing is the last in and first out.” What this means is that marketing is often the last team brought on at a company and the first to leave. It’s a scary thought in this economy. Maybe that’s why several conferences I’ve attended over the past year talk to the growing executive mantra of “accountability” when it comes to marketing and the need to show return on investment (ROI).

How do you measure your revenue contribution though? Fortune 500 marketing VPs often tout the success of multi-channel campaigns that have microsite, nurturing, and layered campaign elements. They recount measurable success that resulted in X more dollars to the company. Complex campaigns with real ROI metrics behind them. What they fail to mention, more often than not though, is the massive marketing team they have behind it—pulling it off.

Using technology to prove hard-dollar ROI to your executive team is essential, regardless of whether you sell B2B, through partners, or online. Without it you’re left helpless to address the trickle-down “accountability” mantra, secure more marketing funds, or focus your efforts against larger competitor marketing. Demand generation solutions can level the playing field in this respect. What you quickly move from is not just the ability to acquire leads like you can with any email service provider (ESP) solution, but the ability to qualify and distribute leads intelligently for your sales team—collecting hard ROI data as it moves from opportunity to close.

If this demand generation concept makes sense to you, then let’s add the following ROI metrics that you should be able to report on to the mix:

* Hard dollars for business closed as a result of your campaigns
* (B2B, partner, and online sales models)
* Hard dollars still in the pipeline as a result of your campaigns
* Total cost per click for your email campaigns (primarily online sales models)
* Total revenue per click for your email campaigns (primarily online sales models)
* Collected hard dollar results for multi-channel campaigns

There is a paradigm shift in how marketing teams are measured. Now there needs to be a shift in what marketing teams are able to deliver. By being able to measure what your exact results are—in dollars—for campaigns, you can demonstrate your team’s value to executives and more competently make decisions about future marketing projects. You can also secure the budget necessary to execute on these projects.

While the concept of going beyond simple email marketing to demand generation may be apparent, but hard to implement for some, the importance of doing it right to get at real ROI is even more important. Otherwise, you’re left with the same fuzzy value marketing often claims they contribute to a company’s bottom line.



Chris Frank is the Director of Marketing at TreeHouse Interactive, a provider of SaaS solutions for partner relationship management (PRM), sales force automation (SFA), and demand generation. Mr. Frank has also served in a variety of director and consultant roles over the years. Specialties include everything from demand generation and PRM to eCommerce.

Sales 2.0 Author Urges Rethinking Of Sales, Marketing Strategies

Anneke Seeley has never been shy when the topic is sales. Back in the 1980’s she was employee number 12 at Oracle and set up the internal sales operation there. Now she is the CEO of Phone Works, a company that specializes in sales strategy and has authored a new book about Sales 2.0.

While there have been quite a few definitions of the term Sales 2.0, Seeley puts hers squarely in the middle of humanity and technology. “I describe Sales 2.0 as a more effective and efficient way of buying and selling,” she says. “It is enabled by Web 2.0 technology. It is a combination of the art of collaborative selling coupled with the new culture of measurement.”

Her book, Sales 2.0, co-authored with Verint executive Brent Holloway, does not mince any words about the dangers of old school selling

Companies stuck in sales and marketing that do not take advantage of the visible data made available by new processes will favor information control over customer self-service, will encourage internal competition over collaboration and will measure only short-term revenue.

“Lead management is a very important part of the sales cycle and all parts of the company must respect that,” she says. “When it comes to lead management it’s about strategy, process, and people. Now we have a lot of new technology that can improve strategy, and it can enable a smoother lead management process, and entire sales cycle is certainly faster as a result. But what I see companies do wrong is that they start with technology before they look at people and process. Understand your lead generation issues first. Is my problem identifying prospects? Is it in finding a good group to target? No technology can help you understand where to start.”

Seeley just returned from the Sales 2.0 conference where was surprised by the amount of executives attending in person as well as online. The online access of an entire conference presentation is indicative of the change that customers have brought to the world of information. She expects those preferences to continue to evolve and sales people need to adapt. Relationships between buyers and sellers can be formed, strengthened, and maintained without the face-to-face meetings that used to delay sales progress.

“Face to face meetings are rare,” she says. “Some bigger customers will go all the way from pitch to close without a face to face meeting. That means that sales and marketing executives must be more effectively aligned. They are truly contributing to the sales process in a shared fashion. They should share all available metrics and maybe even have a shared compensation package. The process of Sales 2.0 is in the process of being redefined constantly. The job for sales and marketing is to make it as easy as possible for the customer to buy.”

More information about the book is available at www.sales20book.com.