Tweet

Creative Uses of Telemarketing for Entrepreneurs

Written by: Jenny Cartwright

Article Overview: The Telephone is the most powerful business tool you have. The question is whether you are using it to its maximum potential? It is a quick, easy and economical way to get results. Other than cold calling to increase your customer base, here are a few other ways you might consider using the telephone.

Creative Uses of Telemarketing for Entrepreneurs

INTRODUCING NEW PRODUCTS

When you want to introduce a new product or service into your business, you could do a survey by phone of potential customers to get their opinion and determine the demand before you go into production. You could also call your existing customers to get their opinion too. Telemarketing is a lot more economical and up to date than launching a new product on gut feel or paying for expensive industry marketing data.


STAY IN TOUCH AND KEEP UP TO DATE

You need to keep your database up to date and stay in touch with your customers every 90 days. Have someone call your customers every 3 months to update the details and update any changes of staff. You can even ask your customers what they think of your service and if they have any ideas how to improve it. Take note of their favourable comments too, you can use them as valuable testimonials when you need them.


SERVICE THE RETAIL STORES

If you are in retail, call the store managers to check on how your goods are selling. Ask them if they would like any demo or advertising materials to display, to help them increase sales. It just keeps you foremost in their minds that you have taken the trouble to do this.




SEMINAR CONFIRMATIONS

If you are holding a seminar, make sure the attendees are called the day before to reconfirm the starting time and the venue. You will be amazed at how many have forgotten or lost the details of the venue or start time.


TRADE SHOWS

When you go to trade shows, make sure you follow up all the business card leads you acquired. Send them some information by mail but ensure you follow up within 3 – 7 days or all your efforts are wasted.


CUSTOMER SERVICE

Have someone responsible for making customer service calls to clients who have had complaints sorted out and clients who have had service calls by representatives from your company. Make sure the issues were fully resolved. An unhappy client will talk to at least another 20 about their bad experience. You can avoid this happening and resolve anything bad straight away.


INFORM YOUR CUSTOMERS OF NEW DEVELOPMENTS

For example, when you get a new website, use this as an opportunity to call all your clients to tell them how they can more efficiently do business with you over the net.


PROMOTE EVENTS

Cold call new and existing customers to promote product launches or seminars.
You can reach people quickly and more economically by phone.





CALL YOUR NON-ACTIVE CUSTOMERS

Have a telemarketer call all the people who have not done business with you for a while. Find out why they are no longer doing business with you and try to win them back again.


MAIL OUTS

Ensure you follow up a mail out to maximize the return. Mail outs only get a 1% response these days and telemarketing can easily turn that around to a 10% – 20% response.


PRE-QUALIFY YOUR SALES LEADS

Prime the telemarketer to find out the answers to a number of questions about a prospective company from their receptionist. Then when they speak direct to the decision maker, they are better informed about the prospect’s needs. This information will also assist them to better qualify their leads .


Jenny Cartwright –Telemarketing Award Winner and Telesales Trainer/Speaker/Author
Sales and Telesales Solutions

Tel. 612 9427 3479
Fax. 612 9418 9069


E-Book – “How to Make A Fortune Selling on the Phone"- a proven step by step formula to increase sales, appointments and leads by 30% – 100% - guaranteed!

Related Articles
  Thing to know more about the telemarketing call center
  Use Examples to Encourage
  Guerrilla Telemarketing
  Telemarketing Solutions of a call center
  Avoid B2B Appointment Setting Mistakes

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
We need a call center or individual to perform B2B / B2C ope - We need a call center or individual to perform B2B / B2C operations. Telemarketing and Closing for the following services, VOIP and international calls, We related project, CRM and tele communication hardware and softwares. Only experience centers need apply! Contact –admin@eshreya.com
Happy Worker as of Dec 31 2007 - Here's mine... I'm now off to make an offering to the business planning gods for their help in getting to these goals & beyond. To the combined success of Prophets 2 Profits! ----------------------------------------- 1) Corporate a) Retail - Sales reps covering all major markets (1M or more) - Retail product launch plan - 1 more retail release (TBD) b) The Toy Agency - Systems for: o Creative process o Pricing o Manufacturing o Logistics - Marketing agency strategy in place - 1 new customer every 2nd month (5 new customers); 1 of which will be rev of >= 500K/year c) Business - Creative talent pool management strategy & process - Outsourced and/or weekly bookkeeping - Monthly budgeting & forecasting - Better banking organization (Line of Credit, CCs, automate billing for appropriate vendors) - Team total of 5 - Larger office d) Web site - Daily updates - Start of separation of Blog/TTA/Retail 2) Personal - Most weekends “off”! - Entirely separate personal finances; basic personal financing plan - Family….?
CEOs and Email - Slaves? - I wonder if the emails they are responding to are filtered thru their assistants first 'cos they seem to spend a lot of their off hours responding to them. True they are successful but I'm not sure I'd be willing to pay that price. I'd be interested to know what's the in the typical day planner of Entrepreneurs on the Forum. Entrepreneurs are a different breed than Paid Employees- so it would be interesting to view the contrast.
Re: What would you do if you knew you could not fail? - I would write a screenplay, and possibly be involved in making the movie. Creative writing is something that I love to do, but it is a bit of a leap from being an unpublished to a published author. If I knew I could not fail, I would write as often as I could.
Fundraising for 3rd world Entrepreneurs - How great to learn that Evan is doing something for Entrepreneurs in Africa! It just makes me even more thankful to be part of this forum! After helping create a new charity for animals in my local community last year, I created a vision for a charity empowering Women Entrepreneurs. It won't happen for a while yet, but I know it is something I will do within the next few years. As we allow ourselves to think bigger, the opportunity to impact people becomes much bigger as well. Does anyone else have a desire to really make a difference in the world through this means?


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Are You My Mentor

TOP Level Selling

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.