Telemarketing Tips, Best Practices & Hacks to Boost Conversions

Much of the allure of telemarketing generally lies in the ability to nurture prospects. But the problem most B2B executives have with it is it involves using approaches that just secure a high number of conversions without the promise of a good increase in revenue.

At Myphoner, we provide seventeen telemarketing tips for improving the effectiveness of your telemarketing efforts!

1. Get buy-in for telemarketing

Too often, telemarketing campaigns don't have buy-in from the whole organization. This is the key reason that many companies who have tried telemarketing have failed. In order for telemarketing to be successful, you need to make sure it’s well coordinated, supported at the highest levels, and integrated with your organization’s strategic plan.

2. Planning is everything

This may sound like a cliché, but you need to make sure you have done some research. There is no banging out a telemarketing plan. It requires substantial preparation. So have things prepared before getting on a call. For example, you need to decide what your target sector will be. You might ask yourself also if you have more customers in one sector than other sectors. In addition, in your planning, you might make use of case studies or previous experience working within a specific marketing sector.

3. When they buy, make sure they buy from you

A survey conducted by Darnell found that 80% of sales are generally made after the fifth call. So, try to stay connected with your prospects through letters and phone calls. Just make sure that when you write or make a call, you deliver something of_value._That way, when they think of you, they'll recall something positive about you and not just a sales person who is only thinking of making sales.

4. Understand your target audience

As discussed earlier, you need to find out and know what’s happening in the marketplace. What’s keeping your buyers up at night? What are the gaps in the services that the suppliers struggle to close? What are the hot topics and the buzzwords? The better you understand your market audience, the quicker you can engage in building strong rapport and the more relevant telemarketing conversations will be, that is, you won’t sound like a cold caller.

5. Work on your buyer’s pain points

If you’re suffering from a persistent headache, it’s obvious that you will go to a doctor. It’s the same in business. If a current supplier is doing an okay job, the desire to change may be low.

By using a good, open questioning technique around the issues in the marketplace and knowing the differentiators in the service you are offering, you can help identify and magnify a perceived pain and encourage buyers to create an offense.

To this end, it helps if your sales reps are going into calls with a solid idea of the client’s (or potential client’s) pain points. We recommend filling in client personas with key details as they come up, so that regardless of who’s dealing with the client, they’ll have all the information they need to close.

6. Develop your telemarketing script

Your telemarketing script should be a written document that is consistent and makes use of language and content that’s appropriate for the audience. That means depending on whether you’re selling to C-level executives, mid-management, or front line staff; it depends on who you are targeting.

The organization of your telemarketing script should be consistent with that tone of voice and language you’re using in the entire campaign.

7. Think about call structure

Your telemarketing script also needs to have a proper call flow. It has to cover all the points which are important to the caller and to the sale. There are a number of call structures that have demonstrated success, one of which is the SPIN framework.

There are four stages:

1. Opening: This is where the telemarketer gets into a conversation.
2. Investigation: This is asking questions to help identify specific needs and solutions which might be most appropriate for the call recipient.
3. Demonstrating Capability: This is where you highlight your own strengths, capabilities, and accomplishments.
4. Obtaining Commitment: This is where, after exploring what’s important to them and demonstrating what you can offer, you discuss next steps—either an appointment or a follow-up call to review a proposal or a quote.

Building a script around a framework like the one above will help keep conversations on track and productive.

8. Avoid scripted language

Remember earlier when I mentioned the importance of having a telemarketing script? Well, there’s a caveat we need to go over. While having a script and call structure is crucial for keeping calls on track, you need to make sure that your script sounds natural. Get into a conversation. Ask questions to make them feel heard and follow up with very specific responses.

When people feel like they’re talking to an unfeeling robot, it’s incredibly hard for them to develop a connection that keeps them on the phone. To that end, it’s important that your script isn’t stifling. Give your sales reps a few points to hit, but make sure you give them free rein to be themselves and let their personalities shine through.

9. Avoid sales speak

Differentiate yourself from other telemarketing operations by avoiding sales speak like:

• “We provide a value added service”
• “We’re customer focused”
• “We partner with clients”

Phrases like these are cut-and-paste clichés—they don't really mean anything when you get down to it! Avoid imprecise language and choose phrases that resonate with your market.

There isn’t a hard-and-fast rule to follow here. Our only advice is that you think carefully about the words you use. Always try to be specific, relatable, and pain point oriented.

10. Provide telemarketing skills training

Telemarketing requires a specific set of skills. You need to make sure your staff are trained properly, so they can confidently handle customer conversations. By investing time and money into your sales team by giving them proper sales development training through interactive workshops or classroom-style lessons, you'll increase their confidence level and improve their job performance.

This also helps reduce turnover, since employees are more likely to feel engaged in workplaces where there are opportunities for professional growth!

11. Provide training on handling objections

This tip might seem similar to the one above, but it's important enough to warrant its own subheading. Telemarketers hear the words "no", "not right now", and "maybe" quite a lot—it's just a part of the job!

It’s important that you train your staff properly on how to respond to these kinds of comments since it can affect future opportunities with these individuals as well as employee morale. A good way to learn how to respond is by doing role-playing exercises with fellow members of the team using previous calls that went wrong as examples.

12. Take advantage of technology

One of the best ways to help your telemarketing team is to invest in technology that can perform certain tasks for them. By automating some of the more mundane and repetitive tasks, you free up time for reps to focus on closing deals and meeting with clients.

Myphoner gives reps access to features like power-dialing, voicemail drop, and intelligent retry strategies that can boost efficiency by 30%. They can also benefit from easy access to contact information, email templates, and call scripts that systematize the cold calling process and increase conversion rates.

14. Measure performance

By tracking key metrics such as calls per hour/day/week or cost per lead, you can find out which strategies are working and which aren't. Use this data as a guide when revising your sales strategy and improving future campaigns!

Myphoner makes this simple by collecting sales rep and campaign information on a central dashboard. Here, managers have access to metrics like conversion rate, time per call, time per lead, cold call ratio, and so much more. With this kind of access, you'll always know if your team is on track or falling behind.

15. Incentivize good performance

A bonus or commission-based system is an effective way to show appreciation for those who perform well on the job. A reward system will inspire your employees and motivate them to do better work each day.

16. Identify low-performers quickly

This might sound harsh, but individuals that underperform in telemarketing roles can often negatively impact the performance of the team as a whole. They require more oversight and coaching, they often rely on others to pick up the slack, and they sometimes scare off valuable clients.

To maintain quality standards, you need to identify the individuals on your sales team (if there are any) who aren’t meeting expectations. From there, sit in on a few calls and coach them through their strengths and weaknesses. If you see improvement, great! If not, it might be time to move them to a different team or consider parting ways.

17. Hold regular meetings to discuss results

In order to measure the performance of each person in your team, it's important that there are regular weekly or monthly meetings where they discuss their progress from a productivity standpoint.

By doing this, employees will get an idea on their strengths and weaknesses, which are good selling points when approaching customers.

To conclude, any good business decision should be based on return on investment. This means you need to look at what it costs to generate leads, the sales generated in the short term, and in some industries the potential lifetime value of sales from new to long-time customers.