Telemarketing is a very common and broadly used method of contacting potential customers.

Potential customers are identified and classified by various means such as their history of
purchases, previous surveys, etc. The classification process serves to find those potential
customers most likely to buy the products or services offered by the company in question.

If we check the timeline of telemarketing it was first started by some housewives calling people
and trying to find cookie buyers. By 1965, telemarketing was beginning to become more
recognized and telemarketers started to get professional training. By 1970, telemarketing was
widely recognized and also became very popular. To this day, telemarketing is still a
popular method to bring in sales.

The concept of telemarketing is to save cost of personal visits; the telemarketers contact more
prospects per day and keep satisfied clients with base in good care and the opportunity to
response to the competition. As a result this activity allows instant, live, two-way contact
between the supplier and the consumer.

There are two types of telemarketing services.

 Inbound telemarketing.
 Outbound telemarketing.
An inbound telemarketing strategy involves customers initiating the first point of contact with a
company. Inbound enables customers to contact the company when it best suits them, which
could yield higher profitability in the long run an inbound telemarketer accepts incoming calls
from current and potential customers. The telemarketer records the name and information of the
person calling and often reads written prompts about current promotions or products. Some
inbound telemarketers try to sell new products to customers, such as a cell phone company
marketing plan upgrades to customers calling in for other reasons.
Whereas, an outbound telemarketing strategy involves agents directly reaching out to the
customers to make a sale, contrary to inbound, which houses consumer inquires and purposes,
outbound services oftentimes involve appointment setting business-to-business lead generation,
customer follow-ups that were already initiated through a separate channel (such as e-mail) or for
market or data research. Outbound initiatives include high contact rates, agent productivity and
close rates, and so the importance of investing in the right telemarketing software for boosting
one’s company’s campaign and in turn, boosting sales cannot be stressed enough..

Outbound telemarketers call current and former customers, or cold call potential customers from
a directory phone listing. Typically, an outbound telemarketer cold calls a customer and tries to
sell a product or solicit a donation for a charity by reading a script provided by his company or
charitable organization. An outbound telemarketer also answers questions customers may have
about products or services, and records sales in a computer program. For example, an outbound
telemarketer for a direct mail catalog company may call former customers and promote new
products to bring in more sales.

The objective of telemarketing is to reduce selling expenses and replacing personal visits by
phone calls. Increase profits per sales concept to reduce costs and increase sales volumes, since
we can cover a market more big. Generate new business in territories which are not covered by
the sales staff. Improve service to customers, through a contact more often. Vendors specialize in
closing techniques, since over the phone you can prospect, classify and qualify customers.
Optimize the costs of advertising, through accounts more promising, because that is better
known to consumers. Respond more quickly when there is a competition in addition to that better
controlling of accounts, and revive those accounts which are inactive moreover, provide service
more personalized. Research the market in a way more economic furthermore, introduce new
products and improve the way of selling, since it avoids facing pollution, the high price of
transport and distances that are increasingly larger.

Telemarketing services are very important because they can help the company to look for a
market for their goods or services. It can also help them in acquiring information on customers
through a well integrated pipeline. When the company hires a telemarketing service such as
appointment setting or lead generation, it could mean a decline in their expenses towards having
to train their sales staff. Also, gathering leads and setting appointments become a faster and more
reliable process. The best telemarketing company is one that can help to find a lot of customers
who are genuinely interested of the product or service the company offers and convince them to
have an appointment with their sales representative. Persuading these people to make a purchase
of the product or service will then become a very easy task for the sales staffs. Experienced
telemarketing agents can carry out appointment setting in an efficient manner and will ensure
that the results obtained were the ones hoped for. These agents are highly qualified, trained and
professional in their jobs and so they can convince the customers. They also understand their job
very well and they know that the company wants not just leads, but qualified ones. So if the
company needs an appointment setting services or any other types of telemarketing services,
whether to set appointments, generate leads, perform market survey and research, they can
definitely rely on hiring the services of a telemarketing company that is equipped with
knowledgeable and experienced agents to do their jobs and generate the results always they
desired for.

Even though companies can engage with their target audience and generate leads through various
new channels today, telemarketing is not something that should be forgotten. It is highly
recommended that the company integrate telemarketing into the appropriate advertising and
marketing campaigns in order to achieve the best possible results for themselves. When executed
the right way and used as part of an intelligent marketing plan, telemarketing will prove to be a
vital and valuable business opportunity that cannot be afforded to miss out on.