Appointment Setter

Advantages of Using Appointment Setters to Increase Productivity

An appointment setter is essentially a telemarketer whose aim is to arrange appointments for you or your team to follow up on.  They start with a database of contacts, ideally developed from your own lead generation strategies, and phone to arrange an appointment.

They serve as the middle of three stages in your sales process:

1. The first step is to use a lead generation system to identify potential customers and gather contact information.
2. The telemarketing company will contact the prospect, confirm their interest, and, where appropriate, make an appointment for you to visit.
3. Finally, a salesperson will visit to close the sale.

Lead generation is an important part of marketing your business, but setting business appointment is an equally important part of actually selling your product or service – especially where you have a more complicated product or service which requires a personal selling approach.

How Can Appointment Setting Increase Productivity?

Using a telemarketer to schedule appointments leaves the sales people free to focus on closing sales.  Skilled telemarketers are well trained to weed out unqualified prospects or those who are not in a position to buy. Provided they are given the right instructions, they can be used as filters – putting individual prospects into the right groups based on their readiness to buy.

Some prospects will require a sales visit.  For others this would be a waste of everyone’s time.  A skilled telemarketer can, instead, arrange for further information to be sent to this prospect or move them into a file for future contact.

If your existing database of prospective clients is a little thin, you may consider using a rented or purchased list of contacts. These lists can be tailor made to your industry and target customer.  Make sure to buy from a reliable service that has taken the necessary legal precautions in putting together and managing its lists – a good telemarketing company can advise you.

In short, if you want to improve the productivity of your sales efforts, try using an appointment setting service for your next campaign.

What Next?

We do it for you:If you need help designing a marketing tool that promotes or sells your products or services online, Click here for more info about the lead generation services we provide.

Do it yourself: For more lead generation ideas, Download our free report

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List Building Strategies & Setting Appointments & Telemarketing

Telemarketing Services

8 Ways Telemarketing Improves Sales and Increases Lead Generation

Can Telemarketing Services Really Increase Sales?

Telemarketing services can help improve sales and increase leads generation,but you probably don’t want to turn your business into a call center.

So What’s the Right Way to Use Telemarketing?

Inbound Marketing Calls

In most cases the telemarketing that you’ll be considering will be outbound (i.e. you contacting the customer) as opposed to inbound (them contacting you).  However, if you are not prepared to handle inbound calls, you may be wasting your hard-won marketing dollars.  So you should train and prepare your staff to handle inbound calls effectively and keep them up-to-date with the marketing efforts that may lead to calls.

You may choose to incorporate phone contact into your current advertising, which may include:

• email
• direct mail
• radio
• TV
• yellow pages
• online
• etc

Using a dedicated, toll-free number can be a great way to encourage prospects to get in touch, but your staff needs to be ready and prepared to handle those calls, answer questions and effectively funnel these initial leads into your sales strategy.  For example, your advertising could promote a free report that customers can claim via a phone number.

Each call therefore represents a qualified, interested prospect, motivated to lift the phone.

Outbound Telemarketing

Outbound telemarketing (you contacting the customer) can be an effective tool in either:

1. Generating leads from a general list
2. Following up on another marketing exercise like a direct mail campaign
3. Or setting sales appointments

A follow up call after a direct mail campaign can increase the open rate and also increase the number of sales.  Outbound telemarketing also gives you the opportunity to up-sell your existing customers or target them with special offers.

Outsource or In-house Telemarketing

Few business owners look forward to getting on the phone and cold calling prospects (or even calling warm leads).  It’s not surprising then that an industry has grown up to handle telemarketing services for small businesses.  But hiring a telemarketing company is not an inexpensive exercise.

With that in mind, a good rule of thumb is for small businesses to avoid outsourcing telemarketing services- except where the value of a new client hits at least four figures.

Doing It Yourself

For most businesses however, telemarketing will be done internally.

1. The first step is to ensure that you have a quality list.
2. Second is to determine what you’re hoping to achieve.

If it’s your own list, then the purpose of your call should be two-fold.  Ideally you’ll have a product or service that you would like to sell.

1. Your first goal is to either make a sale or set up a sales call.
2. If neither is on the cards you should have a fallback position – like asking for additional contact information or sending out useful information – building the value of your list over time.

If you have bought or rented your list then you can add an alternative goal: get them to agree to join your mailing / contact database.  This will allow you to market to them again in the future.

8 Tips for Internal Telemarketing

1. Set yourself an achievable goal – Not in terms of sales but in terms of activity.  10 calls before lunch perhaps.
2. Do your homework – Make sure you know a little about the business, or kinds of business, you’ll be calling.  If you’re targeting restaurateurs for example, there’s little point phoning at 9am.
3. Keep it short – Nobody will listen to you for 10 minutes, or 5 or even 2 minutes. You should try to get your key points across in a few sentences, making the purpose of your call clear, and then ideally enter into some conversation about what you’re offering.
4. Prepare for rejection – You won’t be successful on every sales call.  In fact you’ll more than likely be unsuccessful on most sales calls.  It’s not personal.
5. Be professional – but don’t be a robot.
6. Be honest – never start out a professional relationship with a lie (or fudge).  Be as honest as possible.
7. Take breaks – or you’ll go nuts.
8. Make notes – Writing and reading a script line for line makes you sound wooden and ‘salesy’.  At the same time you don’t want to start making calls completely unprepared.  Try a bullet point outline including:

• An introduction stating who you are and why you’re calling
• A simple explanation of your business
• A clear explanation of your offer
• A list of benefits (not features) for them of what you’re offering
• Detail of what you’d like them to do now
• A close

Of course, you never started your business to become a telemarketer so ask yourself whether or not this is the best way to spend your time.  If it isn’t, and you can afford to bring in some help, do so.

What Next?

We do it for you: Need help with telemarketing? Click here for more info about the lead generation services we provide
Do it yourself: For more lead generation ideas Download our free report

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List Building Strategies & Setting Appointments & Telemarketing

Pay Per Lead

How Can You Use Pay Per Lead

Marketing Strategies to Improve Your Business

If you want more leads for your business then pay per lead is an attractive choice.  But is it the right one and how does it work?

What is pay per lead?

It is exactly what it sounds like: You pay for leads instead of paying a flat rate for advertising or marketing.  There are lots of ways that this can be organized but the main benefit to you is that you don’t have to pay for any marketing that doesn’t result in new leads.

To pay for leads means you get a fixed price for each lead, which eliminates a lot of the risk that is usually associated with marketing and advertising your business.  So long as you can do a good enough job of closing sales, then it’s perfectly possible to adopt paying for leads as a strategy to grow your entire business.

So How Does This Work in Reality

The way it works depends on what kind of system you set up or use. Here are a few options that might be worth looking at:

• Buying Leads: Buying leads from a 3rd party company like a lead broker allows you to get as many leads as you might want, but, it is very competitive and you need to make sure that the leads that you buy are of good enough quality for you to convert them into sales.  For more information on the kinds of questions to ask before you buy leads, check out our article on buying leads.
• Online Pay Per Lead Websites: When you advertise online you will often be able to use pay per click advertising. With pay per click, you pay every time someone clicks on your advertisement and visits your site – even if they never get in touch with you.  Paying for leads is different. You only pay when you are sent a qualified lead.  Normally to pay for a lead is based around a single website. For example, someone could create a website about graphic design.  They will then market that website and attract people who are interested in buying graphic design services.  On the website the prospective customer will fill in a form explaining the details of what they are looking for.  As a business, if you are registered on that site, the site will send you details of that person’s request.  As a business you will set down the kinds of leads that you are interested in when you sign up.  Signing up to a pay per lead website is almost always free – you only pay when you receive a lead or a quote request from a prospective buyer that matches the criteria that you described.  Of course, there is no guarantee that every lead will turn into a customer.
• Setting Up Your Own Lead Deals: Once you know exactly the kind of lead that you are looking for there is nothing to stop you setting up your own lead arrangements with marketing companies, professional partners or individual websites.  You could, for example, work with a telemarketing service and pay them for every lead that they generate for you.  To do this you will need to have a clear idea of what a good quality lead is to you – and agree this with anybody you will be working with in advance. You’ll need a system for them to deliver, and for you to follow up on, each lead.  And you’ll also want to make sure that you keep careful track of every lead that comes your way – and what the final outcome was.

What Next?

We Do It For You: If you’d like help with setting up your own pay per lead program, Click here for more info about the lead generation services we provide

Do It Yourself: For more lead generation ideas Download our free report

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How to Buy Leads & Pay Per Click

Lead Generation Programs

How to Create a Reliable System That Pre-Sell And Follow-Up On Your Customers

Are you a business owner looking for ways to boost sales?  Lead generation programs are a great way to get the most from your current advertising and marketing efforts- something any business can benefit from.

A structured lead generation program is made up of separate stages (that each contributes to your business goals).  If you do it right it cannot only improve your bottom line, but it can also create opportunities for future growth.

Return On Investment

Long-term or short, lead generation systems have to earn their money.  The very best lead programs should deliver high-quality leads at the lowest cost possible.  Success isn’t, however, a simple matter of the upfront cost per lead. Several factors need to be considered, such as:

• What makes a qualified lead for your business?
• How long will a lead be useful to your business?
• How often will you need to seek out new leads?
• How much are you willing to pay per lead?
• What’s the lifetime value of a new customer for your business?
• What percentage of qualified leads do you expect to turn into customers?

The answers to these questions will help determine the structure and detail of your lead generation program.

So What Makes for Good Lead Generation Programs?

The Reach

First, any lead generation system should be able to reach a very specific type of potential customer or client.  Reaching an audience of one million people may seem like a great opportunity for getting new leads but if that campaign only achieves a 1% response rate, you may be better off targeting an audience of just one hundred thousand where the rate of return could be 20% or higher.

By knowing how many prospects turn into customers, you can begin to estimate your likely return on investment from any lead generation initiative.

Follow Up

Of course, a quality lead program will also include the chance for you to follow-up.  Once you reach out to your market and capture lead information, proper follow up can make or break your program.  The program you choose for lead generation should begin with the end in mind.  Your ultimate goal, which is to convert leads to sales, might require several steps.

How will your program address this?

The System

The key to a successful program is a great system.  Systems can be replicated, can grow and are efficient.  They also offer predictable results that can help you plan for the future and make improvements to your marketing.  Your success will be determined by how well your chosen program creates a reliable step-by-step process for:

1. Targeting the right market
2. Capturing the right information
3. And following up at the right time and frequency

With more competition than ever before, you simply cannot afford to waste another dollar on the wrong system for getting new leads.  High quality, converting leads are the lifeblood of any business operation – whether you are well established or a start-up.

To get those you need a system.

What Next?

• We do it for you: If you need help developing you lead generation system, click here for more info about the lead generation services we provide

• Do it yourself: For more lead generation ideas Download our free report

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