Telemarketing Lead Generation Blog

Telemarketing Lead Generation – Why Invest the Time?

Posted on Sep 8, 2010 by Kathy Rizzo, Vice President of Sales and Marketing

As companies examine the use of telemarketing, and ultimately make the decision to “test” or pilot a telemarketing lead generation approach, there are significant reasons to invest adequate time to ensure the pilot is effective and the right ongoing expectations are set.

It’s not unusual for an organization to initially want to pilot a telemarketing lead generation program over a 4-week period of time (or 6 weeks, or 8 weeks). However, in my experience, companies should plan to invest, at a minimum, in a 3-month (12-week) pilot program. Here are the reasons why…

• Ramp-up: No matter how seasoned the telemarketing agents are, nor how much training and prep are done, there will almost always be a period of ramp up. During this period, the agent(s) are learning the best ways to utilize the messaging, discovering the common objections (which may differ from what was anticipated) and are learning the unique layers of the decision-making process (who to really contact in order to obtain the most meaningful leads). In our experience, the quantity of leads per day is, on average, 17% higher during the 3rd month as compared to the 1st month. While this is our average increase, we’ve also experienced pilot programs in which the difference between month #1 and month #3 can be as high as 54%. These statistics illustrate the importance of allowing a program to ramp up in order to fully understand the potential of a program over the long-run.
• Jump Start: There are also a handful of programs in which the first month will yield an unusually high spike in leads. We see this occur in approximately 20% of the pilot programs that we conduct. In most cases, this type of a spike can be attributed to the target list. Perhaps we are initially targeting a group of responders or a “top priority” list. During the first weeks of calling we are able to identify the low hanging fruit, which elevates our lead count. However, as the program moves into other sources of data that are not as warm, the spike evens out and the true ongoing production is realized. In cases such as this, if a pilot program was conducted over a very short period of time; the results would be elevated, leading to possible disappointment down the road.
• Feedback: While the previous two bullets focused on lead production, it’s equally important (or in my opinion, more important) to also refine and test the quality of the leads. On all lead generation programs, it’s important to obtain feedback from the Sales individuals who are following up on the leads. This feedback should be obtained once Sales has had adequate time to call upon multiple leads, and determine if the information provided on the leads is the “right” type of data to really aid their sales process, if the contacts are at the “right” stage for them to move into pipeline, etc. Providing this type of specific lead feedback will allow tweaks and changes to the telemarketing lead generation approach, messaging, level of qualification and even the target market. Pilot programs must be built to allow adequate time to gain feedback, make adjustments, and then gather additional feedback to ensure long-term satisfaction.

Tagged: telemarketing lead generation, targeted lead generation, lead generation, lead nurturing, lead generation telemarketing, lead generation telemarketing benchmarks

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