Telemarketing Lead Generation Blog

Voicemail - A Teleprospecting Must Have

Posted on Jun 29, 2011 by Jon Plant, Senior Program Director

I’ve run countless lead generation campaigns during my tenure at TeleNet, from event and webinar follow-up campaigns to COLD calling. Regardless of what type of teleprospecting campaign you initiate, on average it takes 6 to 8 dials before making a connection. That is a lot of outbound calling in order to reach your prospects. With that being said, you must continually find ways to stand out from your competition during your teleprospecting initiatives. My advice is to stay optimistic and take full advantage of a company’s voicemail system. A few key tactics to consider when using voicemail:

• Keep your messages short and to the point. 40 seconds should be ample time for you to get your point across to the prospect.
• Leave your name (once at the beginning and once at the end). It is frustrating when you have to listen to a voicemail more than once to catch the caller’s name. Most prospects will not take the time to listen to your message more than once.
• Be very specific and relevant in your recordings. Prospects are more likely to remember your voice mail if you provide some type of value and a strong reason to talk with you. In one of my previous blogs posts, How to develop a telemarketing Critical Business Issue (CBI) voice mail strategy, I discuss the importance of varying your messages and how your company can address key business issues. You will most likely get a prospect’s voicemail more than once so it is important to bring new value each time you leave a message.
• Also consider finding a connection to your prospects. This could be by simply mentioning the person who referred you to call them. Leveraging the name of your prospect’s colleague brings credibility to your message.
• Offer an appropriate way of returning your message. This should definitely be a phone number but could also include an appropriate email address.

Once you’ve left your message(s), don’t just sit back and wait for contacts to call you back. Stay persistent in your calling and vary the time of day, and day of week, of your call. As I mentioned, it can take 6-8 attempts to get your target prospect on the phone. By utilizing a well-planned voicemail strategy, your call should not come as a surprise to your prospect. If done correctly, they will already have an understanding of why you are calling, and your potential value – and thus will be more likely to give you a few minutes. Planning your voicemail methodology will help you make those COLD calls a bit warmer.

Tagged: lead generation, targeted lead generation, teleprospecting, targeted lead generation telemarketing, telemarketing lead generation

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