Telemarketing Lead Generation Blog

The Great Debate: Telemarketing Lead Generation Quality vs. Quantity

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Kathy Rizzo, Vice President Marketing

When presented with the question of whether you want high quality leads or a high quantity of leads, how would you respond? While there are strong arguments for both sides, if you are like many marketers and sales managers, you probably really and truly want to have both. So, is this possible?

Yes. However, to obtain both you have to first focus your attention on lead quality. This is supported by data from our Best-in-Class analysis (How Do you Compare?), which showed a clear difference between our best-in-class marketers and the rest of the group in terms of where they needed to improve:

• Only 9.1% of best-in-class marketers said the quality of their telemarketing campaigns needed improvement
• 51.4% of other marketers said their telemarketing quality needed improvement

This discrepancy leads me to suspect that a lack of quality in the data or leads being generated by telemarketing campaigns is a big reason why many marketers surveyed were unsatisfied with their overall marketing approach—keeping them out of the best-in-class group.

Focusing first on improving the quality of your lists, messaging and the leads you generate can help you solidify your overall telemarketing strategy. From that position of strength, you can then move on to expand your program to increase your quantity of output.

So…how do you put Quality first?

When you launch a new telemarketing lead generation initiative, our advice is to engage in a reasonable pilot program – we typically recommend 3 to 6 months in duration with 1 to 3 dedicated agents. During this “pilot” period of time, you should focus your attention on three major goals:

1. Clearly define “Qualified Lead” for your sales organization and then validate that the definition meets their needs. Most marketers know the importance of sitting down with their sales management in order to jointly determine the definition (criteria) of a qualified lead. However, the task does not end once you set the lead definition. During the pilot program, it’s critical that you engage in weekly feedback / dialog sessions with your sales team in order to validate that the lead definition is truly what they need. In some cases sales may think they want one thing, but once they actually receive the leads and call on prospects, they may realize that their needs are slightly different. Don’t be surprised if you need to alter your definition during the pilot program.
2. Create, Test & Tweak the messaging. The best thing about telemarketing is that you receive instant market feedback to your messaging. As the first call is made, you can listen to the conversations and determine if your message resonates with your audience or if you need to modify it. Messaging is rarely developed perfectly, so you have to expect that changes will be needed in the first several weeks of a telemarketing lead generation program.
3. Validate & Refine your target market. At least 60% of the success of any telemarketing lead generation program is attributed to the quality of your targeted database. Therefore, it’s important that you spend time ensuring your lists are accurate and well targeted. If you are purchasing new lists for your campaign, it’s advisable to use the pilot program to test and closely monitor your sources, focusing your efforts on the highest yielding sources. Don’t waste your dollars with a poor or un-targeted list.

Focusing your attention on lead criteria, messaging and targeted lists will produce a quality lead generation program. Once this foundation is in place, you can more easily expand your initiative to increase the quantity of your output.

Tagged: lead generation, targeted lead generation, targeted telemarketing, quality lead generation, telemarketing sales leads

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