Surprising Thoughts on Telephonophobia (from a Call Center)

Posted on by Kaitlin Dunlap

If you’ve opened up LinkedIn in the past few days, you’ve probably seen posts going around about a recent Wall Street Journal article called “The Workers Who Do Everything on Their Phones—Except Answer Calls”. In a nutshell, this particular piece has thousands of professionals chiming in with their two cents and personal experiences with Telephonophobia, the fear of making or taking phone calls.

As you can guess, Dunlap Marketing has a few thoughts on Telephonophobia. Our perspective is backed with nearly three decades of experience making business-to-business lead generation and appointment setting calls on behalf of clients across the country and world.

With that being said, our ultimate opinion might be one you might not expect to hear from us – but hey, we like to keep you on your toes!

Drum roll, please

At Dunlap Marketing, we believe that phone calls are one of multiple touch points that can and should be used when prospecting, nurturing, and selling. Yep, we don’t believe phone calls are the end all be all, but we do believe they are highly effective (plus cost effective). To quote us in a past article, “The Benefit of Utilizing Multiple Lead Generation Approaches“, from 2018:

“Utilizing multiple resources will help maximize your results. Telemarketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, direct mail, and content marketing are all examples of lead generation techniques. When used together, various modes of lead generation complement each other.”

And there you have it – a surprising take on Telephonophobia.

For more on utilizing telemarketing to complement your marketing and sales strategies, reach out to Mike Dunlap at miked@dunlapmarketing.com – or if you dare, pick up the phone and call 281.833.3000 x140.

Why is Cold Calling Important in 2024?

Posted on by Kaitlin Dunlap

Cold calling has a very specific purpose:  Human-to-human interaction with your prospects.

Often, this purpose is forgotten – not because it’s unimportant, but because most sales people do not enjoy it.

As a matter of fact, business-to-business telemarketing and cold calling in 2024 remains an important discipline that needs to be applied to any sales role. Today, in many outside sales organizations, old school “door knocking” might be unproductive and outdated, especially with large territory assignments. 

However, prospecting via phone calls remains a great complement to your overall accumulation of early stage appointment setting and qualified leads. This accumulation is known as “filling up your pipeline”. When done properly, it can also be a healthy way to build up your pipeline of future customers.

The importance of cold calling boils down to this: it’s a cost and time efficient method of very targeted, human-to-human prospecting.

Buyer-generated and Seller-generated Leads

As discussed in The Difference Between Qualified Leads, leads can be broken down into two categories – buyer-generated and seller-generated. 

Buyer-generated leads generally advance through the sales cycles relatively quickly because a potential buyer is actively searching for your product or service. However, there are a finite number of buyer-generated leads and often they are expensive to purchase or produce internally.  

This is when the importance of seller-generated leads is presented. Telemarketing continues to prove itself as a tried and true method of seller-generated lead generation.

When you can clearly define and identify who your prospects are, cold calling is a great way to zero in and hustle for new business opportunities. It becomes even more effective when advertising and marketing budgets limit or prohibit other forms of lead generation. 

Cold calling remains a cost-effective lead generation method, giving you control over growing your business, while not depending upon inbound generation methods.

Get Cold Calling To Work For You

Cold calling is a tool that can be used to continuously add new prospects to your pipeline of selling opportunities. Typically, cold-call-generated-prospects are not the ones you find through inbound methods; because of this, they complement other lead generation strategies, giving your pipeline both buyer-generated and seller-generated leads.

Having a plan of how to execute a cold call campaign is the first step in implementation. For more information, check out our “6 Steps to Implement a Telemarketing Campaign” series or eBook.

Contact – Mike Dunlap, miked@dunlapmarketing.com  (281) 496-9870 x140

Three Steps to Launching a Successful Telemarketing Campaign

Posted on by Kaitlin Dunlap

Starting a new telemarketing campaign requires careful planning and execution to ensure success. While there are dozens of steps that need to be taken to set your campaign up to be as successful as possible, we have narrowed the list to the three most important. 

  • Define Your Target Audience: Before making any calls, it’s crucial to identify your target market. Who are you going to call? Who do you need to speak with? We suggest getting very specific with your target audience. Some examples of specific criteria to use are geography, size of business, and industry/niche. 
  • Develop a Script: Craft a well-thought-out script that outlines the key messages you want to convey during your calls. Your script should be clear and concise. It’s important to capture attention from the start, as you’ll only have a few seconds to deliver your message.

    Note: while having a script is important, at Dunlap Marketing we like to call it a “road map” – this approach allows for natural, human-to-human conversation and engagement.
  • Train Your Team: Properly train your team to ensure they are equipped with the knowledge and resources to make successful calls.

    While providing thorough training on the product or service being offered is important, don’t get bogged down in the nitty gritty details. A general overview is sufficient.

    Finally, practice, practice, practice before launching the first live call.

By following these tips, you can lay a solid foundation for your telemarketing campaign and increase the likelihood of achieving successful outcomes. To learn even more about starting a new telemarketing campaign, download our free “6 Steps to Implementing a Successful Telemarketing Campaign” ebook.

For more information on launching telemarketing campaigns, contact Mike Dunlap at miked@dunlapmarketing.com or 281.833.3000 #14.

12 B2B Touchpoints to Incorporate in Your Sales Cycle

Posted on by Kaitlin Dunlap

Some sources will tell you it takes 8 touchpoints to make a sale in the B2B world. Others will tell you it takes 8 touchpoints just to book an initial sales call. No matter the actual statistic, the truth is that it takes multiple touchpoints to convert a lead to a customer.

Before we dive even deeper into this topic, let’s first get clear on what exactly a touchpoint is.

A touchpoint is a form of interaction between you and your potential buyer.

In marketing and sales, touchpoints can range from highly personalized to generic and broad-reaching.

Examples of personalized touchpoints are face-to-face meetings, phone calls, or 1:1 emails tailored specifically to your prospect. As a rule of thumb, these forms of personalization require more of a time commitment on your part, as the seller, but will typically yield a higher conversion rate.

On the other hand, examples of broad-reaching touchpoints are social media posts and mass emails. These touchpoints have the capability of reaching more people with less of a time investment on the seller. However, because of the lack of personalization, they yield a lower conversion rate.

At Dunlap Marketing, we believe that a combination of both highly personalized plus broad-reaching touchpoints leads to a sales cycle that feels good to both you and your prospects.

Below are 12 examples of various business-to-business touchpoints you can start incorporating into your own sales cycle.

Personalized Touch Points:

  1. Company events
  2. Networking events
  3. Referrals
  4. Face-to-face interactions
  5. 1:1 phone calls
  6. 1:1 emails
  7. 1:1 chat on your website

Broad Reaching Touch Points:

  • Organic social media
  • Paid social media
  • Blog posts and other website content
  • Emails to your entire email list
  • Mailouts

By marrying together personalized and board-reaching interactions with your potential buyer, you will find a rhythm where your prospects feel like they are getting the information and attention they need in order to make a buying decision, but doesn’t necessarily require you to be everywhere all of the time.

For more information on sales strategies, email Mike at miked@dunlapmarketing.com.