Three Steps to Launching a Successful Telemarketing Campaign

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

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.

Call-Based Appointment Setting

Properly Identifying Your Best Prospects

Last week both of these emails were sent to me by Dunlap Marketing customers. 

“I just wanted to give your team a quick shout out. I just got off a call with the TMRS and they are a perfect fit for our platform, the appointment was set by your team. I know your guys are working hard and I want them to know how much we appreciate the help. Keep up the good work and thanks for everything!”
J W
Account Executive – Texas


“Great one Mike! Thank you. We looking forward to connecting with this prospect.  They are exactly the type of company we want to call on.”
M R
Global Manager

Both messages were the result of properly planning call campaigns in advance of implementation.

While there are many elements of properly planning a call campaign, there are three worth reflecting on:

1st – Knowing Who To Call

To have a successful call campaign, we have to know who the best companies are that need to be called. This is the only way for there to be a “perfect fit”.  With a 15-minute Q&A session between you and us, we can typically determine this answer.  If we can’t, we will model companies that you say are great customers, and we will build a profile of like-minded companies.  As part of this process, we usually factor in annual revenue ranges, employee count ranges, geography, and industry classifications.

2nd – Knowing What To Say

After we identify who to call, we hone in on what to say. This looks like crafting a call message that efficiently communicates your services. This often is a “to the point” approach, using as few words as possible. It includes knowing who the decision maker is, or identifying who this person is.

A common strategy is writing a message where we ask high-quality probing questions, and when favorable answers are given, we do not try to be the expert with follow-up responses. Rather, we ask to schedule a meeting so the prospects can talk to you, the expert.

3rd – Proper Training

Once we have a list and a call message, we train and prepare our staff to professionally represent you while making prospecting phone calls.  These are employees who work inside our West Houston office and who have experience making B2B phone calls.  A unique skill we foster within our team is the ability to be tactfully persistent, while calling with a smile.

Summary

The second half of 2023 seems to be taking shape as challenging for business development. With high interest rates, inflation, global conflict, and political parties that have difficulty working tighter, this might become a time when going back to the basics is healthy.

Maintaining or growing our businesses is necessary, going back to the basics and fundamentals of adding new customers might be the best game plan for the balance of this year.

We are happy to brainstorm ways to do this with your sales team.  Feel free to let us know if you have an interest in talking.

Mike Dunlap – President

Phone: (281) 496-9870 x140

Email: miked@dunlapmarketing.com

5 Tips to Increase Success on Prospecting Calls

While conducting a recent team meeting, I asked the staff to share their thoughts on what it takes to have successful prospecting calls. The result of this question lead to a handful of outstanding tips, which prompted me to write this article so I can share them with you. 

According to the Dunlap Marketing team members, their five top prospecting call tips are:

  1. Listen carefully to the prospect’s tone and behavior, then adjust your approach to match
  2. Try holding the prospect’s attention long enough to deliver the intended message
  3. Get the prospect interested enough to start talking
  4. Keep calling, do not give up
  5. Be polite and grateful

Listen carefully to the prospect’s tone and behavior, then adjust your approach to match

In my early days of selling, this was called “mirroring the prospect”. I believed and saw this technique work in the early stages of my career, and I continue to see it work now.

You might ask yourself – how can I mirror a prospect I can’t see?

If the prospect answers the call, but sounds like he or she is in a hurry, consider talking a bit faster and tell them, “I know you are busy so I am going to quickly get to the reason for my call”, then do as you said you were going to do. 

The objective is to match your tone and talking speed to that of your prospect.

Try holding the prospect’s attention long enough to deliver the intended message

This notion of holding attention long enough to deliver your message reminds me of writing call scripts. Call scripts should be short and to the point. Your prospects are busy and were not waiting for your call. Because of this, keep in mind that you should be grateful they took your call and avoid making them feel like you’re wasting their time. 

A good way to cut back on time spent on the front end of your conversation is to consider not asking the prospect how they are doing or how their day is – often this falls into the category of wasting time.  Rather, as an ice breaker, use a friendly and engaging voice and speak with a smile on your face. You might be surprised how this approach not only saves you time, but also yields better results.

Get the prospect interested enough to start talking

This goes hand in hand with holding the prospects attention, mostly because if you can get them talking, you have likely caught their attention. In most instances, the best way to get someone talking is to ask them a question. 

Before you can ask a question, I feel it is important that the prospect knows why or what you are calling about – make this brief and get straight to the point.  Once they know the purpose of your call, you ideally want to ask a probing question that identifies a pain or deficiency within their current situation.  In our office, we have a goal of asking this initial question inside the first 15-20 seconds of the conversation. Your approach here is to get your “foot in the door”.  Do not feel like you have to push yourself all the way in, just get your toes in, especially if you represent a longer sales cycle offering. 

Three probing questions you can try using are:

  • Does your current provider ____?
  • Does ____ present a challenge for you?
  • If there was one thing you can improve, what would it be?

Keep calling, do not give up

Tactful persistence is the key to success. 

If your call goes unanswered or your voice mail is not returned, it is not good to assume your prospect is not interested. Chances are, it simply means your prospect is busy and has more pressing issues to deal with.  At some point in time, your offering will become important to them.  Your job is to stay engaged so you can learn where they are in the buying cycle or life cycle of their current situation.  You want to identify trigger dates so you know when to turn up the intensity to have constructive conversations.

If you have difficultly speaking to the decision maker during early stage prospecting, try connecting with other people in the company in an effort to learn about their current situation, future timing, and satisfaction level. This information can be uncovered by different people inside one company – not just your top contact person. And most importantly, these nuggets of information will help you gauge your future timing. Capture this information and set follow up reminders in your CRM to call back accordingly.  Even more, ask for email addresses and send periodic emails that contain relevant information.  Be disciplined with your follow up tasks.  Over time your efforts will pay off.

These habits are most critical for salespeople who manage smaller, more finite-sized prospect lists.  The smaller the population of who your prospects are, the more tactful persistence will pay off for you and your prospecting efforts.

Be polite and grateful

Always make your prospecting phone calls with a smile on your face.  Some of my staff are outstanding at speaking to a prospect as if the person is right in front of them.  This is a gift. 

Be respectful and do not be afraid to call your prospect back if they tell you they are very busy.  Politeness and gratitude require you to have faith that the game of numbers is in play – and if you play the game properly, you will get your fair share of opportunities.

If you force a conversation, the likelihood is you will compromise quality outcomes (in our office, we prioritize quality outcomes over quantity of outcomes).  The more you force, the more disappointment there will be down the road when implementing next steps.

If you feel like you need to be forceful, consider asking the prospect for a better time to call back.  Record this information in your CRM and call them back at that time.  If they do not answer, leave a voice mail and try again later in the day or the next day.  It might not be easy to get them back on the phone, but keep trying.  When you do connect, chances are better that you have a more productive conversation.

Being polite and grateful often go hand-in-hand with tactful persistence. Tactful persistence is most rewarding when you are also polite and grateful.

For more information on successful prospecting, feel free to reach out to me at miked@dunlapmarketing.com or call at (281) 496-9870 x140.