Having trouble reaching your target audience? Build brand awareness and generate new leads with telemarketing

Telemarketing brand awareness offers several benefits that are difficult to achieve through other forms of advertising.

Because of this, many B2B companies include telemarketing as part of successful brand awareness campaigns.

What is brand awareness?

Brand awareness is the “extent to which a brand is recognised by potential customers, and is correctly associated with a particular product.” In the buyer’s journey, it is the very first step.

It is where:

• your audience find out about you,
• they form an opinion about you, and
• they think of you when faced with a purchase.

Brand awareness increases brand recall for consumers and business decision-makers. It also helps generate leads, build brand loyalty, and increase your chances of follow-up sales to your existing customers.

Telemarketing vs telesales – what’s the difference?

Often, telesales and telemarketing are used interchangeably. The term telemarketing is often used as an umbrella term to include telesales. 

Telemarketing is a form of advertising used to schedule an appointment or collect information on someone for the purpose of selling to them.

Telesales, however, refers to a promotional activity where sales are completed over the phone.

Brand building & marketing through telemarketing

B2B telemarketing builds high brand awareness in a number of ways. It allows you to call your potential customers, rather than wait for them to get in touch – as you do with inbound marketing.

Because of this, it’s superior to social media marketing, digital marketing, affiliate marketing and so on. 

Telemarketing helps your new customers get to know your brand. Even though many telemarketing calls go to voicemail, you are still introducing your brand to prospective clients through constructive conversations. 

Through telemarketing, you also build your brand’s personality. So your telemarketing team is like your local shop’s cashier and potential customers form an impression of your company based on the interactions they have. 

Cold calls can warm up prospects for telesales and face-to-face closes because even in a digital age, people buy from people. By generating leads from telemarketing, your telesales and field sales teams avoid cold calling and spend less time closing deals.

Marketing your business to the right customers

With telemarketing, you can accurately target decision makers at low costs. So this builds quality connections with a targeted audience and not wasted money on irrelevant audiences.

Telemarketing is a form of direct marketing. It is the opposite of an approach that assumes all customers are equal. Instead, it promotes a product or service to a target audience who are most likely to take interest in what you provide.

How to use telemarketing as part of a strong brand awareness strategy

Most people can recall a time when they went into a store for advice and left without buying, thinking they knew more about the product than the sales person. To be successful with using telemarketing brand awareness, your telemarketers must be well informed and speak with authority.

For the best results, we recommend:

• prepare your advisors for any questions a customer will ask. If possible, let them test the product themselves,
• to be authentic, warm, and friendly – high pressured sales techniques reflect badly on a brand and can result in lost sales,
• find out what they want, not what you think they want. You can determine the approach your telemarketer takes by doing good market research. Telemarketers’ listening skills play a key role here,
• to have a script prepared for the customer interaction – its purpose is to build credibility. The script should be a guide rather than read verbatim, and
• don’t use weak words – ‘maybe, possibly, yeah, basically’ – identify the weak words and prevent them.

Telemarketing as part of a multi-channel brand awareness campaign

While telemarketing offers great value, it should be part of a bigger brand awareness marketing campaign that follows the Rule of 7. The rule of 7 says that the customer should see or hear the marketing message seven times before buying it.

You should include personal contact over the phone in your marketing strategy, along with social media channels and email. Telemarketing brand awareness campaigns allow you to respond quickly to reservations and questions a potential customer may have.

This gives you more control over the customer experience and your brand’s image. It is recommended to follow up a phone call with an email that confirms the points discussed or goes into more detail with a link to the company website.

According to research from the Direct Marketing Association, 81% of businesses surveyed said they improved campaign performance when telemarketing was combined with another channel.

When selecting channels to use with telemarketing, consider which combinations have driven the most sales for other companies.

For B2B , telemarketing works best when combined with (in order of success):

• email
• company website
• social media
• advertising mail
• exhibitions / events

Can I expect a return on my investment?

An argument for increasing brand awareness through telemarketing can be backed up with ROI statistics. The UK Data and Marketing Association says that for every £1 spent on B2B telemarketing, you can expect an £11 return .

Telemarketing provides immediate insight into your chosen market. Having up-to-date customer feedback allows you to modify your products or services as well as observe market trends better.

You’re able to spot changes in spending habits more quickly. With B2B telemarketing, companies can continue talking to a prospective customer who isn’t quite in the buying cycle yet. Collecting the email marketing opt-in when on the call allows for further communication – important for rule of 7.