In a sense, OBTM (outbound telemarketing) can be easily and briefly described. It comprises a range of activities usually carried out via email and/or telephone, designed to contact potential prospects and convert them into those precious ‘leads’ who are the harbingers of actual sales.
That may sound easy, but it’s not!
In all cases, an OBTM campaign must be designed and crafted specifically for a company, taking into account the particular individual characteristics of its given proposition. Why?
In today’s world, few organizations can afford the ‘shotgun spread’ approach to marketing. Calling or contacting people with a standard scripted dialogue, delivered through partially trained staff and only in the hope of achieving a statistical level of penetration and conversion, can indeed lead to an expensive, time-consuming and costly campaign. , ultimately, is not optimal.
Consumers are becoming more sophisticated and resistant to these kinds of approaches. They demand ‘added value’ and credible insight from the initial point of contact and market resistance to the ‘robot call’ is growing. A poorly thought out approach can not only lead to disappointing results, but can actually backfire and reinforce market resistance.
What can be much better is to have a specific approach that includes:
· Use contact personnel who are credible, well-trained and can use their own knowledge and experience to generate consumer interest; · Using human contact techniques that are contained within a written framework but where contact personnel can use their own personalities and interpersonal skills to help lead generation; Integrate these approaches into total process management, including things like journaling and event creation, trade show invitations, and customer reactivation.
There are a select number of companies that can offer these services and more as part of their telemarketing services. Whether you’re looking for a full campaign, a data cleanup ahead of your own field force campaign, or simple customer contact, they can often put together a package of options that can help you achieve the results your business needs.
If defining an OBTM campaign is relatively easy, making one is even easier. The problem is that there is a big difference between simply ‘doing’ such an exercise and doing it successfully. Using a specialist with a proven track record can be highly recommended to reduce your risks and maximize your return on investment.
