Like many direct marketers, you are probably always looking for lists. And naturally you always want a good list, one that’s current, clean, and reliable. You can spend a good deal of money buying e-mail lists or address lists. But despite what you’re told, you don’t really know how old the list is, how out of date it is, or if the people on the list are the ones you should really be targeting. However, by using a strategic call center, through the telechannel you can get the most value out of every conversation and gain new, valuable information to scrub or create the most useful marketing list possible. YOUR list. Clean, reliable, targeted, qualified, always current. Think of it as an investment in a proprietary marketing asset that grows in value.

Using the direct mail channel before doing any prior research can be expensive and wasteful. Large amounts of mail will never be opened, simply because it wasn’t sent to the right people. People never reply to tell you they’re not interested, or worse, unqualified. Try using the telechannel first, before spending on direct mail. Better mailing results will follow having a conversation with potential customers first, then mailing to them later. This saves time and money. You greatly increase the level of certainty that these targets are the right targets; you avoid the random, untargeted approach.

A tremendous amount of information can be gathered by using the telechannel in this way. The telechannel enables you to verify contact information, making sure it is current and correct, and even get an e-mail address during the process, as well. As well, you might find out where they fit into your market, what their timing needs are, not to mention how interested they may be in what you have to offer.

Direct mail is a one-directional channel. Businesses spend millions of dollars on direct mail without ever using the telechannel first to really figure out who their targets are. The use of the telechannel is precise and targeted. Reconnaissance, carried out through the telechannel first, will yield you real-time, actionable intel about your targets, not to mention a clean, targeted list of people, an accurate list that can now be used with a high degree of confidence for the direct mail channel. When that mail piece is actually sent, you know you’re sending it to the right people, not the ones who will never even open it.

Preparation is key. Use a strategic call center to derive as much information from telephone conversations as possible, such as confirming identity and contact information, sizing up the market, collecting email addresses, etc. This provides much more useful information as opposed to using direct mail first, where the only information gained is when people respond—if they ever do. Data that the telechannel unearths, as well as the roster of highly-qualified contacts this data builds, will be much more relevant and up to date than any list you can buy.

Imagine yourself as a potential customer. The phone rings, and immediately you hear a bored, monotone, maybe even automated voice. You’re the 1,078^th person being called and you can feel it. Why would you want to give this person calling any of your valuable time? Now imagine picking up the phone, and a sincere person with relevant information about your business interests begins speaking. You’re much more likely to stay on the phone. Aren’t you?

Instead of using a massive outbound calling program with a script, numbers that need to be reached, and volume that needs to be met, think about trying a more precise, targeted approach. The best results will be gained by looking at potential customers by market, region, or other demographic. After deciding on the target, canvas it with a highly tailored message relevant to that market place.

Instead of the generic, boring message, you will have customized, personalized information that the people being targeted actually want to hear. Why? Because the information is relevant. It is not a script being fed to thousands of other people. It’s directly related and pertinent to their region or market. To them. This is simply good direct marketing strategy.

This precise, personalized strategy is a perfect fit for using the telechannel. Try using this channel to apply high precision targeting to your marketing mix. Of course, you could just saturate the market with a general approach and hope something comes out of it. But that just alienates the target market, which ends up not so targeted, anyway. The better line of attack is to target your potential customers with a precise and relevant message. You’ll want to use a strategic call center to represent your company, one that sounds and behaves like an extension of your organization, because they will be leveraging customized, localized, relatable information, unlike what you would expect to hear from typical telemarketers working out of some anonymous call center.

The old way of doing things is a purely numbers game, involving many people with a generic script, just calling down a list. The new “personalized” way is a precision-plus-numbers game. You need a way to present a personalized message and offer without compromising on scalability or efficiency. It can be done. To make it work well, all you need is better control over your operations. Because the message is being varied, it needs to sound sincere, which demands more from the quality, skill and talent of the call center being employed.

The technology is also important. Data tools used by call center representatives while they are making the calls can provide not only the required, but also the very detailed information they need to speak knowledgably and insightfully with the professionals they are calling. These tools help establish credibility and authority, which translate into higher quality results.

The personalized approach means that representative are conscientiously engaged in real-time thinking activity vs. simply following a script. Both a personalization strategy and the human resources with know-how to execute it are needed. To get results, real, engaging, intelligent, resourceful communicators on the phone, representing your business, will always beat a general, automated process.

Precision and targeting are important, but you may be wondering whether or not you still need the mass marketing approach. The answer is yes: Either as an initial phase of a campaign that later grows more targeted, or to reach a wide market, the mass marketing approach to the telechannel remains useful.

To gain the best results, use a mass market, general strategy as one of the first stages of a project or campaign. If a business is trying to reach as wide a market as possible, or if it’s too early to know the market very well, this is the time and place to discover who the right people are, and a strategic call center can canvas that market for you. To determine their interest in the offer or proposition, use a strategic call center to contact the prospective targets (e.g. establishments or individuals). This stage is for refining the database, figuring out which people to pursue for future business and which people aren’t interested.

The call center should be multi-tasking at this stage, by the way—not only to weed out the uninterested, but also to identify future opportunities. When the right person answers the phone, the strategic call center representative should be engaging. These conversations spark dialog, uncover new information, and identify leads for new business, down the road. In addition to a clean universe of prospects to go after, this mass-targeting phase will yield a handful of business leads. And the next step, whether it be direct mail, an email campaign, or something else, can be created in a more refined, less wasteful and highly personalized manner.

Unlike direct mail and other channels, the telechannel is immediate and interactive; it’s bidirectional and yields real-time, on-the-spot responses from targets via a dynamic medium, the phone. Use the highly personal telechannel as the foundation to personalize subsequent communications and direct media.

Let’s think of a strategic call center as a means of target acquisition: the process of identifying your best targets. The benefits are remarkable. Whether you’re planning to send out a direct mail piece, begin an e-mail campaign, or launch a new product, try utilizing a strategic call center as a first step to produce better end results.

Key points to think about:

• Work with a call center to gain information that won’t be on a purchased list, such as which targets and people to prioritize, what their purchase timing plans are, and what kind of opportunity could potentially be there.
• Use a call center to help narrow down your list by defining targets and people by their correct titles, participation in the purchasing process, and removing uncertainties (thereby creating certainties) in your list.
• Confirm and get in touch with the actual decision makers for your offers.
• Encounter and engage targets and people looking for your product or offer right now.

A strategic call center will not only tell you who the right target is, but will also tell you more detail about that target: what their timing issues are, what their ultimate needs are, and how big the opportunity is.  By engaging in live conversations with decision makers, the call center prospecting team can determine who is in market today, who may be in market next quarter, and their key consideration points relative to your offer.  Having this information in your database will enable your marketing team to not only know who to market to but how to better personalize the offer to speak to each decision maker.

Coincidental marketing. It doesn’t exactly sound strategic, but in reality, it can provide many useful leads, eventually turning into business. It occurs when you happen to call at the right time. It will not occur if you’re not calling. The effort needs to be made; otherwise no benefits will be gained.

Coincidental marketing is reaching the right person at the right time because you are committed to sustaining a constant presence in your market via the telechannel, and because the incremental sales that are produced are ones you can no longer afford to miss. They are in the market at this very moment for what you have to offer. You can send direct mail and e-mail all day long with your offer, but if it doesn’t reach the right person at the right time, it’s a waste of time and money.

Many people don’t believe they will be able to reach this right person at the exact right moment. But it’s something we know works and it absolutely happens, all the time. We make hundreds or thousands of calls a day. Depending on your product or service, if there is even a 2% chance that someone out there is shopping for your offer right now, you are improving your probability of reaching him or her by utilizing a call center to continually call and reach out. It’s a numbers game.

People are either in the market or not in the market. Decision makers who are responsible for different parts of a company are always in the position to evaluate solutions for their part of the business. As a marketer, you want to make sure your concept or offer is in front of them, ideally when they’re in the process of making a change or about to buy.

You want to be communicating your message on a regular basis. Of course, the marketing channels will be varied, whether it is print ads, online ads, direct mail offers, or trade shows. The point is to always have your message communicated in the market. It’s wise to include the telechannel in this marketing schedule, not only because your lists will be accurate and up-to-date for direct mail and e-mail marketing, but also to reach people who are ready to buy right away. The telechannel makes it possible to directly talk to these people, one on one. This is the most valuable impression possible. The telechannel allows for more control than any other channel. Speaking with people and getting the message out, day after day, increases the likelihood of reaching the right person at the right time.

A strategic call center can help reach the right people through list cleansing efforts, and also increase the probability of reaching them at the right time, because, quite simply, reaching them on a regular, consistent, one-to-one basis raises the likelihood of producing more highly qualified leads and more sales every day.

You receive a direct mail piece that you have no interest in and toss it. You delete dozens of e-mails every morning that you consider “spam” or misdirected. It happens to everyone. However, if you’re a marketer, you’re keenly aware of the wasted time and effort of scattershot communications, not exactly an ideal situation. So, consider the utilizing a strategic call center to generate leads and reach the right people at the right time, when they are interested and in the market.

In addition to an accurate, up-to-date list, a strategic call center partner can provide dimensional information on an account or target. A call center has the ability to proactively ferret out real-time market opportunities for what you have to offer, specifically by being able to talk to decision makers as no direct mail piece ever can. While a direct mail piece may reach a person or company’s mailbox, the odds are slim that it will be read, digested, and considered, and highly likely that it will be thrown out immediately.

The beauty of the telechannel is that it’s bidirectional…even if the right person isn’t reached immediately, the telechannel makes it possible to be connected or transferred until he or she is on the phone.

By canvassing large volumes of businesses via phone, based on probability alone, we know we will engage companies who are actively in the market for a client’s product or offer today. These hot leads are then served up to your sales team to set up a meeting immediately.

For example, one of our clients hired us to screen and qualify a list of approximately 3,000 targeted businesses. Not only did we update the list, but we also made at least one contact during the process that resulted in a sale worth $100,000 for the client. For background on how this happens and other examples of how sales have resulted from the process of telechannel list cleansing , please contact Voice Teleservices.

Let’s think about making the most of trade show opportunities. There are many options and directions that can be taken with trade shows, both from a trade show production standpoint and trade show exhibitor standpoint. Whether you’re the producer of a trade show or exhibiting at the show, try utilizing a strategic call center creatively to produce results. Ideas to think about:

• Working with a call center to provide a discreet follow-up lead generation service
• Working with a call center to call cell phone numbers from received business cards instantly, while the show is still happening
• Setting up follow-up appointments at the show, while everything is still fresh in attendees’ minds
• Having a post-show follow-up routine
• Booking a space at the event and having call center representatives on site ready to make calls

All of these tips and ways to work with a call center will make the trade show experience more efficient and valuable for everyone involved, from the trade show producer to the business or exhibitor to the customer.  A trade show doesn’t have to feel pointless, boring, or like a waste of time. By working with a strategic call center, you can make your trade show activity a proactive part of business as opposed to a passive, merely hope-filled activity. If approached in the right manner, it can be an extremely useful place to generate leads and, ultimately, create new business.

What if you could clone your best sales and development team internally? What possibilities do you think this could create? New leads would be generated, more prospects would turn into customers, and business overall would improve. If you use your call center the right way, it will be a much more powerful asset to your organization.

You will get the best results from a call center if you use it as a strategic asset, an integral part of your business. If you use it just as a tactical function, it really will be a dead end in business. Instead, look at your call center as the center of your organization, the nerve center. As if you were actually cloning your best sales people internally. It will be much more powerful if used this way.

Think about a call center as a storefront manager. The people on the phone are representing your business, similar to the duties of a storefront manager. The right call center should be penetrating, creative, and designed to produce new business for you. A call center should help you expand and create business, by getting and keeping the right people on the phone.

If you want your business to grow market share, generate new leads, and create new business, you need a call center that will represent your company accurately on the phone. The call center will be a large part of your brand image when speaking with current or potential customers.

Approach the telechannel and your call center as an important part of your marketing mix. Most people don’t consider this as part of marketing, but think about it: Ultimately, the call center is the voice and the image of your company. Reaching out to and calling people is essential to business. Approach your call center from a multidimensional dynamic point—to be a voice for your company.

Imagine you are about to spend a large sum of money to launch a direct mail offer, or even a new product. Wouldn’t you want to make it is as effective as possible? Wrinkle-free? Knowing your audience will respond positively? You have to test it first.

Offer testing is an effective way to preview how potential customers will respond to a direct mail offer or new product. This is something you want done by a specialty provider to make sure it’s controlled and yields the full range of market insights.

Before a company launches a direct mail offer or product, they have the option to test the offer via the telechannel. Suppose you have “Offer A” and “Offer B.” A strategic call center would call a sample set of target prospects; see what they think, and how they respond to the options. They would then have the ability to advise you, the client, for example that Offer A is good but would be even better if such-and-such were changed.  This level of qualitative insight is only possible when you speak live with potential customers as opposed to traditional direct mail tests that vary the envelope, the copy, or the call to action.

Your business can find out what works and resonates with people before even launching the offer, campaign, or product. When the time comes to physically create the direct mail offer, you will have a much better idea of what to include in it and how it should be done. For example, if a question is found being asked repeatedly during the offer testing, the company may choose to include a FAQ page in the direct mail offer that pre-emptively addresses those common questions.

Let your offer be much more effective in the direct mail channel by using the telechannel first. Telechannel offer testing allows for real time, fine-tuning of an offer immediately before launching it, to produce the best results and make your next direct mail piece a winner.

We’ve all gone through those negative “call center” experiences. You call a company with a valid complaint or question, and after being put on hold a couple times, often receive a cold, impersonal response. The person taking your call seems unhelpful, not really caring about what you have to say. In reality, this should be the opposite. Shouldn’t that person be helpful and knowledgeable? These are customers they are dealing with, after all.

The term “call center” has certain negative connotations. Impersonal. Sterile. Mass-produced. And if you think about a call center as just a tactical solution, it really is a dead end. The place you send everyone, whether they are calling with complaints, questions, or a customer service matter. This also makes many call center workers feel like they are in a dead end job, therefore less likely to feel connected to the business and its customers.

But the best results come from using call centers differently. A call center is a conduit for the voice of the customer, a central part of a business and not the dead end where no one wants to be and no one likes to call. The people calling your business aren’t numbers, a certain quantity that needs to be reached and processed as cheaply as possible, executed in a certain amount of time. No, they are real customers; thinking, feeling people with real thoughts.

Outsource providers will do what you tell them to do. Tell them to focus on minimizing costs and they’ll do it. But when you have a loyal customer base or prospective client base, it isn’t enough to just answer a certain number of calls per hour or per day. A call center used strategically instead of tactically will be a much more powerful long term asset to an organization, expanding and creating business by having the right people on the phone.

The call center should be responsible for relating to, communicating with, and effectively engaging with people on the phone in two way interactions. It is the richest one-to-one marketing channel that connects a business with its customers and potential customers.  It should fully assimilate the culture of the company and reflect it on every call. Ultimately, the call center should act as the voice of the company, and serve customers, not just process calls. There’s a big difference between the two.