The Skinny on In-House Telemarketing
In general, there are two breeds of in-house telemarketing, ad-hoc and delegating the job to the inside sales department.
Ad-Hoc Telemarketing
Here’s a typical situation. The marketing department returns from a trade show with hundreds of leads. They know someone needs to follow up on them to ferret out those worth pursuing further. So they grab Sally, the administrative assistant, and Joe, the intern, and tell them to make some calls in between their other projects.
Sally cannot handle rejection. Joe has more attention-grabbing projects that he’s juggling. So, making calls is not their priority. Also, there’s no training, no plan, no reporting, and, you guessed it … virtually no results.
Inside Sales and Telemarketing
If the company already has an inside sales department, it may add telemarketing to their responsibilities. Just because inside sales agents are used to talking on the phone, however, it doesn’t mean they’re adept at telemarketing. They don’t want to nurture leads; they want to close deals. Other problems include high turnover, elevated pay, the need to manage other responsibilities and more.
Hiring a Telemarketing Firm
Hiring a B2B telemarketing company can solve these problems. They’re the specialists. They have people in place who are well-educated, trained in telemarketing best practices, good listeners and who enjoy making consultative calls — just what you need for marketing a complex product. Plus, all the systems are in place to support them, as well as measure and maximize results.
The Bottom Line
To calculate the ROI, you need to look at both the costs and the results. Costs for internal telemarketing include:
- Agent and management salaries
- Phone and information technology costs
- Office space and other overhead
- Recruitment and training (for inside sales)
In general, these costs will run slightly higher than outsourcing telemarketing. The real difference is results. Telemarketing specialists will:
- Complete more calls
- Set more appointments
- Have a higher ratio of marketing-qualified lead to sale
So, how do the ROIs of these telemarketing methods compare? We crunched the numbers. They’re laid out in black and white in our white paper, “Telemarketing Execution: In-House or Outsource.” Download your free white paper now and discover the ROI of telemarketing services.
