7. Advance the sale. Telemarketers are often able to identify hesitation in a prospect. By handling questions or objections that might not otherwise be voiced, telemarketers can eliminate friction and move the prospect along sales cycle.

8. Promote other marketing activities. Telemarketing can increase webinar participation, trade show attendance, white paper downloads and many other useful methods of interacting with your prospects.

9. Build and clean your database. With each call, a telemarketer can add to and confirm information in your marketing database. This is critical to reducing waste and expanding your reach within a given company.

It’s not uncommon to find companies assigning telemarketing duties – particularly cold calling – to the field sales team. This may seem to make sense; after all, sales people must be good on the phones, right? But in reality it’s a bad idea. Sales people get paid to close and that means they have little patience for finding and developing prospects who may or may not become an opportunity a year or two from now. That’s the job of marketing.

Once you’ve made the decision to try a formal telemarketing program, you’ll have to choose an implementation strategy. Some companies prefer to handle telemarketing with an internal staff. Others outsource it to one of many telemarketing services. Either approach can be successful, and the decision more often than not depends on the culture of your company.

If you want to learn more about what how to develop your own telemarketing program, visit the resources section at www.tatummarketing.com to download a free report called Secrets of B-to-B Telemarketing.

© The Tatum Group 2006 Susan Tatum, President of TatumMarketing.com, helps business owners and leaders accelerate growth with effective, sustainable marketing programs. She publishes a free monthly newsletter, Better Marketing Now!, and for a limited time offers subscribers a free copy of her special report, How Business Leaders Ensure Marketing Success.

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