Is Telemarketing Worth It?

Telemarketing, as the name suggests, is a method of direct marketing over the telephone. With mobile numbers in their database, telemarketers choose customers with an aim to canvass their products and services and put up for sale. Normally, telemarketing is used to create awareness among business-to-business (B2B) and business–to-consumer (B2C) purpose.

Telemarketing may be done from an office, home, call center or it can be an automated call with recorded messages (often political messages). In general, people are in a misconception that telemarketing services make random calls from the numbers available in the database or in a telephone book. But the fact is that most of the organizations will survey the previous purchase history of their clients, financial information, application forms data and several relevant data is collected and analyzed. From the above analysis, they choose and list the people with highest probability of buying the company’s products.

Telemarketing profession is attracting many fresh graduates who possess good communication skills and a gratifying voice. The recruitment process is quite simple and the employee is provided with a good pay package including other benefits and compensation. Extra allowances are paid to employees working night shifts as telemarketing job comprises of endless shifts. The employees are given targets for the month and are provided with incentives if the target is achieved within the given time period.

 Few benefits of telemarketing:

• It is an important form of advertising that requires a prompt response. Telemarketing helps improve the brand value of the company. A voice mail is quite helpful in enhancing the brand value of the company. Surveys indicate that a telemarketer will reach voice mail on about 60%-95%dials depending on the industry.

• Technical issues can be explained in detail.

• Telemarketing increases the sales territory (clients nationwide or globally) of a company.

• It is an effective way to stay in touch with customers and advertise new offers and available discounts.

• With telemarketing, the company can sell products to existing clients and also to the new customers.

• Telemarketing provides vast opportunities in expanding business horizons.

Feed backs from clients indicate how well marketing materials reach the customers and help marketers in analyzing it.

Telemarketing has its own demerits as well. For instance, some people are subjected to fake schemes while some get irritating calls from companies offering loans, special offers etc. But when used appropriately, telemarketing can help the organization to increase their sales considerably. Various laws and regulations have been incorporated by the government for consumer protection and several organizations have come up with such rules and regulations that are to be followed by the employee.

For related topic you may want to read:TELEMARKETING: Don’t Just Sell Your Product. Sell Yourself Too

Establish Your Own Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) With Confidence

Putting up your own Business Process Outsourcing firm could be something that will squeeze off your efforts, money and energy.  Anyone who wants to venture into a business thinks that monetary capital is the only thing they should gather at first. But whether or not you’re ready in it with all your finances on-hand, what should you be more ready is your confidence. 

Build, maintain and project it.  That is one basic rule. Even before you have walked into the decision of putting up your own BPO, your confidence should have long been established.  And it should be firm and strong.  Because it is one thing you should maintain having when all else run out.

Remember that a BPO is not just a single responsibility. It is going to be a multiple responsibility and a lot of trusts to ascertain. Companies who will opt for the services of BPO firms wouldn’t want your money or wouldn’t ask how much capital you invested in it. They would rather look at your confidence and test your credibility. They will measure your vision by the confidence you portray.  So, once you start dealing with these companies, exude a quiet confidence and strength.  In this kind of business, that’s all you need to close a deal.

It is not much necessary that one must be immersed in a BPO business to talk about it and venture into it. When you walk into the door of your target client with that state of mind, you can close the deal before you even ask the question.  Nothing keeps you grounded and allows you to handle curve balls better than having a solid passion for what you offer and its value for the customer.

What differentiates you and your service from competitors is the knowledge of your service to develop factors that separate you from the rest. And that is the confidence that keeps you through and lifts you up when sudden collapse attacks.  There’s something about the power of confidence that can move the world.  Once we understand that, all the obstacles in putting up a BPO firm vanish before you even begin dealing.

A BPO business is a game of inches that will either bury you or catapult you past the competition. But confidence can speed up your firm’s progress and can make your company’s profit soar high. It is different from pride. It is a beautiful thing that builds credibility, while pride may destroy it.

Once you establish your company as an expert outsourcing, you can leverage relationships with client companies. Remember that BPO firm clients are companies and not individuals, so the better you perform with your dealings, the more referrals you get. You don’t have to push through deals too quickly. Make each deal an excellent one and maintain it.  

For related article, you may want to read Future of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

Virtual Assistants manage online community networks

Many Virtual Assistants (VAs) are hired to manage e-groups and blogs that support online community network.  These sites are given extra-attention by hiring assistants whose skills are more inclined to managing online communities. They generate and share knowledge that can be useful for any organisation.  Online communities are a niche market that can be used for highly targeted marketing campaigns. 

A lot has changed and developed on the internet.  Many tasks have been simplified and made a lot faster. Internet banking is now used as an alternative for ATM (Automated Teller Machine) banking. Distribution of media content has been made easier by Podcasting.  Online shopping is now fast and simple.  And the ideas of online community and e-groups have made become extremely popular and many organisations irrespective of size are engaging with their customers through the online social networking sites.

This kind of virtual assistant job is quite easy to manage since the focus is on managing the threads where members engage with each other by making posts.  The VA has to respond to any query and should not miss anything. This kind of Virtual Assistant job may pay a little less than the all-around VA jobs, depending on the number of e-groups, online communities and blogs that can be handled by the VA. But then, it doesn’t end there. Since a virtual assistant job is home-based, a single VA an accept more jobs and double or even triple her earnings.

Virtual assistants who are skilled in creating sites and community forums are also hired to maintain them.  Maintenance of these sites is time-consuming because of the regular responsibility of checking and responding. But this is important to build a community and  generate ideas, knowledge and initiate discussion by users. This helps form a loyal community of users who can be easily reached online. This is great way to market products and services effectively and promotional offers.